Elvira's Movie Macabre Season 3 Episode 6: Maneater of Hydra

"That gal on the couch who ain't no slouch."

So began Season 3 Episode 6 of Elvira's Movie Macabre, Island of the Doomed, on the evening of November 20, 1983. Was I watching? I don't think so, because I don't remember seeing this movie, but I'm going to live watch it tonight at ShoutFactory and comment.

If you were asleep in Botany 101, you will learn early in this movie, if you're still awake, that carnivorous plants obtain Nitrogen from their victims, not the soil. 

This is a nerdy Botany professor from the University of Michigan. He seems very curious about the Baron's flora. My guess is he's not going to be in the movie much longer. Yes, the picture quality is this grainy.

"It's like a cucumber, but it tastes like meat." 

During her second segment at twenty minutes, Elvira muses that while she was watching a cucumber that tastes like a steak she was busy coming up with a hamburger that tastes like a banana. But nobody wants to buy them, because "they don't have appeal." 

"Anybody for a little Frisbee? Mine are enormous." After a rather dry segment where the Baron explains about his porcupine plant Elvira returns with her Frisbee. It's a welcome diversion from the poor picture quality of this movie. How about that eye makeup? Looks a little bit like Piston Honda in Mike Tyson's Punch Out when he gets stunned by a punch. 

Alright, everyone is in bed now, so time to eat my Cherry Garcia ice cream and finish this sucker. I read ahead a little bit and am of the understanding there is an intense finish. 

Cameron Mitchell plays the Baron von Weser admirably in this movie. I have seen him in a great many movies and tv shows, including Night Gallery, and he often plays an over the top tough guy type, but here his performance is a little reserved. I'm actually watching this scene as I write. Here he is explaining to a woman who has broken away from the group to come and have sex with him that he is never lonely because he has his plants. I think it's about to go badly for her.

Yep, she was about to touch his giant gardenias, and was rebuffed, only to retreat in frustration.

"In a movie about a man-eating plant, I would keep my eye on a man named Moss."

Two dudes fighting it out with axes underneath a bloodsucking tree? Typical Friday night in Hydra, pronounced Heed-ra. 

Director Mel Welles was known for his killer flora movies, including playing flower shop owner Gravis Mushnick in Little Shop of Horrors, because of course he did. And I see looking at his IMDB credits that he played Dr. Hinkle in Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype, another Movie Macabre feature I finished watching earlier today. 

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Movie Macabre Season 3 Episode 13 Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Hype, or There's a Monster In My Garbage

Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype appeared on Elvira's Movie Macabre March 17th, 1984, exactly one week after Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and you better believe I was watching. It was season 3 episode 13. At the time I had no awareness of who Oliver Reed was or exactly what it was about this goofy horror comedy that I would still remember 32 years later when I just saw it again for the second time, but there's definitely something about it that is memorable. 

Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype is a completely original story never told before about an ugly podiatrist who really like this very attractive blond woman he sees at the bus stop every morning on the way to work. She's not interested because she only dates ears, nose, and throat men. But unbeknownst to Dr. Heckyl, his colleague,  Dr. Vince Hinkle is working on a potion that will turn overweight women into stunning blondes. Does Dr. Heckyl take the serum and transform into a dashing, albeit bloodthirsty ladies' man who becomes homicidal whenever he believes his appearance has been slighted in any way? 

Duh.

Is this a really dumb movie and perhaps one of the most pointless and idiotic adaptations of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel?

Doi.

Don't ever let them convince you that everything exists on the internet, because I'm unable to find a picture of Mr. Hype's first kill, and the scene I remember most vividly from first seeing the movie in 1983, where let's just say he uses a lamp in a very creative way. Foot fetishists will be especially drawn to Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype, but what comes to mind for me is the epic bender I read about Oliver Reed going on in Spain before he died. Downing rounds and rounds of drinks with sailors, and ending the night polishing off three bottles of rum. But back to the movie.

It's perfectly stupid and semi-sweet at times, and the violence is mostly comical. There's not much like it. I'll probably even go and finish watching it now.

Update: I decided to finish watching the movie this afternoon, and as I watched my six year old create a very elaborate drawing of the video he was watching it occurred to me that I, too, didn't have to rely o the internet to furnish pictures of these movies I am reviewing, especially of the particular scenes I want to remember and highlight. 

This is the particular scene that emblazened this movie onto my memory.  Dr. Heckyl has just taken the serum his colleague concocted, and discovers he is handsome, His first visit is to his downstairs neighbor. Things are going swimmingly, because he's Oliver Reed, until he feel she has insulted his face. What happens next I must advise you occurs in strobe lights, so the screen grab is insufficient. I guess my whole family was home when we watched this because I remember we laughed and laughed. It just seemed like the funniest thing that ever happened.

"That's no monster, that's my podiatrist."

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Beware! The Blob

The third and final, and by far the best movie of the night is Beware! The Blob, directed by Larry Hagman of Dallas and I Dream of Jeannie fame. It is once again a much maligned film due to the fact that it has almost nothing to do with the original The Blob, and is a vast departure in both tone and content. Which is what makes it so fun. Beware! The Blob is actually a Hippie romp with an all star cast and a surprise soundtrack by Mort Garson. This was my first encounter with the Moog synthesizer work of Garson, and I am already on Ebay bidding on this gem...

Black Mass Lucifer by Mort Garson

As for the movie itself, I'm fifty minutes through, and it's just a romp. Makes no damn sense, and doesn't care to. There is a red blob in the movie that has escaped and is showing up randomly devouring people, but that doesn't seem to putting a damper on the party.

I have just gotten to the part of the movie where I suspect the Blob is about to consume Burgess Meredith and Larry Hagman, who are portraying bums. Then I believe it will head on to terrorize the party guests at this rager that broke out. 

No real graphic violence in this movie so far, but there was a very depressing scene where they ran over a bunch of cases of Miller High Life. I thought that was gratuitous and uncalled for. 

Or don't it's really not going to matter.

Oh, I forgot, and I know since I read ahead that the Blob makes a detour and eats a pack of Boy Scouts led by Dick Van Patten. Also, that actor named Gerrit Graham, who you might remember as Bud the CHUD and a bout a million other appearances plays a douche dressed in a gorilla costume. I'll let you know if he gets eaten. Wait a minute, wait a minute, now the Blob is going to a bowling alley. 

Fun stuff.

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Top Ten Halloween Movies You Can Watch With Your Kids

Horror movies are chock full of life lessons, and that's why Halloween is an opportune time to assemble the kids in front of the old television and allow them to soak up the moral instruction they can only get from watching a horde of zombies devour the entrails of an unfortunate soul who has provisioned himself poorly for the Zombie Apocalypse.

10) Dawn of the Dead 

Things aren't all that important. Blind consumerism can lead us to be exposed to ultimate dissatisfaction and a hollow feeling when we discover the most important things in life aren't things, they're practical effects like this exploding head.

9) Day of the Dead

Communication is important. You can't just yell at the top of your lungs all the time like Captain Rhodes. Everyone has feelings, even zombies. Be polite, and include everyone in discussions, let everyone have their say, and make decisions based on input from everyone. Or you might get shot and then have your small intestine yanked out and devoured.

8) The Omen

It doesn't pay to discount the possibility that evil exists and exists in a real and tangible way. Kids can be nasty little sons-a-bitches, even your own. Glass can kill, vertically or horizontally. Take the stairs sometimes. And never buy your child a tricycle. 

7) Night of the Living Dead

Let your sister have the remote control, for chrissake. Quit teasing her about her pigtails because if you don't some freak will shamble out of the shadows and crack your godamn coconut on a gravestone, so just cut it the hell out. 

6) Alien

Did someone resembling me tell you not to eat that whole bag of Sour Patch Kids before bed? I think they did.

5) The Exorcist

Your mom might be wrong occasionally like when she told me I'm not an awesome dancer, but if you ever decide to check her into a nursing home after I die so you can get at that sweet porn stash you know I'm hiding right in front of her eyes in the laundry room you do so at your own risk. 

4) Rosemary's Baby

Don't have sex with anyone, ever, for any reason, especially Satan. He's not going to call you back.

3) The Shining

Seriously, kids, it was just some bad clams. I'm over it now. 

2) Halloween

What did I tell you about stabbing your sister with my good kitchen knife? Who do you think cleans these things up, the Keebler faeries?

1) It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

This one actually contains the scariest message of all. Find some schlubby kid with low self-esteem and scapegoat him for any problem that arises. Really, kick the shit out of him and make sure he knows you think he's useless, worthless, and to blame for all your problems. Then when the problem is solved deus ex machina dance like crack-addled freakoids and pretend none of it ever happened.

More of my horror movie reviews

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The Boneyard, Starring Norman Fell and Phyllis Diller

The 1991 horror movie The Boneyard has that rare quality that makes it better than good. It's unique. You haven't seen a movie like this. I like it quite a bit. I'm actually watching it right now. Here's some of the elements that make it off beat and original...

The "star" of this movie is Deborah Rose, a schlumpy, overweight Columbo female counterpart who plays the role of an empath who is hiding away so she doesn't have to face the police inspector who continually drags her into grisly investigations.It's an interesting choice in a lead role and one that starts the movie off on a path in the right direction. Then there's...

Norman Fell as the Coroner. Paired with his appearance in CHUD 2: Bud the CHUD, these are two of Fell's more fun movie roles. Norman Fell was a tailgunner in WW II. And a member of the Rat Pack. Heavy creds for a man in two dippy horror movies. Not enough to convince you this is one strange brew of a movie. 

Oh my god, it's a Phyllis Diller. When Phyllis Diller read the script for The Boneyard and discovered she was reading for the role of Mrs. Poopinplatz, she didn't complain, she embraced it. Besides...

They let her bring along her poodle Fifi and even wrote her into the movie...

As a demon poodle monster. Listen, a lot of stuff happens in this movie. It's a standard deviation or two above bad, and if you're a genre fan this is about as good as it gets for re-discovering underappreciated gems. The action eventually takes place in a morgue, and is adroitly done. Demon zombie children, all that. I forgot how it ends.

February 21, 2013 update: Nothing new to add I just wanted to restate that I really like this movie. 

January 27, 2018: Still like it. Norman Fell is still in it.

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