Though I’ve never
been particularly comfortable with the term guilty
pleasure, I’d be hard pressed to offer an alternative description for my continuing
affection for these old horror and sci-fi films. Let’s face it. These are not the films of Welles or Ford or
Kurosawa, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t of value. In spite of their painfully obvious budget
constraints, they’re often as entertaining as their more celebrated celluloid cousins. It’s true, I suppose, that it was only
through a historical accident that these films survived past their original
runs. These B-films were ephemeral by
design, conceived as short-lived money grabbing sorties to be splashed on the grand
panoramas of drive-in theater screens. But
these shoestring-budget monster shows were rescued, however unwittingly, from certain
obscurity through the efforts of local television station managers.  These TV
folk weren’t film historians; they were simply trying to fill their empty late
night time slots with inexpensive programming.Â
The Saturday night broadcasting of these horror films inadvertently
kicked off the 1960s “monster boom,†enshrining (some might say “condemningâ€) such
names as Karloff, Lugosi, Chaney, Atwill, Zucco, Carradine, Cushing, Lee, and
Price to a lifetime of typecasting and spook show immortality. The problem was
that for every celebrated offering as Bride
of Frankenstein, the stations would also broadcast such less ambitious fare
as The Hideous Sun Demon. It was painfully obvious early on that not
all monsters were created equal. The 1950’s
sci-fi era of cheesy special effects, rubber-suited monsters, wooden acting,
and cringe-inducing dialogue, makes it rather difficult to explain the appeal
of these atomic-age monster pictures to today’s CGI movie-going generation. It’s a generational thing. But if you were at just the right age when first
introduced to the Blob, or the Triffids, or the Metaluna Monsters, or the
Atom-Age Vampire, or the Thing From Another World, or the Colossal Beast, or
the 50-Foot Woman or the Fly, or the Monster that Challenged the World, etc.
etc., well, it’s difficult not to think of these ill-tempered and, more than
not, radioactive brutes as, well, old
friends.
Plaque commemorating the theater's "starring role" (Photo: Hank Reinke)
By either design or
accident Blobfest has evolved into
something more than a celebration of our dear friend the Blob. The
Blob has gladly shared his annual weekend in the spotlight with a score of
other old shockers from the 1950s and 1960s, the sort of films that would seldom
be booked by even the most visionary of theater programmers. The double bills of the most recent fests reads
like a role of honor of “B†filmmaking: The Angry Red Planet, The Creature from the
Black Lagoon, Forbidden Planet, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, It Came From
Outer Space, and Warning From Space. If, on occasion, fragile prints arrive at the
Colonial with a multitude of bad splices or have turned partly red with age or
are projected in the wrong aspect ratio, well, the spirit of the old films
still shine and that’s what’s most important.Â
Though such technical shortfalls unfailingly bring out occasional
grumble from the cineastes, I imagine the sort of fan who travels for hours to
attend such an event probably has many of these films on VHS or DVD in their
own personal library. Blobfest is, at its heart, not only a celebration
of these B-films, but of the boomer’s shared “Monster movie†culture as well.   Â
Such was the case
at Blobfest 2009, the tenth annual bringing
together of monsters and the people who love them. It was also one of the best festivals yet,
combining The Blob on Saturday double-bills
with Invasion of the Saucer Men and 13 Ghosts. Though an iconic totem of 50s
sci-fi culture, to my knowledge our beloved but formless friend the Blob never
graced the cover of Famous Monsters. This is not the case of Invasion of the Saucer- Men (American-International, 1957) which
managed no fewer than two FM cover appearances
five years apart. Artist Ron Cobb’s
color-enhanced rendering of a single menacing Saucer-Man on the cover of Famous Monsters # 54 (March 1969) was,
beyond doubt, more startling than the vertically challenged, bulb-headed,
bug-eyed creatures featured in the original B&W film. In an article published by FM in July of 1962, thirteen year old
horror movie fan (and budding Hollywood auteur)
Joe Dante famously cast Invasion of the
Saucer-Men (and The Blob for that
matter) into “Dante’s Inferno,†offering both motion pictures as among “the
worst horror films ever made.â€Â Since
most of the fifty films on Dante’s list remain favorites of B-movie lovers
everywhere, one can only surmise that at age thirteen Mr. Dante’s sense of
ironic bemusement had not yet blossomed.Â
Invasion of the Saucer-Men
shares, more or less, the same premise of The
Blob; teenagers try desperately to get the local authorities to believe them
when they warn that aliens have landed and strange things are already happening
in their sleepy little towns. It’s the
tone of the films that differ. There’s
no sense of self-parody found in The Blob. The film is played pretty much straight and, for
all of its fabled shortfalls, there remains an underlining creepy menace
throughout. Not so with Invasion of theSaucer-Men. The latter film
plays awkwardly for its mild laughs, with only the occasional eerie moment
offered to sate the horror film crowd.Â
Nasty, needle-like protrusions extend from the fingertips of the Saucer men,
which comes in, uh, handy, when its
time for the pincers to be graphically thrust into the flesh of the annoying
humans they meet along the way. But
instead of said humans suffering from a dangerous transfusion of some
mysterious, galactic poison, the needles drip un-distilled alcohol into their
bloodstreams. In fact, for all their
potential malevolence, the Saucer men mortally lay to rest only a single victim
throughout the entire film. The poor
soul who meets his fate at the hands (literally) of the Saucer men was then twenty-three
year old Frank Gorshin (later “The Riddler†of the 60s Batman TV series) who dies partly through his own
intemperance. He’s already half-soused
when he stumbles upon the Saucer men and the infusion of additional alcohol into
his system is more than his poor heart can handle. The film also contains an almost wholly
irrelevant and silly subplot involving a U.S. military conspiracy of silence regarding the government’s knowledge of
U.F.O. existence. Very rarely seen and
(at least not yet) available on DVD, the dicey, flawed print of Invasion of the Saucer-Men screened this
weekend was sourced from the film library of a private collector.
After a rest and a
nice dinner, the family and I returned to the Colonial later that night for the
single weekend screening of William Castle’s 13 Ghosts (Columbia,
1960). Castle was, of course, America’s
cut-rate Alfred Hitchcock, famed for his use of outrageous gimmicks and
promotional ballyhoo designed to transport audiences from their couches at home
and into the seats of movie theaters. It’s
safe to assume that a showman like Castle, the author of Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare
The Pants Off America:Â Memoirs of a B-Movie Mogul (G.P. Putnam,
1976), would have enthusiastically embraced the loopy concept of Blobfest. At last year’s Blobfest, another Castle shocker, The Tingler (featuring both a half-lobster, half-centipede creature
and a deliciously over-the-top performance by Vincent Price), was screened as
one-half of Saturday night’s double-bill.Â
It was with great regret that I wasn’t able to stay on in Phoenixville last
year to catch The Tingler in all of it’s,
uh, tingling glory. But things were going to be different this year, choosing to
take advantage of the exclusive Blobfest
room rate offered by the local Courtyard By Marriott in nearby Collegeville. It was a decision we would not regret.Â
Patrons entering
the Colonial for the evening screening of 13
Ghosts were supplied at the door with the necessary “ghost viewers†which
allowed the celluloid spirits to manifest themselves on screen just as they had
in 1960. That is, in the original Illusion-O (not to be confused with such
other Castle gimmicks as Emergo or Percepto). Cradling our ghost viewers
and a fresh supply of items from the candy stand, we waited patiently in the
theater lobby for the Blob to be air-dropped into the icy waters of the Arctic
for the third time of the weekend before taking our seats for 13 Ghosts. We’d still have to wait a bit. The Long Island-based horror-comedy troupe Ghoul-A-G0-Go staged an amusing
half-theatrical/half-film segment of some thirty-minutes or so between features. The ‘60s style monster dance party that
ensued on screen featured musical performances by such horror-rockabilly combos
as The Neanderthals (who also played,
in the flesh, outside the Colonial earlier that afternoon at the accompanying
street fair) and the Dead Elvi who played
their catchy, signature song “The Creature Stole My Surfboard.â€
Finally the lights
went down and the capacity audience readied themselves for 13 Ghosts. Not content with
a fleeting cameo ala Hitchcock, Castle himself opens (and closes) his film with
a demonstration of the magic of Illusion-O. It was explained that the brave of heart,
when prompted by the appearance of a blue washed screen, could view the
malevolent ghosts by peering through the red filter of the “ghost viewer.â€Â The cowardly could opt out of viewing the
creepy manifestations by peering through the blue filtered “Ghost Remover.†One
of Castles’ best films, 13 Ghosts provides
exactly what it promises, an evening of entertaining fun, chills, and hokum. The storyline closely adheres to the
traditional haunted house scenario, whereupon an unsuspecting family takes
possession of a late Uncle’s ghost-filled estate. Robb White’s tongue-in-cheek script, Castle’s
flair for gimmickry, and memorable performances by a young Martin Milner (later
of TV’s Adam-12) and fifty-four year old
Margaret Hamilton (effectively trading off on her persona as the Wicked Witch
of the West) make 13 Ghosts a B-Movie
for the ages. It seemed fitting that the
sold out house was greeted by thunder, a lightning-filled sky, and a torrential
downpour as they exited the Colonial near midnight. Without doubt, the spooky storm came courtesy
of William Castle, smiling down from the Heavens and blessing the Blobfest in his own inimitable fashion.
(Hank Reineke was compensated for this article with a gift certificate for a year's worth of jelly donuts.)