Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

kevin olzak What first began life in 1966 as "Dr. Terror's Gallery of Horror" evolved over the years with new titles for cinema ("The Blood Suckers") and television ("Return from the Past"), easily available today under the shortened title "Gallery of Horror." John Carradine had earlier garnered the title role in "The Wizard of Mars" for director/special effects maven David L. Hewitt, who here managed to corral Lon Chaney and Rochelle Hudson to add greater marquee value to what arguably appears to be his masterwork. Rather than science fiction, truly impossible on such chintzy budgets, we have traditional, old fashioned horror, an anthology film inspired (as one can guess by the title) by the 1964 Amicus feature "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" (one character even named after Peter Cushing!). Conceived by CREEPY editor Russ Jones, an expert in short stories, Hewitt spent approximately $20,000 on a super fast 5 day schedule at Ray Dorn's Hollywood Stage that left the actors breathless, and audiences speechless (Al Adamson and John Carradine filmed "Blood of Dracula's Castle" there around that same time). Virtually all the stock footage is culled from AIP's Roger Corman/Poe films (plus "The Terror"), its main musical theme cribbed from 1960's "The Hypnotic Eye." Carradine is the unnamed narrator, introducing on screen all five stories but only appearing in the opener, "The Witches Clock" (13 minutes), in which a young couple move into a New England castle that 300 years before housed a Salem witch, with an enchanted clock that revives the spirit of Carradine's Tristram Halbin (little characterization in just two scenes). Second, and perhaps weakest, is "King Vampire" (12 minutes), feebly depicting Scotland Yard's hunt for a vampire that supposedly has the face of a corpse, and how they've detained all suspects that fit that description! Next is another poorly executed story, "Monster Raid" (16 minutes), with Rochelle Hudson's adulterous wife getting her comeuppance from her dead husband, whose resurrection was made possible by his own curiously vague formula. Fourth, "Spark of Life" (15 minutes) casts top billed Lon Chaney as Dr. Mendell, the only mad scientist of his entire career, a colleague of Hamburg's Baron Erik Von Frankenstein, continuing experiments that involve bringing the dead back to life via electricity. His greatest mistake is in choosing the corpse of an executed murderer out for revenge, but Chaney really acts up a storm, running the gamut from elation to disappointment, deadly serious as he attempts to undo his success, with predictable results. Last is "Count Dracula" (13 minutes), a seriously crippled retread of Stoker's familiar tale, featuring a woefully inadequate Mitch Evans in place of Carradine as Dracula. As bad as it undoubtedly is, this film remains ideal for younger audiences who favor harmless terror for late night viewing, which was how this monster kid saw it on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater on four occasions: Nov 11 1972 (paired with first feature "Son of Frankenstein"), Dec 29 1973 (paired with second feature "Monster on the Campus"), Nov 30 1974 (paired with first feature "The Horror of Frankenstein"), and Jan 7 1978 (paired with first feature "Count Dracula").

Michael_Elliott Gallery of Horror (1966) BOMB (out of 4) John Carradine hosts five different horror stories in this incredibly poor cash-in on Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. This here is another contender for one of the worst films ever made but thankfully it's so bad that you can laugh at it. Carradine stars in the first story, which is probably the best one. Lon Chaney, Jr., sadly showing signs of his alcoholism, turns in the worst performance of his career and it's rather hard not to laugh. All five stories end with dramatic music at their "shock endings", which are all stupid and lame.

dbborroughs I don't know how to rate this (see below). Certainly this is one of the all time bad movies. A the same time its also unintentionally funny (I least I think so, but I'm not sure since several actors seem to be laughing on screen). This is one of those movies thats so enjoyably bad as to make you wonder why Ed Wood is king of bad movies when there are others more deserving of the title.This film is a collection of five short horror film introduced by John Carradine. Each one runs about the same amount of time and ends with a twist ending.The first is The Witches Clock and concerns a clock left in a castle a young couple has just purchased. Carradine appears in this story as a traveler who shows up at the castle when the clock is restarted.King Vampire is about a vampire on the loose in Victorian London thats hunted by the police.Monster Raid concerns a man who was fed an immortality drug returning from the grave to get revenge.Spark of Life has Lon Chaney as a doctor trying to return the dead to life.Count Dracula is a fast retelling of the Dracula story with a twist ending.They play as if EC comics Tales from the Crypt or Vault of Horror became bad TV shows. Worse are the twists that end every story since they come at point not where logic would dictate they should be, but rather where a strict running time demands they be.The acting is uneven and bad, with only Carradine the only one turning in anything close to a performance. The sets are dreadful as is pretty much everything else. Best of all (?) the movie was recently released on DVD in full widescreen so that the film can now be seen in its full cinematic glory (and I use the term lightly).If you like bad movies this is a film to search out. If you want an actual "good" movie then I suggest you look elsewhere.For Bad Movie lovers: 8 out of 10 For those who need good movies: 1 out of 10

madsagittarian Okay, there's one thing about the 80's that I miss. At 4AM, one used to be able to see Grade Z gems like this on TV. Now it's nothing but those rotten Infomercials. You could say that Ted Turner killed film culture, but I would argue that it was Anthony Robbins. In fact, during that golden hour of the day/night, one could see many films unleashed by the maverick no-budget director David L. Hewitt. THE MIGHTY GORGA, WIZARD OF MARS and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME used to tickle many a bad-film lover (or torture an unsuspecting insomniac) who tuned in.This film, which I saw under the title RETURN FROM THE PAST, is a gloriously inept, amazingly miserable cash-in on the then-popular trend of horror anthology movies (in which a few short, separate tales of horrific irony are strung together by an onscreen narrator). All the hallmarks of Hewitt's unmistakable authorship are in abundance here.First, there is the hiring of once-great, "anything for a buck" actors; in this case, John Carradine (naturally) and Lon Chaney Jr, in small roles which nonetheless gave the theater owners a name to put in the marquee. Secondly, Hewitt once again fills the cast with his oddball stock company of dreary, nasal-sounding "actors" (who is this Roger Gentry, anyway?). As well, the director's sterling use of half-finished sets, or plain black backgrounds (when there were none at all!) is such a feat that would even make Ed Wood blush if he worked under such insane conditions. Add to this, the surprisingly ambitious writing (for bargain-basement cinema, anyway) which paradoxes the miserable attempts at mise en scene. For such a bottom-of-the-barrel project as a Dave Hewitt film, one wonders why he bothered with such an adventurous screenplay (like WIZARD OF MARS or JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME, especially), when the insultingly bad production values would work against the ambition of the writing anyway. Thus, therein lies the strange dichotomy of Hewitt's work as a director. With a thrift-store budget, he really tried to make something out of nothing. Who can blame him if he didn't succeed?Add some haphazard dubbing, some great juvenile cartoon blood dripping on the screen, and you have a truly beguiling piece of work. Anyone who insists on making tired, threadbare projects like this has to get a medal for bravery alone.