The Exorcist is the first films that I can clearly remember as something that was a big cultural phenomenon I was 12 when this R-rated film was released so I did not see it in theaters during its initial theatrical release. However I remember it was talked about, it was on the news, and it was subject to sketch comedy of the popular variety shows. In many ways it was a harbinger of the media saturation to come. Most of all it deserved that hyperbole.

Based on the novel William Peter Blatty, and adapted to the screen by the author, The Exorcist tells the story of a young girl, Regan, living in modern Georgetown possessed by a demon and her eventual exorcism. Regan’s mother Chris is a successful actress and movies star, a modern woman, a single parent, unreligious, and wholly unprepared for an ancient evil that takes up residence in her daughter. Father Karras is a Jesuit priest, trained in modernity and science, a psychiatrist and a boxer he too is a many thoroughly of the modern world of 1973 and a priest whose faith is crumbling. He too is unprepared to confront a reality of demons and possession. Detective Kinderman is a homicide cop, investigating a bizarre and nearly inexplicable death near the homes. Father Merrin is an elderly Catholic priest in poor health who has experience with this world of demons and is the films titular character. Bound together by the horror that has descended upon Regan these characters confront a world in which evil is not an vague abstract concept with the life and soul of a 12 year old girl hanging in the balance.

Blatty, principally known as a comedy writer, wrote the novel plumbing his own faith and questions as a Catholic surviving in the turbulent modern world. Excellently helmed by director William Friedkin, The Exorcist takes its time building to the ‘Roman Ritual’, which serves as the story climax. Preceding Halloween by several years, The Exorcsit does not rely upon gruesome kills and continuous violence to provoke dread and horror but rather takes the audience slowly and inexorably from a bright world of light and reason into one of darkness and the supernatural. More than 40 years old and recently revised by the director into a final cut this is a movie that still works, creating an atmosphere of dread, terror, and leaving the viewer with deep questions, it is a movie worth watching and thinking about.

If I were cleverer I would have worked it out so that this movie popped up as number 13, but that did not happen.

Dementia 13 is the fires mainstream feature film from acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola. It is a low budget horror/thriller intended to ride the coattails of the better-known movie Psycho.

The story concerns an Irish family that is haunted by the tragic and mysterious death of the youngest child, Kathleen. On an anniversary of her drowning, when the family hold yearly funerals for her, a scheming American woman Louise, recently married into the family, plots to manipulate the matriarch into changing her will. Louise’s plot is upended when people start dying at the hands of unidentified axe murderer.

Made for Roger Corman, Coppola was never fully satisfied with the final product and it even eventually fell into the public domain. If you buy one of 50 Horror, or Thriller, or Mystery DVD set you likely will acquire a copy of Dementia 13. Of course that will be an nth generation copy off some poor quality 16 mm print. Surprisingly someone splurged for a 4k restoration and that was what was screened at the Museum of Photographic Arts last night. My sweetie-wife and I attended, thought traffic nearly made us miss the movie. I can’t recommend this movie, it’s very uneven and convoluted but I do not seeing it in a theater instead of a poor quality dup.

Mid week movies need to be on the shorter side; what with working the day job, particularly as we swing into overtime hours during the annual enrollment period and still need to put my but in the chair and fingers to keyboard for writing there simply isn’t a lot of time left over for movie watching. Luckily those only Universal horror films, designed to fill the ‘B’ slot are often well under an hour and a half and House of Frankenstein is no exception, clocking in around seventy minutes.

House of Frankenstein, another in the let’s throw a lot of the monsters into the same movie early cinematic universe trend, also heralded the of Boris Karloff to the series that launched his stardom. This time Karloff isn’t playing the created monster but rather Doctor Gustav Neimann, a scientist obsessed with following the trail blazes by Henry Frankenstein. Caught earlier in the experimentations, Neimann has spent fifteen years languishing in a dungeon cell. God, eager to get the plot started, strike the prison with powerful lighting bolts and Neimann, along another prisoner, Daniel the hunchback, escape. Not happy with a single coincidence to start the story, the hand of god, known to us as the scriptwriter, also gives the convict pair a favor by having a traveling freak-show get stuck nearby in the storms muds. Neimann and Daniel kill the proprietor and his driver, and then assume their identities along with possession of Dracula’s actual skeleton.

A wise man would simple skulk off and restart their experiments, but Neimann is not wise. Bitter over those who sent him to prison her seeks revenge as he travels back to his decrepit lab. Neimann revives Dracula by removing the offending stake and sends him after his first target. Dracula, ever the skirt chaser, spends too much time on wine and charm and though he kills his target, he is forced to flee with the police in hot pursuit. Neimann throws the count’s coffin to the side of the road and the vampire, unable to reach it before dawn’s first rays dies in the sunlight.

At the next town they pick up an abused gypsy dancing girl and the next two victims for the doctor’s revenge. A quick stop at village Frankenstein yields the good doctor’s lab notes, the monster, and the wolf-man. The latter two entombed in ice from the flood that swept them away the in previous film. Like every other scientist in the universe, Neimann promises Talbot that he’ll cure the man werewolf curse. They travel reaching Neimann’s lab, after a quick montage the facility is restored to mad scientist ready. Unconcerned with either his promises or having a werewolf running loose, Neimann refuses to treat Talbot, instead he works on the monster. Talbot and the gypsy girls fall in love, angering the hunchback. When the werewolf kills the girl and the girls kills the werewolf, the hunchback blames, rightly so, Neimann and attacks him. That doesn’t go well as the Monster throws the hunchback from the battlements and then flees the torch-wielding peasant with Neimann in his arms. Showing a moment of intelligence, the mob forces he monster into the swamp where he and Neimann drown in quicksand.

Now, compared to most movies this is really just a series of coincidences, but if you look at House of Dracula this film has a central theme, revenge, and a coherent plot. House of Frankenstein is not a great film but a passable seventy minutes.

Saturday afternoon I treated myself to an at home matinee of the 1959 marketing classic The Tingler.

William Castle who made quite a name for himself with marketing ploys to attract people to his films directed this movie. His has done such stunts as offering insurance policies against dying of fright during the screening, having paper skeletons pulled on strings over the audiences heads and for The Tingler he had some seats in some theaters rigged with buzzers to surprise people during key moments of the film. Naturally all this does not translate to home video.

The Tingler stars Vincent Price as Doctor Chapin a pathologist who, in addition to his duties seeing to the remains of executed criminals, is researching the strange effects of people in acute fear. He has a dedicated lab assistant, a shrewish wife, seemingly a common character type in a Castle film, a new friendship with the brother-in-law of a recently executed murderer, and to help him with his research a nifty new drug that induces nightmares, LSD 25.

Chapin’s research not only proves that there is a previously unknown physical effect from unreleased fear, but that it is a living creature found in all of us, the Tingler. Most of the film is actually melodrama about the Chapin’s failing marriage, and mysterious scenes that keep the audience guessing just how far will he go for his research. Is he dedicated or a mad scientist?

This film is worth watching, but the concepts are rarely carried through and it does cheat with its plot twits. That is to say it doesn’t set up the twists but rather springs on the audience without the benefits of Chekov’s gun. The movie does have one fairly original set piece in it. There a sequence where a woman is driven into utter terror and in those scenes while the film remains in black-and-white the blood is a bright, brilliant, saturated red. Here’s a still to show you. Now, remember this was 1959; there were no digital effect to make this now easy process possible. Castle achieved this my making everything, including the actress, on the set monochrome so while the film is color film only the blood is appears to have color.

The Tingler is currently streaming on Shudder.