It's not always easy to find horror films to watch. To this day, they are looked upon with scorn by the rest of Hollywood, instead of being exalted as the incredible art form that they are. Not too many channels offer a good selection of horror, not even during October. Syfy offers some (not necessarily good ones), the premium channels offer a few, and thankfully, Turner Classic Movies offers a selecion of older ones.
The Plague of the Zombies (1966) is about a doctor on vacation, trying to get some fishing done. Unfortunately, he recieves a letter from an old student asking him for help. It seems there is some sort of plague afflicting a nearby town, and the old doctor's daughter would love to see her old childhood friend, who is now married to the doctor's old student. Things get a little complicated, but it seems there has been a rash of deaths in the village, deaths for which there is no explanation...
Plague of the Zombies is a product of Hammer film studios, which horror aficionadoes will recognize as one of the better horror-movie-makers. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing aren't in this one, and I honestly couldn't tell you any of the other actors from a bum on the street, but Hammer studios made this one, so the acting and production quality are about as good as one of those Christopher Lee Dracula movies. I caught this one on Turner Classic movies if you want to check it out, and while the plot wasn't quite as exciting as a Dracula movie, it still wasn't bad. On the plus side, I've never seen it before, so that's nice.
The Reptile (1966) is about a man and his wife, who move into a house that was recently bequeathed to him by his now-dead brother. The brother died under mysterious circumstances, and things don't seem quite right in the village near the man's house. A local bartender fills the man in on the myterious deaths that have recently plagued the locals, and the man and the bartender begin to investigate...
Christopher Lee and peter Cushing aren't in this one either, and I also don't know any of the actors in this one. Sadly, the acting and plot in this movie aren't even as good as Plague of the Zombies, but it wasn't a bad watch. It was a hammer film studios production, after all. I hadn't seen it before, so now I have, though I don't think I'd watch it again. Still, I caught it on Turner Classic Movies, so if you want to watch either of these, TCM is your best bet.
The only thing of interest between these two movies is that they seemed to be shot at the same location, and scenes in the village and graveyard look like slightly different views of the same exact place. There's also an old mansion that looks like the same place in both movies, again shot from slightly different angles to make them look different. I suppose it makes sense, since these two movies came out from the same studio during the same year. I imagine the equivalent in this day and age would be a Syfy film using the same rented house for two different movies, or perhaps a few different Roger Corman productions back in the 80's. Just something to look for, if you watch both of these movies back-to-back. If you don't, you probably won't notice. Pretty sure they used some of the same actors, too, in diferent roles.
In other news, I am feeling a bit better, though yesterday was pretty much wasted trying to recover from the flu. Hopefully I am back on track with my movie reviews now, so I'll see you guys tomorrow night for another review! Week and a half to go til Halloween! Wheeee! Horror! Candy! Weird-looking costumed midgets attacking my house with eggs and toilet paper! Man, I look forward to this all year. :-D
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