My latest triple feature of movies in my collection spans decades and subgenres. Let’s take a look.
I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE (1958)
Before The Stepford Wives, there was this delicious little black and white sci-fi flick about body-snatched husbands. With plenty of themes that were ahead of their time, this film makes the point that even when taken over by aliens, men are cold-hearted, aloof, violent assholes that manipulate women, imprison women in marriage, and struggle to come to terms with their feelings.
The night before his wedding, some dude leaves his bachelor party and gets taken over by a freaky alien on a deserted road. Right after he gets married, he starts to infect more and more men with his alien smoke screen. Hot.
His young wife immediately recognizes that something is wrong with him. She gets him a dog, and the fucker kills it! Dog death in a horror movie in the 1950s! There’s also…a cat kill! WTF?
Anyway, the bride dooms all female decisions in horror movies for years to come by following her man into the woods when he sneaks out of the house at night. She sees plenty of evidence to conclude that he’s an alien. But no one believes her, especially the men…because they’re all being turned into aliens, too!
At the same time, it’s one giant leap forward for womankind thanks to a strong feminist friend character who makes a comment to the wife that them being alone together will look “funny”, and describes getting married as having her power taken away.
Aside from eerie 50s sci-fi alien effects, there’s an early form of a chase scene in the woods, suggestive bar banter, a fricking drunken whore, and a very sexy scene of young people lounging on each other in the park. We even get alien laser guns.
The best news is that the canine kingdom eventually gets revenge on the aliens for what they did to that one pup.
THE OMEGA MAN (1971)
As I’m watching all my movies from A though Z, I came to The Omega Man and realized I’d never covered it, so here goes.
Yet another adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend novel, The Omega Man is a much different movie than Vincent Price’s The Last Man On Earth. To me it’s very reminiscent, ironically, of Beneath the Planet of the Apes from a year before, which ironically features an appearance by Charlton Heston, who stars in this movie.
Sci-fi really never goes out of style as it seems to always capture elements of future realities. The Omega Man involves the concept that germ warfare between Russia and China led to the virtual elimination of human existence.
However, Charlton Heston’s character, a former military man, has survived and seems to have immunity to the virus after injecting himself with an experimental vaccine. He lives an isolated existence in the remains of a large city, and talks to himself and mannequins to keep from going crazy due to lack of companionship.
Meanwhile, there is a cult of infected humans still around. They are albinos that wear hooded robes and sunglasses as protection against the light. They think Heston is the root of all evil (religious themes are embedded in the plot), and that he is going to be the death of them if they don’t do something about him.
This is more an action film than a horror movie, but it doesn’t have much to offer in terms of action either. Even with their zombie eyes revealed, the cult members simply aren’t scary, and the action consists mostly of car chase scenes. The ideas presented are cool, but the movie suffers from that hokey early 1970s vibe. The real highlight in terms of breaking cinematic ground is that Heston eventually encounters a Black woman (in a cool mannequin scene) and begins an interracial relationship with her.
CURSE OF THE BLUE LIGHTS (1988)
This little indie was released just as the glory days of 80s horror were coming to an end and every direct-to-video movie was basically crap.
There’s so much promise in the opening scene. This fantastic scarecrow kill in a field delivers in-your-face camerawork. I can’t fathom how someone could deliver a scene like this and follow it up with the hokey underground ghoul clan horror flick this becomes.
A group of kids goes to park in a hot spot swirling with a supernatural reputation.
Sadly, the truth is that well-dressed, talking ghouls live under a nearby cemetery and are hatching a plan to revive a demon. Ugh. This is just so bad.
The kids happened to have found the one relic the ghouls need to complete the ritual. A witch woman the kids consult gives them pointers on how to combat the inevitable, devastating ritual.
The kids end up underground fighting the ghouls.
Meanwhile, zombies crawl from the graves up above. And finally, the demon is resurrected and the kids have to escape that as well.
Cheesy music, no suspense or scares, and no gore is what you can expect. In fact, the two best, brief, gory moments are only watchable in the bonus features on the Blu-ray and sourced from an old videotape.
