Sphere horror paperbacks were published in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s. They were hugely popular and many – such as Lust for a Vampire, Blind Terror, The Ghoul, Squirm and Dawn of the Dead – were movie tie-ins and novelisations. The initial novels chosen for publication focused on the occult. Sphere published pulp fiction novels by famous authors, such as Richard Matheson, Ray Russell, Colin Wilson, Graham Masterson, Clive Barker and Robert Bloch whilst also providing a vehicle for British career writers such as Guy N. Smith and Peter Tremayne, plus many lesser known writers whose work received a boost by being part of the Sphere publishing machine. Occasionally, they also published compilations of short stories and “non-fiction” titles such as What Witches Do. In the early years, like many other opportunistic publishers, they reprinted the vintage work of writers – such as Sheridan Le Fanu – with lurid cover art.

The listing below provides a celebration of the photography and artwork used to sell horror books by one particular British publishing company. For more information about each book visit the excellent Sordid Spheres web blog.

1970

John Blackburn – Bury Him Darkly

Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury – Fever Dream

Robert Bloch – The Living Demons

Robert Bloch – Tales in a Jugular Vein

Angus Hall – Madhouse

Sheridan Le Fanu – The Best Horror Stories

Michel Parry - Countess Dracula
Sarban – The Sound of his Horn

Ray Russell – The Case Against Satan
William Seabrook – Witchcraft (non-fiction)
Kurt Singer (ed.) – The Oblong Box

Kurt Singer (ed.) – Plague of the Living Dead

Kurt Singer – (ed.) The House in the Valley
Robert Somerlott – The Inquisitor’s House

1971

Richard Davis (ed.) – The Year’s Best Horror Stories 1
Peter Haining (ed.) – The Wild Night Company
Angus Hall – The Scars of Dracula

Angus Hall – To Play the Devil – Buy on Amazon.co.uk
William Hughes – Blind Terror (Blind Terror film on Horrorpedia)

William Hughes – Lust for a Vampire (Lust for a Vampire film on Horrorpedia)
Ray Russell – Unholy Trinity
E. Spencer Shew – Hands Of The Ripper

Kurt Singer (ed) – The Day of the Dragon

David Sutton (ed.) – New Writings in the Horror and Supernatural 1

Alan Scott – Project Dracula

1972

Richard Davis (ed.) – The Year’s Best Horror Stories 2

Peter Haining (ed.) – The Clans of Darkness

Laurence Moody – What Became Of Jack And Jill?
Ronald Pearsall – The Exorcism

David Sutton (ed.) – New Writings in the Horror and Supernatural 2
Richard Tate – The Dead Travel Fast

Sam Moskowitz (ed.) – A Man Called Poe

1973

Richard Davis (ed.) – The Year’s Best Horror Stories 3
Stewart Farrar – What Witches Do: The Modern Coven Revealed (Non-Fiction)

Brian J. Frost (ed.) – Book of the Werewolf

Melissa Napier – The Haunted Woman
Daniel Farson – Jack The Ripper [non-fiction]
Raymond Rurdoff – The Dracula Archives

1974

Theodore Sturgeon – Caviar

1976

C L Moore – Shambleau
Guy N. Smith – The Ghoul

Robert Black – Legend of the Werewolf

Richard Curtis – Squirm

Ron Goulart – Vampirella 1:Bloodstalk

1977

August Derleth (ed.) – When Evil Wakes
Ron Goulart – Vampirella 2: On Alien Wings

Ron Goulart – Vampirella 3: Deadwalk

Vampirella on Horrorpedia

Ken Johnson – Blue Sunshine

Fritz Leiber - Night’s Black Agents
Robert J Myers – The Slave of Frankenstein

Robert J Myers – The Cross of Frankenstein
Jack Ramsey – The Rage

Ray Russell – Incubus
Andrew Sinclair – Cat

Colin Wilson – Black Room

1978

Ethel Blackledge – The Fire
John Christopher – The Possessors
John Christopher – The Little People
Basil Copper – Here Be Daemons

Basil Copper – The Great White Space
Giles Gordon (ed.) – A Book of Contemporary Nightmares

Peter Haining – Terror! A History Of Horror Illustrations From The Pulp Magazines

Peter Haining (ed) – Weird Tales

Peter Haining (ed) – More Weird Tales
Peter Haining (ed) – Ancient Mysteries Reader 1
Peter Haining (ed) – Ancient Mysteries Reader 2
Richard Matheson – Shock!

Richard Matheson – Shock 2

Richard Matheson – Shock 3

Stephen Marlowe – Translation
Michael Robson – Holocaust 2000
Peter Tremayne – The Ants

Peter Tremayne – The Vengeance Of She

1979

John Clark and Robin Evans – The Experiment
William Hope Hodgson – The Night Land
Robert R. McCammon – Baal

Kirby McCauley – Frights

Kirby McCauley – Frights 2
Jack Finney – Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
Graham Masterton – Charnel House

Graham Masterton – Devils of D-Day
Susan Sparrow – Dawn of the Dead

Gerald Suster – The Devil’s Maze
Peter Tremayne – The Curse of Loch Ness

1980

Les Daniels – The Black Castle
Gerald Suster – The Elect
Jere Cunningham – The Legacy
William Hope Hodgson – The House On The Borderland
Robin Squire – A Portrait Of Barbara

John Cameron – The Astrologer
Robert McCammon – Bethany’s Sin
William H. Hallahan – Keeper Of The Children

Ray Russell – The Devil’s Mirror

Roy Russell – Prince Of Darkness

1981

Basil Copper – Necropolis

M. Jay Livingstone – The Prodigy
Andrew Coburn – The Babysitter
Peter Tremayne – Zombie!

Graham Masterton – The Heirloom
Owen West [Dean R. Koontz] – The Funhouse
William Hope Hodgson – The Ghost Pirates

Graham Masterton - The Wells Of Hell
Graham Masterton – Famine
Marc Alexander – The Devil Hunter [non-fiction]
Guy Lyon Playfair – This House Is Haunted [non-fiction]
Robert R. McCammon – They Thirst

1982

Ronald Patrick – Beyond The Threshold

Peter Tremayne – The Morgow Rises

William Hope Hodgson – The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

Stephen Gallagher – Chimera
Marc Alexander – Haunted Houses You May Visit [non-fiction]
Michelle Smith & Lawrence Pazder – Michelle Remembers [non-fiction]
Dillibe Onyearma – Night Demon
Robert R. McCammon – The Night Boat

Ray Russell – Incubus

1983

James Darke – The Witches 1. The Prisoner

James Darke – The Witches 2. The Trial
James Darke – The Witches 3. The Torture

Basil Copper – Into The Silence
Les Daniels – The Silver Skull

1984

Peter Tremayne – Kiss Of The Cobra

Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 1
Clive Barker - Books Of Blood 2

Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 3
Graham Masterton – Tengu

George R. R. Martin – Fevre Dream
James Darke – Witches 4. The Escape

1985

Peter Tremayne – Swamp!

Peter Tremayne – Angelus!
Stephen Laws – The Ghost Train

Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 4
Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 5
Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 6
Rosalind Ashe – Dark Runner
James Darke – Witches 5. The Meeting
James Darke – Witches 6. The Killing

1986

Christopher Fowler - City Jitters

James Darke – Witches 7. The Feud
James Darke – Witches 8. The Plague

Clive Barker – The Damnation Game
Graham Masterton – Night Warriors
Lisa Tuttle – A Nest Of Nightmares

1987

Peter Tremayne – Nicor!
Peter Tremayne – Trollnight

Lisa Tuttle – Gabriel

1988

Alan Ryan (ed.) – Halloween Horrors

Guy N. Smith – Fiend

Stephen Laws – Spectre
Graham Masterton – Mirror
Eric Sauter – Predators
Robert McCammon – Swan Song

1989

Stephen Laws – Wyrm
Guy N. Smith – The Camp
Guy N. Smith – Mania

Graham Masterton – The Walkers
Graham Masterton – Ritual
Bernard King – Witch Beast

The listing above and many of the cover images are reproduced from the Sordid Spheres web blog. Bar the odd addition and amendment, the list first appeared in Paperback Fanatic 3 (August 2007). For more information about each title, its author and links to reviews, visit Sordid Spheres

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Emanuele Taglietti (born in Ferrara, January 6, 1943) is an Italian designer, illustrator and painter.

Born to an artistic father, Emanuele Taglietti graduated from his local art institute, then moved to Rome where he studied set design at the Experimental Center of Cinematography. He worked on the art direction and set decoration for various films, including Federico Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits. 

In 1973, he returned to live in his home town and came into contact with Renzo Barbieri of Edifumetto, for whom he worked as a cover artist of erotic, crime, fantasy and horror-themed fumetti (Italian comic books). Having been inspired by artists such as Frank Frazetta and Averardo Ciriello, he created artwork for fumetti such as Zora the vampire, Belzeba, Cimiteria, Sukia, Stregoneria (“Witchcraft”), Gli Spettri (“The Spectres”), Il Sanguinari (“The Blood”), Lo Schelectro (“The Skeleton”), Ulula (“Howls”), Vampirissimo and Wallestein.

Occasionally, Taglietti reworked images and artwork from horror films such as Creature from the Black Lagoon, Night of the Demon (1957) and The Plague of the Zombies, and seems to have had a fixation on actress Ornella Muti (whom he based the image of Sukia on). Featuring the signature nudity of fumetti, his work was sometimes censored when the comic books were publish in other countries, like Spain.

During this busy period, which continued until 1988, Taglietti also restored old paintings and occasionally collaborated as an illustrator for magazine publishers such as Mondadori and Rizzoli. He retired in 2000, broadened the scope of his artistic interests, devoting himself to mural decoration and furniture.

We are very grateful to the Emanuele Taglietti Fan Club blog for the images above.Visit their blog to see lots more of Taglietti’s artwork…

“This is no cute and cuddly polar bear. He’s a blizzard of white hot horror, the terror of the frozen wastes, he is SHAKO – and he is death!”

Shako was a horror comic strip published in legendary British weekly 2000AD for sixteen issues in 1977.

While 2000AD was (and is) primarily science fiction based, it would occasionally venture into the world of horror, usually in single-run strips – that is, stories that have a beginning, middle and end over a period of continuing episodes, rather than a continuing character. Shako was one such story, written by Judge Dredd creators Pat Mills and John Wagner, and illustrated by Ramon Sola, Juan Arancio, Dodderio and Lopez Vera.

The story of a killer polar bear who swallows a container of germ weaponry after a plane crash, the strip was short on plot or character development, but high on gory mayhem as the CIA, represented by Jake Falmuth – or “Foulmouth” – and assisted by Inuit guide Buck Dollar, try to capture the bear, who has developed a taste for human flesh and a hatred for people, before the Soviets get hold of him.

The strip ran from prog 20 to prog 36, and would later have a prequel story, White Fury, which apeared in the 1987 2000AD Annual. It had the feel of a leftover from 2000AD predecessor, the notorious Action!, and in many ways is an imitation of that comic’s Jaws rip-off, Hook Jaw, with the bear replacing the shark. It was also very much in the tradition of the ‘nature strikes back’ horror that was popular at the time.

Like many of these single-run strips, Shako didn’t develop much of a following amongst the readership at the time, but over the years it has developed a reputation as one of the most outrageous of the early 2000AD stories, with its mix of the ludicrous and the gory violence, which frequently saw Shako biting heads off – remember, this was a comic aimed at kids!

The strip was republished in reprint magazine 200AD Extreme in 2006, and in December 2012, the whole Shako run – including White Fury – was compiled in book format. You can also buy a Shako T-shirt from the 2000AD website!

DF

Tender Dracula, or Confessions of a Blood Drinker (French: Tendre Dracula or, alternately, La Grande Trouille) is a 1974 French horror film directed by Pierre Grunstein. It stars Peter Cushing, Alida Valli, Miou-Miou, Bernard Menez and Nathalie Courval. The plot involves two writers who take their girlfriends to a castle where an actor (Peter Cushing) who has played vampires in many films is living. The longer they stay in the castle, the more likely it seems that the actor is an actual vampire.

A frantic television executive dispatches two bungling writers, Alfred (Bernard Menez, La Grande Bouffe, Dracula and Son) and Boris (Stéphane Shandor), to convince acting legend MacGregor (horror mainstay, Peter Cushing) not to throw away his peerless career playing a vampire in order to branch out into the world of slushy romance. They head off to a remote Scottish castle where the actor resides, taking with them two budding actresses, Madeleine (Nathalie Courval) and Marie (a regularly undressed, be-wigged Miou-Miou) and soon encounter resident butler Abélard (Percival Russel) and MacGregor’s wife (Alida Valli, another horror legend, seen in the likes of Suspiria and Lisa and the Devil), both of whom veer from Carry On to existential experimentation in the blink of an eye. We finally meet a Keats-spouting MacGregor, already way beyond convincing to change his new career path but the remaining 70 minutes care little about such frippery.

Struggling to decide which genre it wants to demolish, we are regularly distracted by a stream of gratuitous nudity, none of which is anything other than typical 70′s softcore but all of it somewhat jarring when considering Mr Cushing’s name is above the title – those alarmed at his participation in the sleazy Corruption should take a cold shower.

Some singing also ensues but fortunately both Valli and Cushing steer clear, both looking occasionally like they are prepared for the film to start in earnest. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell whether the actor is leading his guests along or he has grand designs on his prey.

The presence of Valli and Cushing, as well as a castle, should be foolproof enough to ‘get by’ but this oddly-pitched French production is far too satisfied with its props to go to the effort of story/script/wit/point. This, mercifully, was Pierre Grunstein’s only directorial effort, though his career as a producer (Jean de Florette, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) would suggest he wasn’t utterly blind to talent and film-making skill. Made in the period during which Cushing was in deep mourning for the loss of his wife, Helen, it is easy to see the actor throwing himself into any old project to distract him from his misery, though this is somewhat wobbly as an appeal, given it also being the period of some of his greatest roles, Tales from the Crypt, Horror Express, Madhouse and so on.

The muddled cast, with Cushing’s voice dubbed by French acting titan Jean Rochefort in the original release, appear to be acting alongside rather than with each other; both Courval and Miou-Miuo regularly burst out into song in a strange Greek Chorus, seemingly an attempt to remind everyone where we are in the plot. In the most preposterous scene, Cushing spanks Miou-Miou, the kind of thing you could get away with in 1974, with the chances of English-speaking audiences ever viewing the film being slim. What we do get is a glimpse of is Cushing as The Count, more redolent of the smooth Lugosi vamp than Lee’s aristocrat but still only an interesting footnote than a statement.

So confused is the aim, especially as Euro-humour rarely travels well at the best of times, that it’s hard to be too damning of the film, purely because it’s difficult to know what the point was in the first place. Towards the end, Cushing’s character flicks through a scrapbook containing photos of some the real actor’s most famous roles. You’d think that at this point someone would have twigged that something had gone terribly astray in the very production they were working on.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Some of the images above appear courtesy of the Peter Cushing Blog

Fleshbait is a British horror novel, published in 1979 by New English Library. It was written by David Holman and Larry Pryce.

Published at the height of the ‘animal attack’ craze that swept British pulp fiction publishing in the late 1970s, Fleshbait also seems to want to cash in on the surprising popularity of the Piranha paperback tie-in by John Sayles – it wasn’t unusual at the time for the novelisation of a movie to become a best seller even when the film itself bombed (The Legacy is a prime example of this), and while Piranha was a minor success as a film, in the UK the paperback was surprisingly popular. The cover image for Fleshbait brings that book to mind.

However, Fleshbait isn’t about piranha at all. Instead, it’s ordinary British river and sea fish that suddenly fight back, attacking fishermen and people paddling in the sea. But as an exploitation novel, this leaves much to be desired, and certainly doesn’t live up to the promise of the cover, with the fish drowning their victims rather than eating them. While written with the usual stock characters, the 160 page novel lacks both the salacious sex and gory violence that the horror pulp fiction genre demands. As the back cover blurb testifies:

“A young girl overwhelmed and drowned… by fish. A paddling child swept out to sea… by fish. Boats smashed and sunk… by fish. As the horror spreads along the holiday beaches, so do the questions. Has chemical pollution affected the sea creatures, turning them into savage, motiveless killers? Of have the fish, so long hunted and killed for sport, turned against their tormentors? Is this the final apocalyptic revenge of a species?”

This appears to be the only collaboration by the authors. There is a playwright called David Holman and a rock music biographer named Larry Pryce, but it is unclear if either are the author of this book.

David Flint, Horrorpedia

Bigfoot is a 1969 (released 1970) American horror film. Despite its low budget, it featured some well-known actors and family namesakes in the cast, including John Carradine as “Jasper C. Hawkes”, a Southern traveling salesman. Robert F. Slatzer directed and co-wrote the screenplay with James Gordon White (The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant and The Thing with Two Heads). Chris Mitchum, Joi Lansing, Doodles Weaver and Lindsay Crosby co-starred.

Plot:

People are captured by Bigfoot and his family. A group of hunters are trying to hunt down Bigfoot, bumbling at first, but in terms of rescuing the captured women, and capturing the gigantic ‘King of the Woods’ alive for public exhibition for profit victorious (with the help of others) in the end. It also involves college students riding motorcycles  to rescue the captured young women.

In the middle of the film, the skeptical sheriff’s department and the ranger’s station are notified of the women’s disappearance, but to no avail on the part of the authorities with respect to actually searching for the missing women. The unlikely heroes in the very end are a hardy, gun-toting old mountain man who had previously lost one of his arms during a historical encounter (this encounter is not dramatized in this film as a flashback) with the gigantic, erect animal and one of the idiotic dynamite-armed bike riders. The old man hero’s wife, an Indian squaw, prophesies “bad medicine” (for Bigfoot, that is) just before the final man-vs.-Bigfoot showdown…

Reviews:

“Bigfoot is a truly awful movie, combining a doofus storyline with shoddy production values and terrible acting, but it’s arresting in a fever-dream sort of way. Carradine’s supposed to be a formidable big-game hunter, but he’s an arthritic, emaciated senior dressed in a suit and tie. Christopher Mitchum, the son of screen legend Robert Mitchum, is supposed to be a tough-guy biker, but he’s a passive nebbish who politely refers to Carradine’s character as “Mr. Hawks.” Jordan and Lansing are so outrageously curvy—and so nonsensically underdressed—that their scenes feel as if they were guest-directed by Russ Meyer. The movie toggles back and forth between second-unit location shots showing actors full-figure from a distance and cheesy soundstage footage with the principal cast in close-up, so it’s like the flick drifts in and out of reality. Bigfoot creatures get more screen time here than in virtually any other ‘70s Sasquatch movie, which is not a good thing—prolonged exposure highlights the bad costumes. And we haven’t even talked about the upbeat honky-tonk music that plays during suspense scenes, or the incongruous surf-music cue that appears whenever the bikers are shown driving. Oh, and at one point, a lady Bigfoot wrestles a bear.” Peter Hanson, Every 70s Movie

“Screw the Mona Lisa, the poster for 1970s Bigfoot is a true artistic masterpiece. The movie is pretty wonderful too. Noticing the public’s fascination with Bigfoot that was kicked off by the Patterson/Gimlin film and the biker craze that ensued following the release of Easy Rider, writer/director Robert F. Slatzer had the idea to incorporate both elements into a film. It was an inspired “you got chocolate in my peanut butter/peanut butter in my chocolate” decision that resulted in cinematic brilliance.” Rob Bricken, Topless Robot

“Bigfoot, a certifiable mess with the most unconvincing sets this side of Gilligan’s Island, at least knows how to have a little fun. Bikinis, funky music and motorcycles go a long way in hypnotizing the viewer into ignoring small details like the fact that you have to actually light dynamite to make it explode. John Carradine and, count ‘em, two Mitchums (John and Christopher) are on hand to ease some of the pain, but me thinks the film makers were relying mostly on the voluptuous talents of Joi Lansing to carry the audience through the film. I have to admit there is dopey fun to be had in this showdown for species dominance, but as usual I think I was routing for the wrong team’s victory. One thing is undebatable, the sasquatch were not the most alarming inhabits of this film.” Kindertrauma

Wikipedia | IMDb

Scream Inn is a horror themed board game, first produced in the UK by Strawberry Fayre from 1974.

Scream Inn was a a comic strip that ran in British weekly Shiver and Shake during 1973-74, and this game – only vaguely related – appeared in the second year of its run. Oddly, the game didn’t feature any of the original characters (apart from a generic white-sheet ghost) and it is uncertain if there is any official connection between the two (the game makes no mention of the strip).

The game was aimed at players aged six years-old to adult, and could be played by 2 – 4 players. Each players starts with five figures and four ghosts, and you hide your ghosts under the rotating board, placing them under beds of floorboards, concealed from other players. If you land on a bed of a floorboard, you have to look underneath – if you encounter a ghost, you lose that piece and must start again. The aim of the game is to escape Scream Inn without being frightened by ghosts.It had the slogan “We’re only here for the fear!”.

The board had a semi-3D format and the game was full of small parts that would inevitably get broken or lost, and was needlessly complicated. Nevertheless, the packaging and the name ensured that it was popular amongst horror-loving kids.

DF

The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio is a 1971 horror film directed by Eric Jeffrey Haims from a screenplay by Donn Greer (assistant director of Satan’s Cheerleaders), based on a story by Bonnie Jean, very loosely adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It stars Sebastian Brook (Rosemary’s Baby), Mady Maguire (A Scream in the Streets), Donn Greer, Gray Daniels (Gallery of Horror, Gremlins 2, The Rain Killer), John Terry, Rene Bond (Necromania, Please Don’t Eat My Mother, Invasion of the Bee Girls), Casey Larrain (The Toy Box), Terri Bond, Hump Hardy, Nora Wieternik, Cathie Demille, Ric Lutze, Melissa Ruiz, Duane Paulsen and Jane Tsentas.

In the US, the film was issued an ‘X’ rating by the MPAA but by 1973 it received limited theatrical showings in North America. It was not released domestically on VHS. In late 1982, British video label Intervision announced plans to issue it on Beta and VHS. However, with the ‘video nasty’ controversy raging and their sleazy box cover (see above) already publicised, Intervision cancelled the release, making it mail order outside of the UK. It seems to have had a very limited Australian release, however. In early 2014, Vinegar Syndrome announced a limited edition Blu-ray Disc release of just 1000 copies on a double-bill with A Clock Work Blue.

Plot:

The Florence Nightingale Institute has a reputation for training highly respected nurses. Unfortunately, director Dr. Dorian Cabala (Sebastian Brook) has peculiar and perverted rules. To make matters worse, a killer begins preying on the students, leaving their abdomens with three star-shaped punctures. As the trainee nurses prepare to stage their own version of ‘Dr. jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ two cops (Donn Greer and Gray Daniels) keep an eye on Dr. Cabala and his charges…

Reviews:

“Eric J. Haims’s film is weird and gory and worth the time a viewer spends with it. Pants optional. I’m going out of my way to not give too much away. Because it’s the kind of film I love discovering from a decade that is chock full of wonder and odd: the 70s. A completely idosyncratic, individual oddball of a film seen by almost no one.” Bleeding Skull

“If you happened to miss the opening credits of this 1971 effort, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were watching an Andy Milligan movie. It’s all here: penny-pinching period sex/horror with elaborate but oddly shabby costumes, grainy 16mm blow-up cinematography, crudely recorded and mixed sound, elderly library music cues, a mix of affordable practical locations and flimsy sets, and amateur thesping that is all over the map, sprinkled with some vintage horror iconography.” By John Charles

“Filled with headache-inducing Milliganesque bad camerawork, bad editing, bad lighting, bad acting, bad plot, bad effects, bad sex scenes. And no, none of this is in the ‘so bad it’s good category’” Chelle’s Inferno

IMDb | Thanks to By John Charles for some of the info for this posting.

House of Whipcord, made in 1973 (released April 1974),  is one of the most significant British horror films of the 1970s, a bleak, grim and unsavoury slice of cinema that helped signal the end of the gothic and the rise of a decade of nastiness. It was roundly hated by the horror establishment, then – as now – suspicious and contemptuous of anything new and challenging. But for a new generation of fans, this was much more exciting than the old-fashioned films, such as The Ghoul,  being made by the likes of Tyburn in the mid-seventies.

Opening with a pointedly cynical statement to the hanging and flogging brigade: “This film is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today’s lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment”, the film tells the story of Anne Marie (Penny Irving), a French model who meets a young man at a party, and despite his name being Mark E. Desade (Robert Tayman, Vampire Circus), agrees to leave with him. Before long, she’s captive in a disused prison, where Mark’s parents (Barbara Markham and Patrick Barr) run a quasi-judicial punishment regime for girls who have strayed from the path of ‘righteousness’. Along with psychotic warder Walker (Sheila Keith), they strip, torture and abuse the girls in a hypocritical attempt to punish them for their sins’. But things soon start to fall apart, as Anne-Marie plans her escape…

With a sharply savage screenplay by David MacGillivray (Frightmare, Satan’s Slave) – his first horror film and first movie for Peter Walker in what would be a sometimes fractious relationship -House of Whipcord rises above the exploitative nature of the material, without compromising on the sleaze factor. Meanwhile, Walker delivers solid, no-nonsense direction. Irving and hardened exploitation starlet Anne Michelle get naked, there’s some gratuitous yet mild whipping and an overwhelming air of grubbiness, but the film nevertheless makes its point smartly, skewering the double standards of the so-called Moral Majority.

Of course, that same Moral Majority was out to get the film, and it suffered cuts at the hands of the BBFC – though less than you might expect, BBFC Head Stephen Murphy apparently appreciating the knowing attack on ‘moral reformers’. The movie received a couple of positive reviews in the press, such as Films and Filming: “Shows that something worthwhile in the entertainment-horror market can be done for the tiny sum of £60,000″. However, it was more memorably dismissed by Russell Davies in The Observer as “a feeble fladge-fantasy” and the Evening News: “as nasty an exploitation of sadism as I can recall in the cinema.”

Writing in his 1977 book Horror Films, genre fan and critic Alan Frank pronounced it to be “a silly and tawdry exploitation film with ill-conceived characters written as cliches … in a series of voyeuristic scenes of sadism and violence … British exploitation cinema at its lowest common denominator.”  In more recent years, however, the film has built a substantial fan following, and for many remains the definitive Pete Walker film.

Buy House of Whipcord on Redemption Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

Buy The Pete Walker Collection on Redemption Blu-ray Disc from Amazon.com

The film was re-released in the USA by United Producers as Stag Model Slaughter and later, with a misleading ad campaign that made it look like a soft porn film. The Photographer’s Models. In France, it was known simply as Flagellations.

“I’ve always thought that this film was going to be one of those seedy, underground 1970s sexploitation films with no plot and lots of naked women being whipped left right and centre. However, I’m pleased to say that while it is low budget, with the odd flash of unnecessary flesh it is also quite a reasonable little horror that at times can be quiet harrowing.” Spooky Isles

“An above average sexploitation/horror that has been put together with some polish and care from a fairly original script. The film is dedicated ironically to all those who wish to see the return of capital punishment in Britain, and it’s about a senile old judge and his wife who are so appalled by current permissiveness that they set up a gruesome house of correction for young girls. The only trouble is that the film undercuts its potentially interesting Gothic theme by some leering emphases, and the final result is likely to be seen and appreciated only by the people who will take the dedication at its face value” David Pirie, Time Out

Buy Making Mischief: The Cult Films of Pete Walker from Amazon.co.uk

Cast, in credits order:

• Barbara Markham … Mrs. Wakehurst
• Patrick Barr … Justice Bailey
• Ray Brooks … Tony
• Ann Michelle … Julia
• Sheila Keith … Walker
• Dorothy Gordon … Bates
• Robert Tayman … Mark E. Desade
• Ivor Salter … Jack
• Karan David … Karen
• Celia Quicke … Denise
• Ron Smerczak … Ted
• Tony Sympson … Henry
• Judy Robinson … Claire
• Jane Hayward … Estelle
• Celia Imrie … Barbara
• Barry Martin … Al
• Rose Hill … Henry’s Wife
• Dave Butler … Ticket Collector
• And introducing Penny Irving as Ann-Marie Di Verney

IMDb | Wikipedia | We are grateful to Wrong Side of the Art!, Temple of Schlock and Tumblr Lobby Cards for images above

Scriptwriter David McGillivray can be seen on the right hand

House of Mortal Sin (also known as The Confessional and The Confessional Murders) is a 1975 horror film directed by Pete Walker, and scripted by David McGillivray (House of Whipcord, Satan’s Slave), from a story by Walker. It stars Anthony Sharp, Susan Penhaligon (Patrick), Stephanie Beacham (The Nightcomers, Dracula A.D. 1972, Inseminoid), Norman Eshley and Sheila Keith. As with Frightmare, Andrew Sachs has a minor role.

A deranged priest takes it upon himself to punish his parishioners for their moral transgressions: ”I was put on this earth to combat sin and I shall use every available means to do so.” And he does…

Reviews:

“McGillivray’s script is full of inventive ideas which were obviously meant to shock and stir up controversy. Having the villainous murderer a repressed and crazed Catholic priest in modern times brought a new and different kind of monster to the catalog of British horror, and he’s marvelously played by Sharp. A lapsed Catholic in real life, Walker uses the film as a comment on organized religion, as extreme and satirical as it may be, with Father Meldrum mauling his victims via poison holy wafers, flaming incense burners and rosary beads.” DVD Drive-In

Trailer as The Confessional Murders:

“The excess is toned down for some good old-fashioned psychological horror and when the blood does flow, it has more impact for its rarity. Having a great cast helps too – Anthony Sharp and Sheila Keith are superb as the mad priest and his housekeeper, while the ‘young’ generation of Beacham, Penhaligon and Eshley give it a contemporary rather than gothic feel…” Cinedelica

“Acidic black comedy, or typically crass 70s horror flick brought out with the sole aim of shocking a jaded public? The jury’s still out on House of Mortal Sin (aka The Confessional), but you can’t deny that it’s entertaining.” British Horror Films

“For added box office appeal, the grotesque violence is fleshed out with arbitrary evocations of blighted sexual liaisons. However, the director remains ham-fisted, the performances unfocused rather than maniacal and the script woefully contrived.” The Aurum Horror Film Encyclopedia: Horror

Wikipedia | IMDb | Thanks to the following for images: Island of Terror

Croc is a 1976 horror novel written by David James.

One of the few US novels in the ‘nature strikes back’ subgenre, the novel was first published by Belmont Tower books, and was later picked up by pulp specialists New English Library for the UK in 1977.

The novel plays on the urban myth of alligators living in the sewers of major cities – the same myth that would fuel the film Alligator a few years later in 1980 (to confuse the issue, there is also a novel called Alligator, by Shelly and Paul Katz, published in 1981, which is unconnected to the film).

The blurb for Croc states: “The crocodile was racing past him, and Reamers only had time to look up as the beast’s mouth opened wide, then closed with a sickening sound around the torso of one of the men.”

Like many books of this type, Croc is a fast paced, fairly trashy but an undeniably entertaining read.

DF

Tales of Horror and Tales of Mystery and Horror are audio books released on cassette in the UK. They feature stories by Edgar Allan Poe, read by Christopher lee.

Tales of Horror was first released in 1979 on the Listen for Pleasure label, which specialised in audio books at the time. Supplied on two cassette tapes, the packaging was an oversized, thick card cover with artwork based on The Pit and the Pendulum. The other stories included were The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado and The Black Cat.

Lee was the perfect choice for these stories, given them both a gravitas and a sense of the dramatic. For many younger British people, these tapes provided their first introduction to Poe’s writing.

This collection was popular enough to ensure a follow-up in 1985 – Tales of Mystery and Horror featured Lee reading Hop Frog, The Raven, Masque of the Red Death, The Tell-Tale Heart and Murders in the Rue Morgue (the latter story split into two parts).

While these and other audio books in the Listen for Pleasure series were hugely popular at the time, they have never been re-released on CD or MP3.

DF

Pinball machines as we now know them first appeared in the early 1930′s and almost immediately were seized upon as opportunities for branding and cash-ins of all shape and form, from sports to popular culture. Cutting through the chaff and whey to the 1970′s, the advent of solid state electronics and digital displays meant that already goggle-eyed youths could be even further entranced by a dazzling array of lights, sound and action. The ability to feature soundbites and effects from films and TV meant that the marriage of the Silver Screen and pinball was ripe for plunder, with horror films being an obvious target, the dark and dingy arcades being perfect to showcase both classic and modern monsters.

Although downloaded pinball games for phones and computers of all sizes have largely impacted the proliferation of these machines in very recent times, pinball machines decorated with classic horror icons continued to be manufactured well into the 2000′s and some of the machines are highly sought after by collectors, the rarest commanding prices of many thousands of pounds.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0VOoaK0msg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDYHzczMYqM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJ7A8PmXw4

Many thanks to Internet Pinball Database and Lost Entertainment for many of the images above.

Dogs is a 1976 American horror film directed by Burt Brinckerhoff and starring David McCallum, Sandra McCabe and George Wyner.

Plot:

On the quiet campus of the remotely-located SouthWestern University, something strange is happening. All of the dogs in the area, once loyal, gentle pets, are now banding together in wild packs and hunting down their former masters. Could the strange transformation have anything to do with the secret government experiements being conducted in the school’s physics laboratory? More importantly, can the dogs be stopped before it’s too late?

There was to be a sequel, appropriately entitled Cats. But when Dogs failed to bite at the box office, production was cancelled.

Buy Dogs on Blu-ray from Amazon.com

Reviews:

“While it’s far from being a classic of its genre, it has its moments in addition to some name stars among its cast. While The Pack (1977) is better, Dogs (1976) has the edge in the blood department. Although not a complete howler, I would only recommend it to ‘Animal Attack’ movie completists and for those wishing to see what familiar small screen stars were doing in between their TV tenures. Cool Ass Cinema

“Another area of unintentional laughter is the filmmaker’s choice in types of dogs to use. It is understandable that the intent of the movie is to show what family pet Fido can do when properly motivated (as in, altered by top-secret government gas). Instead of using the known intimidating breeds, like Rottweilers, Dobermans, or German sheppards, they opted to use friendlier looking dogs, mostly long haired ones, and the ones they have about as much capability of being threatening as do kittens. Fluffy dogs are not scary. ” Rock! Shock! Pop!

“The film does occasionally muster up some nice atmosphere, used most effectively in a sequence involving a posse vs. the pack. It’s also worth mentioning that we’re treated to some effectively eerie background baying here and there throughout the movie.Enough so that I almost forgot that the film I was watching wasn’t all that good. As for attack scenes and blood shed, the pooches rack up a nice body count tearing into any and everyone in their path, highlights being a full scale assault on a large group of college kids and a Norman Bates-esque shower scene with a young lady and a Doberman.” Horror News

IMDb

WH

Pop-Up Frankiestein was a plastic toy manufactured in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s by the Wilkin Toy Company of Hong Kong. Atop his turreted castle, Dr Frankenstein’s ghastly creation looms over all before him. The players of the game, up to three, take their trusty dagger (red, blue or green) and take turns in stabbing them into one of the slots in the body of the castle itself. All but one of these will result in nothing happening and it will then be the next player’s turn – eventually, an unlucky player will cause Frankie to leap alarmingly from his perch – as with most toys of the 60′s and 70′s, this could potentially lead to injury or heart failure.

A proud possession as a child, this game was not without its concerns. Any number of the 17 (quite sharp) daggers would end up down the back of the settee or fly up the hoover at some point, putting at least one player at an advantage. My memory will not allow me to confirm whether the idea was to cause the walking cadaver to leap off the building in a suicide attempt, or at you in devilish glee. The effect was the same – quite extraordinary alarm and fear, not least because the monster was made of quite significantly heavy plastic (about 4 inches high), coupled with a visage that was utterly malevolent. Whatever the game was, the fun element was curiously well-hidden. It only remains to point out the deliberate mis-spelling of the name – slightly before Universal was combating any number of copyright infringements against its large shark, Wilkin took no chances and renamed the famous monster in a manner that surely no court in the land would have a problem with.

Daz Lawrence

Thanks to posters on http://megomuseum.com and http://www.universalmonsterarmy.com for the pics.

Soil from Dracula’s Castle was a novelty sold by Warren Publishing, through ads in their magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland, Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella.

Launched to coincide with the ‘year of Dracula’ in 1979, this was a coffin shaped pendant on a chain that featured ‘authentic’ soil from Dracula’s castle. Except of course, the Dracula in question is a fictional character. It’s actually a bit of dirt taken from the castle of Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s character. Each pendant contained a gram of soil, and was probably a sure fire way of getting beaten up at school.

The ads state that “no mystic powers are claimed for this amulet” – quite the disclaimer – though it does suggest that it will make you the envy of fellow vampirians (a word that is not used enough).

Sold at $9.95 – no small price in 1979 – the piece was supposedly limited to 5000 editions, and came with a certificate of authenticity (who authenticated it, and as what, is unknown). The fact that it was still on sale two years later suggests that they weren’t exactly flying out. It is, of course, now a collectable item.

DF

While Intervision’s Ozploitation Trailer Explosion is ostensibly a companion piece to Severin’s Aussie horror Blu-rays, it’s real connection is to 2009 documentary Not Quite Hollywood – they’d make a great double package, if not double bill. If you were intrigued by that documentary and keen to explore Australian exploitation cinema of the 1970s and 80s – the country’s dirty little secret as it tried to convince the outside world that it was all Picnic at Hanging Rock and My Brilliant Career – then this will be the disc to either further that desire or immediately cure you of it. Certainly, while the documentary made all those movies look great, the 65 trailers included here are less persuasive – there’s a mix of movies that look astonishing, and movies that seem dull even when reduced down to 3 or 4 minutes of boobs and belching. At their worst, Ozploitation movies made German lederhosen sex comedies seem like Oscar Wilde plays.

The compilation is split into three sections: the first is sexploitation and ‘Ocker’ comedies, and this is probably the hardest work. After a little while, the relentless parade of movies where some charmless, ugly bloke is relentlessly perused by half-naked women all seems to blur into one nightmarish celebration of oafishness and awfulness. These are the films that rarely made it outside Australia and made no effort to have international appeal – even more ambitious globe-trotting movies like the Barry McKenzie films are little more than a series of crude nationalistic gags and laughing at foreigners. Other films, less well known titles like Plugg, The Box, The Great McCarthy and Stork seem even more painful, sometimes taking their cues (but seemingly none of the charm) from the likes of Brit schtick Confessions of a Window Cleaner, others going out of their way to appeal to ‘real men’…

More interesting are the sexploitation titles. Felicity was very much the Aussie Emmanuelle and is made to look astonishingly dull here, but odd VD drama The Love Epidemic (only in the 1970s could sexual disease be erotic), the bizarre glam rock film Oz, pseudo documentaries like The ABCs of Love and Sex Australian Style, American shot semi-porno movies like Fantasm (the trailer for which memorably opens with John Holmes getting out of the pool naked, which certainly made my viewing companions splutter) or the deranged looking Centrespread – combining science fiction and softcore – are all well represented. It never quite fails to impress when you see a trailer chock full of nudity, and there’s more flesh on display here than you’ll see in more trailer collections.

Section two features horror and thriller films, and it arguably the best part. Some of the trailers – Wake in Fright (as Outback) and Night of Fear in particular – are amongst the grubbiest, sweatiest you’ll see. Unsavouriness drips out of these trailers. There are promos for Patrick, Nightmares and The Survivor that make the movies look a lot more exciting than they actually are, while other well known films like Long Weekend, The Last Wave, Road Games, Harlequin, Snapshot and Dead Kids also turn up. There are some dull trailers for dull films (The Killing of Angel Street, Heatwave, Inn of the Damned) and oddball entries long overdue a decent release – Jim Sharman’s The Night The Prowler, for instance.

The final section features Cars and Action, and these might be the Aussie films you know best. There’s no Mad Max for whatever reason, but here you get the likes of Dead End Drive-In, Stone, The Cars that Ate Paris, Stunt Rock, BMX Bandits, Mad Dog Morgan, Midnite Spares and The Man from Hong Kong. More than horror or sex, big action films, usually taking advantage of the Australian landscape and featuring insane stunt work, are what most people might associate with Ozploitation, and with good reason. Stone remains the ultimate biker movie – the only one to match the delirium of the New English Library biker novels of the 1970s – Aussie car quake films remain impressive for their sheer verve, action levels and – in the case of films like Fair Game and Turkey Shoot – extraordinary moments of gleeful offensiveness.

By their very nature, trailer collections are always inconsistent, but this themed collection is a must, even if not every trailer or every film is any good. While there are some odd omissions, this is nevertheless a thorough and as definitive as you could hope for collection of Ozploitation. A film history lesson in a box, in fact. Any self-respecting exploitation movie lover should be snapping this up.

David Flint – Strange Things Are Happening

Buy Ozploitation Trailer Explosion DVD from Amazon.com

Vampyros Lesbos (Spanish: Las Vampiras) is a 1971 West German-Spanish horror film directed and co-written by Jesús Franco.It is, arguably, Franco’s best known film today, having reached a certain cult audience through the success of the mid 1990s soundtrack release, which became a favourite of the easy listening club scene of the time.

It stars Franco’s early 70s muse Soledad Miranda as Countess Nadine Oskudar, a beautiful female vampire who seduces her victims by performing a sensual and erotic nightclub act (a recurring theme in Franco’s films). She takes a fancy to American Linda Westinghouse (Ewa Strömberg) and makes her both a lover and a victim, appearing to her in a series of sexual dreams. When Linda travels to a remote island to claim an inheritance, she meets the Countess in the flesh and is soon under her spell. Dr Seward (Dennis Price, in a character reference to Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula) investigates her case, and on discovering the truth, attempts to use her to become a vampire himself.

Shot between June and July 1970 in Turkey, the film was one of Franco’s more successful films, both financially and artistically. Coming to the film straight from his most mainstream era (working with the likes of Harry Alan Towers on films like Count Dracula, Venus in Furs, The Bloody Judge and the Fu Manchu series), Franco at this stage seemed to reveling in a new sense of freedom. international censorship allowed him to explore erotic themes more openly, and his movies of the era – others include A Virgin Among the Living Dead and The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein – increasingly eschewed conventional narrative structure in favour of hallucinogenic and psychedelic imagery and music. This is cinema at its most free, and often feels closer to experimental arthouse production than conventional horror.

The lesbian theme as suggested by the title was something that had, only a few years earlier, been taboo in cinema, and Franco certainly exploits it in this film. However, it would be unfair to suggest that the film is soft porn, as has often been claimed. Rather, this is erotic horror, both elements complimenting each other.

The film would slip from public view by the 1980s, remembered only by Euro horror cultists. But it would have an unexpected revival in 1995, when the soundtrack album was released. In the mid 1990s, easy listening – or ‘loungecore’ – was the big thing amongst London hipsters, and soon spread across the UK and beyond.

The film’s score – Manfred Hübler, Siegfried Schwab and Jesús Franco (working under the alias of David Khune) was perfect for these clubs, offering a mix of the exotic and the kitsch. The album – originally released as 3 Films By Jess Franco and aimed squarely at soundtrack collectors – was repackaged as Vampyros Lesbos – Sexadelic Dance Party , and was a compilation of the albums Sexadelic and Psychedelic Dance Party, and featured music from three Franco  Vampyros Lesbos, She Killed in Ecstasy and The Devil Came from Akasava.

It was released by German cult soundtrack specialists Crippled Dick Hot Wax on CD and vinyl. In 2006, an extended version was issued as a double LP. In the UK, Redemption Films issued the film using the artwork featuring Soledad Miranda instead of their usual distinctive black and white covers, to capitalise on the popularity of the film.

CAST:

Ewa Strömberg as Linda Westinghouse
Soledad Miranda as Countess Nadine Carody
Andrés Monales as Omar
Dennis Price as Dr. Alwin Seward
Paul Müller as Dr. Steiner
Heidrun Kussin as Agra
Michael Berling as Dr. Seward’s assistant
Beni Cardoso as Dead woman (uncredited)
Jesús Franco as Memmet (uncredited)
José Martínez Blanco as Morpho (uncredited)

DF

Poor Albert and Little Annie is a 1972 psychological horror film directed by Paul Leder (A*P*E, Sketches of a Strangler, The Baby Doll Murders, Vultures) from a screenplay by William W. Norton (Day of the Animals). The plot concerns a violent sex criminal with a psychotic fixation on his mother. The film’s often inappropriate score was culled from the back catalogue of prolific TV composer Herschel Burke Gilbert (It Came from Beneath the Sea).

As far as promotion of this film is concerned, notice the early use of the “Don’t” tagline that would later become used many times in publicity and movie titles (and re-titles), plus the tweaks to the original threatening killer-behind-the-door artwork on subsequent releases.

During its 1974 US theatrical re-release by Europix as I Dismember Mama (a pun on the play I Remember Mama), moviegoers were given free promotional paper “Up-Chuck Cups”. An overlong and somewhat irritating trailer advertising ‘A Frenzy of Blood!’ double feature paired with 1972′s The Blood Spattered Bride was created in the style of a news report covering the “story” of an audience member who had allegedly gone insane while watching the two films. The mocked-up movie theatre apparently showing the co-feature has a marquee with Blood Splattered, as opposed to Spatted Bride. So much for the $16,000 allegedly spent on the trailer.

International titles for the film include Crazed; El Psicopata; Tras La Puerta del Miedo and La tentazione impure…

Plot:

Albert (Zooey Hall) has tried to kill his rich snobbish mother once, for which he was institutionalized. The low security hospital she has sent him to, however, isn’t prepared to deal with the extent of his problems. Obsessed with his own hatred for his mother, Albert is dangerously violent toward all women and attacks a nurse, after which his doctor decides to send him to a high-security state institution. Albert easily escapes by murdering an orderly, and the police put his mother in hiding after he phones her and threatens her. Unfortunately, when Albert returns to his mother’s home, he finds her housekeeper Alice (Marlene Tracy), whom he tortures and murders.

When Alice’s 9-year-old daughter Annie (Geri Reischl) returns home from school, Albert immediately takes a liking to her and he tells her that her mother has gone to the hospital and left him to take care of Annie while she’s away. Albert seems to revert to a childlike persona and they immediately form a friendship…

Reviews:

” … this attempt at pathos amidst bloodletting is feeble, misguided sentimentally.” John Stanley, Creature Features

” … the film’s centerpiece is Zooey Hall. His performance as Albert is as terrifying as David Hess from “Last House on the Left”, but Hall endows the character with a likable side too, which really makes it upsetting when he lapses into his deranged behavior. The scene where he threatens Alice and makes her strip is really scary because he is so calm and collected during the whole thing, but his explosive violence in the other murders is just as scary.” Groovy Doom

Wikipedia | IMDb

In 1972, Poor Albert and Little Annie was advertised by Europix distributors with the huge tagline: “Don’t Open That Door!”. This low-rent film subsequently became better known by its 1974 re-release title, I Dismember Mama, but the “Don’t” warning had already been unleashed…

Meanwhile, (perhaps alluding to the scene where Nurse Beale finds the bloody corpse of Dr. Stephens?), S.F. Brownrigg’s 1972 Texan-shot sanatorium insanity The Forgotten, was retitled Don’t Look in the Basement by Hallmark Releasing Corp and released via American International Pictures, the granddaddies of exploitation.

Hallmark were, of course, the unsubtle and gloriously gore-fiend purveyors of movie mayhem who had promoted Tombs of the Blind Dead and Mark of the Devil with vomit bags! The infamous “To avoid fainting, keep repeating, it’s only a movie…” tag line used for The Last House on the Left and deliberately generic artwork was already being exploited by this point.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a 1973 TV movie that built up such a cult following it was eventually remade by Guillermo Del Toro in 2011. The film focuses on a young housewife, played by Kim Darby, who unleashes a horde of goblin creatures from within a sealed fireplace in the Victorian mansion that she and her husband are restoring.

Don’t Look Now is Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 beautiful yet tragic story of guilt and the psychic fear of a murderous dwarf. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie are superb as the grieving parents and the alleyways and canals of Venice have never seemed so daunting.

Don’t Open the Window was an opportunistic, yet pointless, US re-titling of Spanish director Jorge Grau’s 1974 Let Sleeping Corpses Lie aka The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. The film’s intended American audience would perhaps have been more ‘open’ to a title that suggested a sequel to Night of the Living Dead, from which it was clearly and – agreeably – inspired?

Don’t Ride on (Late Night Trains) was a VHS sleeve retitle for a 1974 Italian locomotive-driven rehash of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left. Aldo Lado’s Night Train Murders is slicker and in some ways even bleaker and nastier than its inspiration, yet it lacks the intensity the former’s low budget brought to the proceedings. And let’s face it, there was only one David Hess!

Don’t Go Near the Park (also known as Curse of the Living Dead, Nightstalker and Sanctuary for Evil) is a 1979 American horror film (released September 1981) directed by Lawrence D. Foldes. The film gained notoriety when it was successfully prosecuted in the UK and placed on the video nasty list. It was the fourth “Don’t” film on the list. It does feature some rubbery cannibalism scenes and has the no-no of scenes showing children in peril but its general air of goofiness perplexed hardcore nasty fans looking for full blooded horror shocks. Apparently it was also trimmed to avoid an ‘X’ rating for its US theatrical release.

Don’t Open the Door was a 1979 re-title of S.F. Brownrigg’s third film – “a murder-mystery that’s a little less stifling than his prior work” – which had also been know as Seasons for Murder, The House of the Seasons, and somewhat ironically, as Don’t Hang Up.

Don’t Go in the House (originally titled The Burning, apparently) is a grim yet intense Psycho-inspired piece that also seems to vaguely question the validity of the 9 to 5 week-in, week-out existence amidst “mother”-influenced pyromania? It’s a thoroughly grubby yet rewarding slow-burner…

Don’t Go in the Woods (or – as on publicity material - Don’t Go in the Woods… Alone!) is a 1980 backwoods Bigfoot-style low-budgeter that revelled in cheap gore, leading it to appear on the British moral panic video nasties list. Cheap but thoroughly entertaining, this is the kind of over-the-top movie that trash fans still watch over and over, whilst the supposed terrors of hyped horrors such as The Blair Witch Project have faded into history.

Carlo Ausino’s 1982 Italian supernatural shocker La villa delle anime maledette was retitled Don’t Look in the Attic for it’s Stateside VHS release by Mogul.

Don’t Go to Sleep (1982) is another surprisingly memorable TV movie. A young girl begins seeing the ghost of her sister who died in an accident a year earlier. A good cast headed by Dennis Weaver, Valerie Harper and Ruth Gordon (Rosemary’s Baby) ensures that this creepy film still elicits unease.

Don’t Open Till Christmas is a sleazy British stalk ‘n’ slash entry that took more than a couple of years to complete before its 1984 release to a largely indifferent world: A murderer is running loose through the streets of London, hunting down men dressed as Santa and killing them all in different, and extremely violent, fashions. Inspector Harris has decided to take on the unenviable task of tracking down the psychopath, but he’s going to have his work cut out for him.

A year later, Dick Randall and Steve Minasian returned with another Ray Selfe concoction. Don’t Scream It’s Only a Movie! is a documentary tracing the history of horror films from the silent period to the splatter films of the 1980s. Introduced by genre icon Vincent Price, segments include ‘terror torture’ and naked fear. Naturally, this schlocky effort includes clips from many Randall productions: Crocodile, Pieces, Queen of Black Magic and, of course, Don’t Open Till Christmas.

Don’t Panic is the international title for the 1987 Mexican mayhem written and directed by Ruben Galindo Jr. A bizarre supernatural slasher the film throws in elements from 80s Elm Street hits and the ouija board trend that proliferated at the time. The shameless kitchen sink approach ensures that whilst viewers may be occasionally baffled, they are never bored.

Of course, the ultimate acknowledgement of this genre fixture title was Edgar (Shaun of the Dead) Wright’s comic trailer for a non-existent movie titled Don’t, as seen in Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse:(2007):

Winning first place at the 2010 Splatterfest Weekend of Mayhem short film competition, Joe Grisaffi’s Don’t Look in the Attic was created in a mere 54 hours. Very much like the 48 Hour Film Project, teams were given a character, a line of dialogue and a murder weapon. Grisaffi commented: “Ours were: A taxi cab driver, “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship” and a saw”.

In 2010, Vincent D’Onofrio’s Don’t Go in the Woods depicted an American rock band being offed in various ways. In an interview with Edward Douglas of Shocktillyoudrop.net, D’Onofrio spoke of how he had wanted to “make an absurd slasher musical”. Anyone watching this $100,000 oddity will wonder why the director and cast bothered to make anything…

Aforementioned 1973 TV movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was remade in 2011 with a budget of $25 million by Guillermo De Toro and a cast of famous names such as Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce but this special effects laden effort failed to capture the charm of its cheap inspiration and so garnered mixed reviews and audience indifference.

Don’t Move is an intense Evil Dead-influenced 2013 British short directed by Anthony Melton and written by David Scullion. Don’t Move is the 8th slice in Bloody Cuts’ anthology of short horror films, made by a young team of UK film-makers on low budgets.

Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

[N.B. Please let us know of any other uses of Don't, so we can expand this brief overview…]

We are grateful to the many people who have selfishly posted their non-copyrighted images for us all to share on the world wide web but especially Basement of Ghoulish Decadence. Big credit to Silver Fox for the lovely fake Don’t poster designs. If you wish to repost any images (or any of our own text) from Horrorpedia, please feel free. We’re grateful for a link tho…