Shadmocks, Mocks, and Humghouls

Roy Ward Baker directed many movies, and R Chetwynd Hayes wrote many books, but The Monster Club is the movie where the talent of these two British horror meisters intersected. Although maligned for a long time as cheesy and not scary at all, The Monster Club has in past years begun to receive the credit it deserves as a fun and well-crafted entry into the horror anthology genre.

The Monster Club, based on the book of short stories of the same name by Hayes, weaves three stories of semi-gruesome horror around performances by contemporary British bands in a subterranean club being attended by Vincent Price and John Carradine.

Carradine, Price, Pleasance, Chetwynd Hayes and Roy Ward Baker. Critics of this movie were always off base. If the criticism is it wasn't scary the proper response is so what. It was meant for a broad television audience. It most definitely is PG13 at worst and in my opinion appropriate to watch with your family at Halloween. Cheesy? So what? If you're not familiar enough with Vincent Price's work enough to know that 99% of his performances were cheesy then you shouldn't be offering an opinion in the first place.

Most American audiences who hadn't rented it on video saw The Monster Club for the first time on Elvira's Movie Macabre on the evening of Feb 6, 1983. It was episode 66. That's when I saw it. We all learned a lot about monsterdom from this movie.

We learned that there are the primate monsters, vampires, ghouls, and werewolves, but we also learned that these primate monsters interbreed, creating hybrid monsters, and that these hybrids also interbreed with the primate monsters, other hybrids, and even humans. Price says "The results are almost always disastrous, but they will do it." 

"What do they do?" Carradine rejoins, and Price launches into the setup for the first story, about a lonely creature called a Shadmock that isn't scary in any real way except one...

Shadmocks, Mocks, and Humghouls from The Monster Club

Two of the three stories involve Shadmock and Humghouls, two of the lowest creatures in the monster hierarchy. Humghouls seem to have even less powers than a Shadmock. None in fact according to the third story. Perhaps they enjoy a little human flesh once in a while, but they get that from the ghoul side of the family. 

All three stories in The Monster Club are entertaining, but what is even more entertaining about this movie is the music, the set up interludes where Price and Carradine speak, and the soundtrack. With the success of the Netflix show Stranger Things, and a resurgence in interest in electronic music, fans of this musical genre will want to check out Alan Hawkshaw's songs here, including Ghoul's Galore. 

Those who have bad-wrapped The Monster Club in the past should give it another chance, and all fans of horror should definitely give it a first chance.

2026 update: I had a humghoul moment last week at the post office. No one was there when I arrived but a few moments after I started trying to send a package through customs I turned and there were like ten of them.

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The Monster Club: There's a Two Drink Minimum, But That's Not the Bad News

The bad news is Count Dracula is the bartender!

Monsters rule OK.

I usually play The Monster Club on an almost continuous loop when I'm at the apartment. I have had the same VHS tape since 1991 when I made a copy of the Thriller Video at Video Outlet on Riverside Blvd. It was then a Taco Bell for a long time, and now, like every other building in Rockford, it is a payday lender. Also, Taco Bell was voted Rockford's #1 Mexican restaurant in a poll conducted by the biggest newspaper, and I couldn't make that up. 

Apparently this is a blog about the movie The Monster Club. This monster's genealogical chart I posted above is a holy grail collectible item for me as a Monster Club collector, and a couple of years ago I almost managed to buy it. I contacted the artist's wife, who also acts as his agent, and asked her if it still existed, and she said they had found it in the basement a few months previously after believing it was lost, and sold it to a private collector. I didn't have the heart to ask for how much because I probably would have been heart broken. She then added there were some original sketched of the ghouls used in the third story in the movie. I should have bought those, but I was so crestfallen that I had missed the chart by maybe weeks after so many years of no one caring that I went away in dejection.

I have the British quad poster, and the French poster, which has a snake on it even though there's no snake in the movie. The Thriller Video in Beta and VHS, the soundtrack, and the original book. Another item I recently passed on and regret is the graphic novel of the screenplay given to crew members at the wrap party. This one happened to be signed by Vincent Price. A bad choice not to buy it. We never remember the money, only the things we let slip away.

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Escapes, Hosted By Vincent Price

Escapes movie poster

A while back someone, familiar with the fact that I watch a metric ton of cheesy horror movies every year, asked me about a story where a delivery driver ends up trapped in a podunk town after ignoring the advice of an older man to slow down and enjoy a cup of coffee before he headed on down the road. I knew I had seen this particular short, and it drove me crazy that I couldn't remember what anthology horror collection it as. Then earlier in the week I found it. It wasn't easy. I found it on this quite exhaustive list of horror anthologies. And I'm glad I did. 

Escapes is a collection of five tales of different lengths, hosted by Vincent Price. Some of these shorts were shown on the Sci Fi channel in its early days, but how they got Vincent Price to host I have no idea. I suppose they gave him money. The rumor is $10,000. 

The centerpiece of the anthology is the aforementioned Coffee Break, where a delivery driver breezes into a small town blaring obnoxious heavy metal music, and is advised by the town elder to turn it down, relax, enjoy the scenery, and stop for a cup of coffee before he heads back to the main hiway. Of course the delivery driver peels off listening to the music even louder, finds that no matter which road he takes he ends up back where he started, and eventually does stop at the cafe where he finds the town elder behind the counter holding out that cup of coffee. You know the rest.

Escapes is fun. You can easily find it on YouTube, and that might be the only place, but if you like this genre of horror anthologies you won't hate me for saying it's worth a look. 


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Elvira's Movie Macabre Episode 66: The Monster Club

The Monster Club British Quad Poster

Episode 66 of Elvira’s Movie Macabre, The Monster Club, was broadcast on February 6, 1983. That date matters to me for two reasons. It was one day before my 14th birthday, and it is the first episode of Movie Macabre I consciously remember watching.

I may have seen Elvira before then, but this is the one that stuck.

And I loved The Monster Club.

The 1981 British horror anthology stars Vincent Price as vampire Erasmus and John Carradine as horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes, who is invited to the titular Monster Club. From there the movie unfolds as a series of stories about different varieties of monsters, interrupted by visits to the club itself. It's a peculiar combination of horror anthology, comedy, nightclub act, punk and New Wave music, and wonderfully ridiculous monster mythology.

For a kid already becoming obsessed with horror movies, it was irresistible.

More than thirty years later, I'm still collecting things associated with the movie.

One of my favorite pieces is the British quad poster designed by Graham Humphreys. Humphreys was fresh out of art school when he got the assignment and reportedly had little more than production stills to work from. As a result, his wonderful painted poster doesn't particularly resemble the movie it advertises. If anything, that makes me like it more.

I've never even removed my copy from the package in which it arrived. One of these days I'll finally have it properly framed.

I also own The Monster Club soundtrack on vinyl.

And it is awesome.

The movie has a surprisingly memorable soundtrack, with performers including The Pretty Things, B.A. Robertson and Night. It's part of what makes The Monster Club such an artifact of its moment. It isn't merely an old horror anthology. Somehow the whole thing feels like somebody put a British horror movie, a comic book, and an early-1980s nightclub into a blender.

But there is one Monster Club collectible I want more than any other.

The Monster's Genealogical Chart.

The chart, drawn by British comic-book artist John Bolton, lays out the wonderfully elaborate system of monster interbreeding described in the film: vampires, werewolves, ghouls and their various hybrid descendants.

I once contacted Bolton's wife, who handled the business side of his work, and learned that the original chart had actually been sitting in their basement. Unfortunately, it had been discovered and sold only a few months before I contacted them.

I didn't ask what it sold for.

There are some things you're simply better off not knowing.

But learning that the original artwork actually existed—and had survived—gave me hope that perhaps someday it might surface again.

John Bolton and Dez Skinn also produced a graphic adaptation of The Monster Club. A copy appeared on eBay once and I passed on it, figuring another would eventually turn up.

The genealogical chart is different.

That feels like a singularity.

As for the movie itself, I don't have any complicated critical defense to offer.

I love it.

Every time we pass the title-loan shop housed in a former Taco Bell that, for a while, was a Video Outlet, I point it out to Jenny. That's where I got the copy of The Monster Club that I dubbed from one VCR to another and subsequently watched more than 150 times.

I still own that tape.

There are better horror movies. There are scarier horror movies. There are certainly more sophisticated horror movies.

But there probably isn't another one that could ever mean quite what The Monster Club means to me.

I also own The Monster Club soundtrack on vinyl. And it is awesome.

However, the holy grail of Monster Club collectibles to me is this... a Monster's genealogical Chart, drawn by British comic book artist John Bolton. Last year I contacted John's wife, who handles the business side of things, and she told me she had found this in the basement and sold it a few months before. I didn't ask for how much because I would have been heartbroken, but just knowing it exists gives me hope I might one day be able to buy it. John Bolton and Dez Skinn also did a graphic novel version of the screenplay, which came up on Ebay a few months ago, and I passed. I anticipate being able to find another one of those, but I think the Monster's Genealogical chart is a singularity. The movie itself? Spectacular. Every time we pass by the title loan shop that inside a former Taco Bell that used to be a Video Outlet I tell Jenny that's where I got the copy of The Monster Club I recorded from one VCR to another VCR and have watched over 150 times and still own today. 

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The Stripper Song By Night- From The Monster Club Soundtrack

Yesterday I got back to the Downtown headquarter of Zombie Logic Press and saw this had been delivered...

Why, is that the ultra rare vinyl LP soundtrack to the 1981 movie The Monster Club, and a huge bottle of Anacin? Yes. And yes. Which immediately made me want to listen to this...

 Which ultimately made me want to hear more Stevie Lange. 

Maybe that will make this blog open more slowly, but it's worth it. I'm so jacked up to have found a copy of The Monster Club on vinyl after having looked every day for two years, then to have won the auction and have it here at the office. Night, B.A. Robertson, The Viewers, The Pretty Things. Now if I can just find that pesky monster's genealogical chart and a copy of the comic book John Bolton and Dezz Skin did I'll be all set. Excuse me, I need to go take a couple of those Anacin and write for about ten more straight hours to even put a dent in my workload. 

November 11, 2014: I saw a copy of this album recently went off at $150.00 on Ebay. I won't tell you what I paid for mine, but I'm happy. Also, a copy of the screenplay comic book that was distributed to cast and crew at the wrap party, which was signed by Vincent Price sold for $200.00. Had to let someone else have that. Still looking for the original Monster's Genealogical Chart by John Bolton. Might run out of money or life before I find that, but we live once, sometimes less.

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Scream and Scream Again Will Make You, Well, You Know

I recently re-watched the 1970 classic of convolution, incredulity, and exhilerating car chases titled Scream and Scream Again. I had to watch it in ten episodes on You Tube because no matter how much money you are willing to pay Netflix these days they just seem to have less and less movies available. 

Here's all you need to know to get yourself motivated to watch this classic (in my mind, at least) piece of unfollowable schlock... it's one of the few movies that Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price all appear in. That's enough right there to send you to You Tube right now, but, wait, there's more. Wait a minute, let me backtrack. The movie begins when....

This jogger collapses, then wakes up to find his... well, let's just say something is missing.

Peter Cushing as Major Heinrick Benedek

Then it's revealed it's all taking place in some convoluted 1984/Nazis actually won World War II Rollerball evil corporation/government fascist (redundant, I know) state, then Peter Cushing gets the Vulcan nerve pinch from this guy who's apparently more than he appears and, well..

Michael Gothard as Keith

This effeminate, dandy looking David Bowie type guy is going around stalking chicks in discos and he's really... (well, I'll let the story tell itself)

This guy is a copper who is on the case. I think he gets Vulcan nerve pinched, too.

This guy is in it. He's some affable gwat I suppose he's the hero but I haven't seen the ending yet.

Vincent Price as Dr. Browning

Vinnie the P is in it I think he's a mad scientist. After the first half hour you won't be able to keep track of anything that's happening anyway so just relax and enjoy...

One helluva car chase shot with some amazing low angles that happens about thirty minutes in, followed by a foot chase and an iconic scene where the dandy serial killer guy with amazing strength and flexibility manages to escape handcuffs by...

well, you'll see. 

Then it looks like Vincent Price ends up in an acid bath but I haven't watched the ending yet and I can't remember from seeing it twenty-five years ago probably on Elvira's Movie Macabre if the sinister fascists are foiled. 

Here's the English quad poster saying something about stuff. I guess all that could have happened in the movie, not sure.

Christopher Lee as Fremont

Oh, ya, Christopher Lee is in it. He probably gets nerve pinched eventually. Watch Scream and Scream Again it makes no sense and so what?

March 29, 2013: Almost all of the movies on Elvira's Movie Macabre are considered classics by me.

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