1964 was nearly as productive a year for the cinematic horror genre as 1963 was. Coming from the barrel bottom was Jerry Warren’s improvement on 1960’s La Casa del Terror, Face of the Screaming Werewolf, starring (sort of) Lon Chaney, Jr. and Yerye Beirut (who later co-starred with Boris Karloff in a string of Mexican films co-produced by Jack Hill). Chaney was probably less embarrassed (although doubtfully any less sober) working for Hammer director Don Sharp in the relatively well-received Witchcraft. Fellow Hammer veterans Freddie Francis and Peter Cushing collaborated on the actor’s only non-Terence Fisher directed Frankenstein opus, The Evil of Frankenstein, which initially received poor reviews, but has since been reassessed in a more positive light (in some quarters). Without a star actor (or competent director) Hammer’s The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (dir. Michael Carreras ) was as limp as its title character. However, the dynamic trio of Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Barbara Shelley did their best work (despite a silly-looking title creature), as usual, for Fisher in The Gorgon. Lee didn’t fair as winningly in the Warren Kiefer/Luciano Ricci co-directed Castle of the Living Dead, despite having closing scenes directed by an uncredited Michael Reeves. Lee downsized from a castle to a mere crypt in Crypt of the Vampire (directed by Camilio Mastrocinque), which was as pedestrian as its title, despite undeniable atmosphere. The icon of Italian Gothic cinema, Barbara Steele (the last-living of the classic horror stars), was also at home in a castle setting in Castle of Blood (co-directed by Antonio Margheriti and Sergio Corbucci) and teamed again with Magheriti for The Long Hair of Death (which we will be covering soon in a Steele triple feature). The final two Poe films from Roger Corman and Vincent Price, Masque of the Red Death and Tomb of Ligeia, were among their best received, although the latter features yet another ingratiatingly whiny, flowery performance from its star. Rounding out a busy year, Price starred in The Last Man on Earth (co-directed by Ubaldo Ramona and Sidney Salkow), the first of several big screen adaptations of Richard Matheson’s “I am Legend”—none of which, astoundingly, could get it right. Predictably, Blood and Black Lace became yet another cult film from Mario Bava, but even he could not compete with the legendary Kwaidan (directed by Masaki Kobayashi), which puts most Western horror anthologies to shame. Down several notches from those is the work of Del Tenney, who has an inexplicable cult reputation—but as 1964’s The Horrors of Party Beach proves, that status is undeserved for such a dullard (1971’s I Eat Your Skin would further confirm).
Spiraling downward, ever downward, we come to Ray Dennis Steckler‘s biggest budgeted film, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, which is more famous for its title than for the film Continue reading 1964 EXLPOITATION TRIPLE FEATURE: THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES, 2000 MANIACS, AND THE CREEPING TERROR (WITH BONUS: STRAIGHT-JACKET )