Author Archive: Retro

Marcel De Lange is a struggling sculptor whose work and sanity are derided by the New York art critics. After waspishly officious critic F. Holmes Harmon ruins a sale for De Lange by dismissing his expressionistic cubist work as “tripe” and later gloating about it in his column, the distraught artist goes to the river to drown himself. There he discovers the half-drowned body of the notorious serial killer, the Creeper, and takes him back to his studio to recover. Feeling empowered by the friendship of the acromegalic sociopath, De Lange tasks him with murdering the critics who have pilloried him in print. When successful commercial artist Steve Morrow is wrongly suspected of the crimes, his art critic girlfriend Joan Medford decides to follow her instinct about a mysterious bust De Lange has covered up and snoops around his studio.

In the near future, a non-conformist architect becomes obsessed with the building of a transatlantic underwater tunnel from England to America. Dir. Maurice Elvey

A brilliant surgeon keeps the severed head of his financee alive after car accident. The head develops a loathing for her former lover. Famous so-bad-it’s-good film.

Professor Groves, an expert in prehistoric life, proves his theories with an extract that’ll regress a cat to a saber-tooth tiger and man to a Neanderthal.

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