Predators of Darkness

[Jane Grant]

Bava's Dietrich? What a wonderful insight! You mentioned Telly Savalas in Horror Express with an exclamatory ? but I've seen Telly in a couple of good horror movies. I'm thinking foremost of Bava's Lisa and the Devil where Telly plays a lollipop loving butler who might just be...the Devil! If you haven't seen this one, Dave, run right out and buy a copy. It's widely available and really cheap. Some people say it's Bava's best movie, but that's clearly debatable because of all the awesome flicks in his Canon (who would have thought when Last House on the Left II, aka Bay of Blood, aka Twitch of the Death Nerve, was released to drive-ins everywhere that Bava would one day have a Canon?). Lisa has it all...gratuitous Swedish nudity, ultra-violence, and one of the best blood-cams I've ever seen (come to think of it, the only blood-cam I've ever seen). 
    You also mentioned Eyes Without a Face, erstwhile inspiration for the Billy Idol song, which brings to mind another Telly Savalas horror movie. This one's a re-make of EWF by none other than prolific (over 150 Fucking movies, I mean that literally) Eurosleaze genius Jess "Vampyros Lesbos" Franco. It probably has many titles, but I saw it under the moniker Predators of Darkness in the same Times Square movie house where Bill Landis once ran the projector (the one where people were raped regularly in the bathroom, the seats were sticky with cum, and puddles of strangely luminous fluid covered the floors). This movie has an extremely high sleaze factor and when it's over I guarantee you, Dave, you will need an enema and your skin lasered clean. 
   In Predators of Darkness, Telly S. plays the businessman/tycoon father of Caroline "Maniac" Munro, a model in Paris or somewhere kidnapped for her beautiful face by an insane plastic surgeon and his bodacious surrogate nurse (Brigette Lahaie looking genuinely disgusted during one of the kinky lesbian sexxx scenes) obsessed with replacing the acid-scared face of the surgeon's once ravishing sister, now an ugly freak who makes love to goofy male prostitutes in a golden mask. If this reminds you of Franco's masterpiece The Awful Dr. Orloff, well, guess who the surgeon consults about a face transplant? None other than Howard Vernon reprising his famous role as Dr. Orloff! Holy shit! Howard Vernon! Who would have thought? (Keep an eye out for Franco regular Lina Romay as Orloff's maid.) Orloff can't do the surgery, but he knows someone who can and that special someone turns out to be the justly famous Dr. Moser, a Nazi surgeon and former colleague of Josef Mengele (Millison probably knew him) eager to perfect his pioneering facial transplant surgery. Unfortunately, Moser hasn't operated since WWII and he botches his first attempt. (This scene is so fucking  gruesome it'll make your face hurt.) Moser grows from the experience, though, and at long last he figures out the final solution to the problem of facial transplantation (Face/Off makes it look easier than it really is, I guess)...the patient needs to be fully conscious during the surgery so that the skin of the face will remain taut...with pain and fear!
   This movie confirms everything you've ever heard about Jesus "Sadomania" Franco. It's really twisted. And, I haven't even mentioned the loutish manservant kissing a severed head. What's Telly S. doing in this shit? I don't know. Telly doesn't look like he knows either. Let me know when you figure it out, Dave, okay? Let Telly know, too. Okay?

Jane (sad about Gaddis. Romeo put it best, Damn...)  
 
--

On Wed, 16 Dec 1998 22:43:25   davemarc wrote:
>> From: Scott Badger <lupine at ncia.net>
>> 
>> Ok, maybe I can forgive you Rope, but, The Birds and no Psycho??  And for
>> that matter (this being the P-list and all)  King Kong and no
>Godzilla????
>> 
>I love Rope but don't consider it a horror film.  Psycho...couldn't bring
>myself to include it.  Frenzy is creepier to me.  And definitely King Kong
>and not Godzilla.  Everyone remember those great early scenes in Kong on
>Skull Island or whatever it's called?  And the later scenes in NYC?  Wowee!
>
>But, as I wrote before,
>> 
>> >In no particular order and neither definitive nor exhaustive:
>> >
>and I wonder if anyone else out there has seen the remarkably
>nightmarish/goofy Horror Express (Christopher Lee!  Peter Cushing!  Telly
>Savalas!?!), the exquisite Grand Guignol of Eyes
>Without a Face, and the mindblowingly Pynchonesque (M&D vintage) Fearless
>Vampire Killers or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck (in the uncut
>version, of course).
>
>I know that one former lister/current lurker shared my passion for Mr.
>Sardonicus.
>
>And yes, that Barbara Steele is an asset.  Bava's Dietrich.  Poetic that
>she was married to James Poe, who penned The Big Knife among other worthy
>films.  Besides Black Sunday, Barbara includes 8-1/2, Caged Heat, Pretty
>Baby, and Piranha among her credits.  So versatile!
>
>I still long to see Bad Ronald.
>
>Oh-oh-oh...and I forgot The Bad Seed and Burnt Offerings!
>
>Love those B movies,
>
>d.
>
>Hey--and moving on to C movies, there's the original Cape Fear!
>



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