Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural
(Synapse)  C  1973

The time is the 1930's, in the rural, Prohibition-era American South.  Shy, thirteen-year old Lila Lee (Cheryl Smith), ward of the young reverend (played by director Richard Blackburn) goes in search of her gangster father, who is a fugitive from the law after having shot Lila's mother to death.  Little does she realize that the letter beckoning her on this dangerous trip to the remote, spectral town of Astaroth-- where her father has taken refuge, apparently near death--was authored by the mysterious recluse Lemora, who is merely using Lila's father in order to take possession, body and soul, of Lila Lee herself.

Lila Lee's odyssey begins when, trying to get to the bus-station to get a ticket to Astaroth, she stows away on a car going into town, and overhears the local gossip about the Reverend's less-than-puritanical designs on her.  Lila Lee is further harried by scenes of corruption and debauchery in town, before finding out that the only bus to Astaroth is driven by a bizarre little man with a mildly deranged manner (the somewhat overdoing-it Hy Pyke), and she's the only passenger.  During the ride, the driver warns Lila Lee about the dark reputation of Astaroth, complete with the distinctive monstrous attributes (dubbed. "The Astaroth Look") of it's inhabitants.  This is a scene borrowed, to fairly good effect, from H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Unfortunately for Lila Lee, she soon gets to see the dreaded "Astaroth look" first-hand, as the bus breaks down and the two are swarmed by a pack of feral vampire-creatures.  Lila Lee escapes only by being abducted by some other less horrifyic "civilized" Astaroth-ites who wear cowboy hats and turtle-necks for some reason.  These vampires drive away the others and kill a few with stakes to the heart, and Lila Lee wakes up the next day in a padlocked stone hovel, illuminated only by sunlight though a barred window and tended to by a creepy old woman (the Renfield to Lemora's Dracula) who seems to be out of her mind.  Lemora finds out that this cell is on the property of the woman who wrote the letter appealing for Lila Lee to come there, alone, to meet with her father, and that, far from being his protector, Lemora has him captive, along with Lila Lee and others.   After Lila Lee nearly escapes, she meets Lemora, a strange woman with dark eyes, an unnatural complexion and funereal 19th century clothing.  Lemora brings Lila Lee into her stark old manor and forces her to eat raw meat and blood for sustanance.  In spite of being subjected to this and other indignities,  Lila Lee begins to grow closer to Lemora.   Lila Lee quickly comes around to the ominous reality, however, that Lemora, her henchmen and the gaggle of strange, laughing children that Lemora treats as her own are all vampires.  More, Lila Lee is attacked by her own father who, as one of the savage feral vampires, is driven away by Lemora, banished to the woods where the other feral vampires run amok.  Lila Lee escapes again, only to find herself pursued by the "wild" vampires that Lemora's vampires hunt like animals.  Before long these vampires clash in a climactic battle for supremacy, in which Lila Lee is seemingly caught in the middle.

Written and directed by Richard (Eating Raoul) Blackburn, Lemora would be the young film student's only feature film, owing largely to the movies poor reception among American audiences of the time.  Though a monumental career setback for Blackburn, his ambitious little independent genre production was rewarded with some recognition, mostly by European film critics, as well as a small cult-following from Americans who caught it on late-night movie-of-the-week broadcasts (for me, that was Shock Theater).  Out on Synapse DVD in a remastered special edition, Lemora can now be enjoyed with a pristine picture, far surpassing the inky, nearly unwatchable, incarnations previously seen on cable and VHS.  The clarity of the DVDs picture does, unfortunately, reveal many of the rough edges of the woefully low-budget.  When I saw Lemora on Shock Theater as a kid, I always wondered what the creatures pursuing Lila Lee in the woods, the ones making the horrifying guttural beast-noises, actually looked like.  What my imagination cooked up was a little freakier than what can clearly be seen now, but considering the financial limitations (Blackburns cast and crew were primarily friends and family) the home-made make-up effects (including plastic Halloween vampire fangs) don't detract too much from from what was, after all, a laudable experimental work that hardly launched any of those involved to stardom.

The late Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith did go on to appear in a slew of exploitation films in the seventies and early eighties (Caged Heat, The Pom-Pom Girls, and the ilk), wherever a freckly, buxom, translucent blonde was called for, but few were starring roles and only a couple of those appear to have required serious acting skills.  Smith turned in an unusually restrained performance as Lila Lee, apparently not seeing the character as being easily unnerved.  Smith's performance is eerily remote, almost somnambulic.  It reminds me a little of Candace Hilligoss' wandering spirit in Carnival of Souls.  It can be argued that Smith was no Jodie Foster, but on the DVD's commentary director Blackburn asserts that though he pushed her to exhibit more emotion in key scenes, he was glad, viewing the film today, that Smith had resisted the his direction to make Lila Lee the "screamy" type.  It may be that Smith struggled with the characterization as it was.  Here was a streetwise sixteen-year-old California woman playing an innocent, gospel-singing girl of thirteen, after all, and Cheryl even had to have her breasts taped down under her clothing so that her true maturity wouldn't be so obvious.

The performance choice for the eponymous Lemora (Lesley Gilb) was also a bit curious.  The character comes across as a shrill photo-phobic schoolmarm, begging to be defied.  For an age-old vampire who preys on children, you'd think that she'd have developed a more winning personality to help soften her severe, staring countenance. 

In the final analysis, Lemora isn't necessarily an engrossing, genre-defining movie but it's nicely textured and evokes a suitably spooky dreamscape atmosphere with a slightly off-kilter dramatic sensibility.  Rather than going for sheerly exploitative thrills, as was the trend of the genre market of the day, Blackburn produced more of an art film with a European flavor.  Though the lesbian overtones that vampire flicks of the seventies were lousy with are present, there is little erotic about Lemora's strained, awkward seduction of Lila Lee.  Blackburn indicates that the film is about sexual repression at the core.  The Reverend represses his indecent desires for Lila Lee, who is in turn forced to veil her desires as a young woman coming of age.  This repression presumably contributes to their ultimate fates--grim or liberating, depending on your own particular interpretation.

 

Twisted Brain (a.k.a.: Horror High)
(Rhino)  C  1973 

Vernon Potts (Pat Cardi) really likes his chemicals.  That is to say, he majors in chemistry, and the high school chem. lab serves as his retreat from a cruel world of taunting students (who dub him "the Creeper") and uncaring teachers.  Even the crusty old school janitor, Mr. Griggs, takes him for a punching bag.  Except for a sympathetic hottie named Robin, who (rather improbably) seems to have a thing for the ultra-geeky Vernon, his only other friend is his guinea pig subject named "Mr. Mumps", who Vernon injects with an experimental serum meant to extract the animal nature of man for study.  Vernon's strange reasoning is that since humans know the difference between good and evil and choose evil most of the time, the animal side could only be preferable, an apparent err in judgment on his part after Mr. Mumps goes Jurassic on Mr. Griggs's impish black cat and the janitor discovers the bloody scene, in his rage assaulting Vernon and forcing the poor boy to drink some of the potentially lethal potion.  Naturally, Vernon spazzes-out big time and the despicable Griggs's bones are found the following morning simmering in the chemical-dump barrel.

A police investigation is launched and the super-chic black police lieutenant is immediately suspicious of the meek, unassuming Vernon following his initial interrogation, and particularly after the gangly student's hated English Lit teacher is found decapitated by her own paper-cutter the following evening, and his bullying gym coach has his ass stomped to a bloody pulp by a spiked-cleat-clad fiend the next.

Vernon's nemesis Roger, who happens to be Robin's boyfriend, initially held as a suspect, is used to lure Potts into a confrontation (at night, again) and after chasing bubble-headed Robin around for awhile and getting in some good licks on Roger, Vernon goes down in a hail of police gunfire, Robin at his side (Robin apparently unconcerned about her lout boyfriend, who is yanked through a glass window and pummeled half to death by Vernon).

Another Shock Theater favorite, Twisted Brain is a charmingly unpretentious slice of 1970's cheese that had a small but respectable cult-following before Rhino released it in the first of their no-frills "Horrible Horrors" DVD collection in 2005.  "Twisted Brain" is the title for the edited, television version from which Rhino took their disappointing transfer.  The movie itself is a quaintly inept adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the style of the old "I was a Teenage Monster" movies, with an amusing funky score and make-up effects that would get a C- by even a generous art teacher.  The photography is serviceable, if rather pedestrian, and the plot takes an absurdly-conceived detour trying to establish Vernon's estranged relationship with his long-distance, salesman father (Vernon has no visible adult supervision whatsoever), but Twisted Brain sets its standards low and meets that quota, going on to a long, distinguished career at Burger King and eventually retiring to grow fat on disability.

Look for Beneath the Planet of the Apes Forbidden Zoner Austin Stoker as the determined, sideburned police lieutenant and football stars John Niland (as Coach McCarr) and "Mean Joe" Greene (in a teenie-tiny supporting role).

 

I, Monster
(Retromedia)  C  1971

I've noticed that an unmistakable shadow falls over Christopher Lee's face whenever he is asked about this 1971 Amicus flick in interviews, and I can certainly understand his displeasure.  Here is one of my very favorite performances by Lee, one that essentially defined the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for me (I didn't see the 1931 classic until the recently released Warner DVD, I'm ashamed to admit).  Lee should have been praised for this role, and the movie itself should have been a cult favorite.  Instead, it has virtually been forgotten.  To what do I attribute this?  Well, obviously the comic title, I, Monster, may have gotten things off to a bumpy start.  Then the fact that, though the film does credit Robert Louis Stevenson for the story, it rudely changes the pivotal character's names to Dr. Marlowe and Mr. Blake.  Not content to simply obscure the source material behind this pathetic facade, Amicus decided to shoot the movie in 3D, and then casually dropped the idea halfway into production.  Half an hour of footage immediately became "lost" when they made the switch, though there are still a few of those odd moments of the gratuitous thrusting of objects at the camera to remind us of this failed venture.

In spite of this shameful studio bungling, the final movie strikes most of the proper chords.  I don't think there's any question that Lee makes a memorable Jekyll/Hyde.  Unlike Fredrick March's angelic Dr. Jekyll, Lee's is a more even-tempered fellow; a cool professional not given to flights of fancy.  He abhors violence and wants to bring it to an end by isolating the animalistic tendencies of humans through the theories of Sigmund Freud.  But he has his own theories, as quickly becomes apparent.  One tip-off is the opening shot, showing a monkey in a cage in Dr. Marlowe's laboratory, signifying the modern repression of the primitive, followed by a two-headed baby in a jar of alcohol, representing the dual nature of man.  Later, after informing his medical colleagues that he has developed a serum that would bring out the innermost nature of man, but he hesitates to test it on himself, meekly opting to make his pet cat his first guinea pig.  The results are less than encouraging (fans of Re-Animator, take note).  Regardless, Marlowe innocently prescribes the doubtful treatment for a pair of his neurotic patients.  Strangely, the tests on the human subjects basically seem to have the desired effect (they promptly reveal their hidden, psychological bottleneck), and yet the victorian Marlowe is evidently so appalled by these displays of emotional nakedness, that he later administers it to himself.  The "hidden" Dr. Marlowe turns out to be quite a different character than the previous human subjects.  This isn't about turning into a caveman version of yourself, as in the 1931 version.  Marlowe has discovered something other....

Lee's first transformation into Mr. Blake definitely unnerved me when I saw it on Shock Theater, as a youth.  Not every role allows Lee to exercise such range of personality.  To be sure, Lee recalls silent movie actor John Barrymore's Hyde with his satanic leer, only without the ungainly pantomime.  Progressively, a definite, physical retrograde reveals itself in Blake's appearance.  The advanced make-up is more rat-like than simian, but as with other notable portrayals, Lee's Blake actually withers into a hideous distortion neither animal or man, like Dorian Gray's portrait given flesh.

Though Retromedia apologizes upfront for the poor quality of the available print, which is a bit soft and damaged, the real (and, I would imagine, easily avoidable) problem with the DVD's presentation appears to be extreme over-saturation.  I find that turning the color way down on my television creates a picture that is pretty close to the way I remember seeing it as a kid.  Aside from that, Retromedia does throw in a nifty reprint of the movie's original press book, a trailer and a puny still gallery.  But, for a fan, this obviously rushed disc does leave rather a lot to be desired.