Start Wreck
In a Halloween Season when we all feel beset by real-life time vampires, manmade monsters and alien invaders –– ie: co-workers, AI robots, and actual alien invaders (they're out there!) –– it feels like a good time to review some cinematic thrillers of the past. We'll delve into the black & white crypt for some well-aged cheese starring a horror icon and, then, rocket into the full-color cinematic universe of one of the two most popular sci-fi franchises of all time (Sorry, Darth.)
To man our mission we launched a probe to locate E. Basil St. Blaise, our very own Gor, to review shock season fare that embodies both sides of the slender coin of horror and sci-fi. We made contact with St. Blaise in his terran craft –– his mobile HQ –– in the parched Southwest, parked in an RV park in Tonopah, NV. Not far from Area 52! The first alien creature we encountered via Zoom was little Josef, his faithful Affenpinscher, wearing what appeared to be a clear round space helmet on his tiny head. We asked St. Blaise about it as he came into focus:
"Oh, that was a plastic bowl we'd kept around for Goldfish –– the snacking sort. Josef can't get enough of 'em and he got his noggin stuck in there, bobbing for crumbs. Unlike every other costume I've ever tried to stitch him into, he seems to like having this one on. Kinda makes him look like the bug-eyed Leader from Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! ((1996) –– Topps dog.) Which is appropriate for our nearness to the air base that's the purported mausoleum for all those poor, mistreated aliens, per Steven Spielberg.
I mean, who could believe his recent snoozefest Disclosure Day ((2026) –– SETI adrift.)? My dear editor, apparently. It was like kook conspiracist Oliver Stone directed an episode of the The X-Files ((1993-2018) –– Scully moulders.) after studying Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard ((1950) –– Going unclear.) It made me rethink my place in the Universe and I came to the hopeful conclusion, 'We are so alone.'
What being in these arid environs does make me think of is nuclear testing, and if there ever was a-bomb it was The Beast of Yucca Flats ((1961) –– Yucky. Flat.) Set in the Nevadan desert (but shot in stretches of the CA wastelands), it was made by Coleman Francis –– the anti-Spielberg, an utter and auteur failure who directed only three features. Yet, I'd rather sit through 54 minutes of scorched Tor Johnson lumbering through the dunes than 145 minutes of Emily Blunt mooning over aliens who appear as cute CGI critters. That film is basically a $115M remake of the Cybill Shepherd / Jan-Michael Vincent sci-fi spitball The Return ((1980) –– Return to blender.)
Before I begin my reviews proper, I wanted to offer a positive note to my gullible editor for referring to me as his 'Gor' in the intro. Who was, of course, the mega mastermind in The Brain From Planet Arous ((1957) –– Arous con pollo.) On a good day I kid myself that I could pass for hambone John Agar possessed by an evil all-knowing entity telepathically laying waste to a dystopian filmland. One can dream…
Ciao Bela
Perhaps today, Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó would have kept his given name and challenged theater owners to fit it over hit titles like Dracula ((1932) –– High blood pleasure.) and Son of Frankenstein ((1939) –– Ygormaniac.) But by the time he'd made his way to Hollywood in 1929, this Hungarian stage idol had already become Bela Lugosi. Tall, dark and unnerving, he initially bewitched moviegoers. Then he bothered producers when an accent thicker than goulash bewildered audiences. This would translate to B-pic purgatory.
In his heyday Bela embodied Middle America's idea of the mythical, menacing Continental. I pictured him as the tuxedoed maitre d' at a posh old world establishment graciously escorting you to your seat to violin music and suggesting the extra-rare rib roast and a full-bodied red. As his eyes lingered a bit too long on your date, eliciting a girlish blush, you'd try to get up the nerve to instead order the schnitzel and a beer.
But he was nearly 50 when he made his splash as the Count and his subsequent decline defied the undead reputation of his signature character. By the 1940s he was bussing tables, by the 50s he was doing the dishes.
Let me review his early Universal pictures where the stakes –– ones poised over his heart –– were higher and the scenery sturdier, the better to gnaw on. Before charting his downward spiral I'll recount a few of his other collaborations with Boris Karloff, the rival whose career ultimately outstripped his own.
The Raven (1935) –– Nevermore? You promise?
The Invisible Ray (1936) –– Blind item.
Black Friday (1940) –– Scary as an Amazon sale.
You’ll Find Out (1940) –– Discovers a multitude of sins.
Their first pairing, TheBlack Cat ((1934) –– Po Poe platter.) directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, is the must-see fever dream of the lot, a tone poem to torture inspired by the Great War.
Here are the sort of programmers he got himself into as the Universal became the Extremely Limited.
The Devil Bat (1940) –– Strikes out.
Invisible Ghost (1941) –– Transparent.
The Corpse Vanishes (1942) –– Stiff nicked.
Night Monster (1942) –– Night mutha.
They only got hairier after that.
The Ape Man (1943) –– Simian says.
The Return of the Vampire (1943) –– Bat poll.
The Return of the Ape Man (1944) –– Hairy back.
Zombies on Broadway (1945) –– Shuffle-ready.
When Universal reached the self-parody stage with their monsters –– the world had been terrorized by the genuine article in WWII and was ready to sneer at these Gothic poseurs –– Lugosi was once more down for the Count in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein ((1948). –– Creature confronts.)
That largely successful balancing act between the silly and the spooky was followed by several increasingly lame versions of Booby and the Beast, all without Bela. Straight man Abbott's jokes failed to bud and kooky Costello's shenanigans landed in the loo. They included:
Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949) –– Boris to death.
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) –– I can't see it.
Though our leading man was famous enough to get his name in the title, he entered the 1950s with a monkey on his back –– opioids –– perhaps explaining the number of apes on his resumé.
Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952) –– Nut for nothin'.
Around this time the morphiend hooked up (in the IV sense) with myopic visionary Edward D. Wood Jr. to take his final filmic jabs. The strange alliance of these two was dramatized in what's arguably Tim Burton's best film, which featured Martin Landau's unquestionably best screen performance.
Ed Wood (1994) –– Just a grade-Z mixed-up kid.
Bela got to keep his pants on as he girdled his loins as the 'Scientist' who tries to 'explain' transvestism in Wood's 1953 docudrama/schlockomedy Glen or Glenda. The auteur cast himself in this oddity just so he could cadge his onscreen girlfriend’s angora sweaters, prompting me to warn, 'Neither a borrower nor a Glenda be.'
Lugosi then returned to the friendly confines of the mad scientist's lair for Bride of the Monster ((1955) –– Bridal fail.), the closest Wood got to making just a plain old lousy movie.
Finally, Bela is fleetingly glimpsed like a fluttering bat in Ed's magnum dopus Plan 9 From Outer Space ((1957) –– Choppy Wood.) One could easily believe the footage was captured post-portem. Szomurú as the Hungarians say. Szomurú.
Trek or Treat
To help us switch gears I'll pour myself a Nostromo, a cocktail I whipped up inspired by the spacecrft from a certain franchise that will not die. Ridley Scott is promising yet another prequel to be entitled Alien: Awakening. I'll pre-quell it with my tagline, 'Wake up, little woozy.' The Nostromo is equal parts vodka, rye, Rippley and butane –– it's rocket fuel, but a real chest-buster. I added a pinch of trilithium crystals so I could get through the following notices.
In 1964 Gene Roddenberry drafted a short treatment for a science-fiction television series that he called Star Trek. After a couple of years of development at Desilu studios it hit the airwaves in 1966 like a small meteorite. With a subsequent crater impossible to predict. A succès d'estime (for a viewing public who's knowledge of French ended with 'dressing'), it never went nova in the ratings, typically outshone by fare like Gomer Pyle: USMC ((1964-1969) –– Pyle of slit.) a comedy about a Marine pvt. with the IQ of an Army ant. No surprise, surprise, surprise. And yes, my review refers to a slit trench latrine.
After 79 episodes, the cancelled series boldly went where no show had gone before –– a syndication star system ruled by the Nerd. The Nerd is a race of cyborgs who lack human emotion and subsist on Intellectual Property that they consume straight from the skull. Their motto is 'Discernment is futile.' They somehow made a religion out of this preachy space opera starring William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock. My somewhat harsh review of the NBC series was, 'Rotten. Bury.'
I do get the fascination with Shatner and his declamatory style –– he makes John Barrymore in Dinner at Eight ((1933) –– Glazed hams.) sound like a method actor. And his longevity! The Nerd must believe the 95-year-old actually visited planet Omega IV in Season 2, Ep. 23 and was bequeathed the secret of eternal life. Of course I googled that, and I'm sure the Nerd would have me 'assimilated' for not getting the plot right. Then I'd need a radical trekkieostomy.
The cult status of the syndicated series convinced Paramount Picture to mount a big screen version. Director Robert Wise sought to instill some of the grandeur and perplexity of 2001: A Space Odyssey ((1969) –– The ultimate tripe.) into the proceedings. Even the tight-ass Vulcans thought it, 'a bit dry.'
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) –– Failed Enterprise.
That was followed by two sequels, both as pulpy as the man boobs of Ricardo Montalban's bare-chested, baddie Khan.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) –– Khan corny.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) –– Vulcan nerve pitch.
In these later film, Bones –– who could've added a 'Skin and' in front of his name –– must've been adding Geritol to his hypospray when dosing his aging mates. Spock needed hearing aids, Uhura a nip 'n' tuck, and Kirk an atomic truss.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) –– Voyage of the dumbed.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) –– Same old Shat.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) –– Static Klingon.
By then, the Chief Engineering Officer really couldn't 'change the laws of physics' and the ship fatally reentered Earth's atmosphere. This freed up Walter Koenig (Chekhov) to attend more fan conventions and liberated George Takei (Sulu) to bravely come out of the closet –– as a Shatner hater. I know the Nerd are yelling, 'Beam me up, snotty.'
During this dark period there was a new version of the TV series in syndication, Star Trek: The Next Generation that ran for seven seasons, beginning in 1987. I must be frank, I never saw a single one of 'em and the only image the title conjures is of a bald guy stiffly intoning 'Make it so.' Thus my review: 'Make it slow.'
The same haziness blankets the films which the series spawned even though I did see all of them. I vaguely remember… in the first one did Shatner actually return to be killed in an encounter with Alex from A Clockwork Orange ((1971) –– Droog abuse.)? Talk about a canon misfiring.
Star Trek Generations (1994) –– Picard of the litter.
And then there were these.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996) –– Borg certified.
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) –– Shun rise.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) –– Data purge.
Of course, the franchise has slogged on in alt iterations ad nauseum via syndication and streaming, as well as in a rebooted film series that I've previously reviewed in my Critic's Corner. These were the calling cards of Skydance boy genius David Ellison who now leases most of Hollywood. I remember them chiefly for the amazing science that produced a Nimoy clone to play Spock and the skill of the new Kirk in recapturing some of that old Shatner smarm.
On that note, let me get back to my Nostromo and the eventual Tang chaser. Looks like Josef is getting a wee bit hungry –– maybe I'll slip some Goldfish up in his space helmet. We're prepping for a Halloween party in the trailer park here with –– what else? –– an Area 52 theme. Josef will by my favorite Martian (not My Favorite Martian from the TV series with Ray Walston ((1963-1966) –– Mars I pan.) and I may stick with Gor in his floating brain with glowing eyes form.
I'll need a large pink garbage bag I can fill with wadded paper and a pair of yellow bicycle reflectors to hang off the front as it covers my head. Gee, that sounds awfully uncomfortable as I try to munch soggy nachos and sip warm near beer. I think I'll stick with the human host body and just wear X-Ray Spex and cackle occasionally. What's that, Josef, you want to carry the atomic ray gun? No way, I might end up vaporized like Jack Nicholson, you little fiend. As always, fans, wishing you a haunted and horrid holiday."
Previous St. Blaise Halloween Roundups:
Plan 2025 From Outer Space
Swamp Think
Screecher Comforts
U.S. House of Horrors
The Haunted Manchin
Red Meet
Monster Rally 2020
The Phantom Minus
Slash and Burn
Hardy Horror
scroll down for these 3:
Trump or Treat
Field of Screams
Screamed Corn
Listen to E. Basil St. Blaise on his Critic's Corner Podcast.
