Author Archive: Retro

After her prostitute mother and her john are beaten to death while they are asleep in bed, teen-aged Ellie Masters is sent to an isolated orphanage run by Mrs. Deere and her handyman. Taking an avid interest in her welfare is detective Calvin Carruthers. Taking almost no interest at all, is social worker Harold Mullins who is completely under Mrs. Deere’s thumb. Lots of unpleasant surprises are in store for Ellie, not the least of which is the fact that Mrs. Deere and her handyman are both brutal sadists, who run the orphanage like a concentration camp and the strong possibility that her mother’s hammer-wielding killer is now stalking her.

The East Side Kids try to fix up a house for newlyweds, but find the place next door “haunted” by mysterious men dodging in and out of secret panels and clearly up to no good. The East Side Kids decide to do some redecorating for a pal on his honeymoon. He’s marrying Ava Gardner and the gang wants to give him a token of friendship. However,Bela Lugosi appears talking about being surrounded by imbeciles. No spooks, but some WWII spies. An early version of the Bowery Boys, this film is silly entertainment.

Classic chiller about giant leeches from a swamp who take prisoners & suck their blood. Yummy! Dir. Bernard L. Kowalski

A photographer and his models go to an old, abandoned castle to shoot some sexy covers for horror novels. Unbeknownst to them, the castle is inhabited by a lunatic who believes himself to be the reincarnated spirit of a 17th-century executioner whose job it is to protect the castle against intruders.

To promote his latest work a playwright hires an actor to dress up as a ghost and crash a high society party. The plan backfires when a real spectre appears and begins knocking off the guests. Dir. Frank R. Strayer

A woman, a survivor of a failed murder attempt by a person dubbed “The Half-Moon Killer” by the police, and her husband must find the connecting thread between herself, six other women, and the killer before the killer strikes at her again.

A man is turned into a “catlike” killer by means of a serum invented by a crazed scientist.

Corporate exec Miles Creighton dies, and is cryogenically frozen in the hopes that he can be revived. 10 years later, the procedure is a success, and Miles returns–without his soul.

Struggling artist sells his soul to the devil when he buys a severed hand that once belonged to a monk. He winds up getting all of his worldly desires and then gives them back in order to save his soul.