'Don't Look in the Basement' is average low budget

Don't Look in the Basement (1973)
(aka "The Forgotten", "Death Ward 13" and "Don't Go in the Basement")
Starring: Rosie Holotik, Annabelle Weenick, Bill McGhee, and Gene Ross
Director: S.F. Brownrigg
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Beautiful Charlotte (Holotik) comes to work at the Stephens Sanitarium, hoping to be part of Dr. Stephens' revolutionary treatments for the mentally deranged. Soon after her arrival, terrible, violent events occur, and she starts to fear the insane are literally running the asylum.

"Don't Look in the Basement" is a cheaply made horror film that has "amateur" written all over it. The acting is about average for a low-budget horror flick, the camerawork is dodgy and the lighting even moreso. However, as the film unfolds, an evergrowing atmosphere of strangeness and dread start to fill it, and this helps overcome the shortfalls and draws the audience in.

The film is also helped by its straight-forwardness. It keeps to its mystery-oriented, proto-slasher movie plot, making some nice attempts to keep the audience from guessing what is really going on at Stephens Sanitarium but still playing fair with those who are paying attention. Entirely too many modern horror movies fail to properly set up their "suprise twists" in the third act; here, we are given all the clues up front to the true state of the asylum and its doctors, so when the Big Reveal happens, it doesn't feel like a cheat. Instead, for those who have been paying attention (or those who have seen waaaaay too many films of this genre), it's a satisfying one, and for those who haven't been, it's a shocking suprise that they will feel like they should have seen coming.

"Don't Look in the Basement" is a staple of the DVD horrror and thriller multipacks, and it should be considered a value-adding feature to any one it is included in. (I'm not sure I'd recommend getting it any other way, but it is a film that anyone thinking about making a slasher or mystery film should take the time to see. The plotting is well-deserving of being a textbook example.)

By the way, this was one of the 70+ movies that made up a list of movies banned in Great Britain (known as the "Video Nasties."

Kate Jackson provides chills in'Satan's School for Girls'

Satan's School for Girls (1973)
Starring: Pamela Franklin, Kate Jackson, Jamie Smith-Jackson, Lloyd Bochner, Cheryl Ladd, Jo Van Fleet, and Roy Thinnes
Director: David Lowell Rich
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

While searching for the truth about her sister's suicide, Elizabeth (Franklin) enrolls as a student at the all-girl boarding school she attended. The faculty and girls all seem friendly enough--especially insta-best-friend-on-campus Roberta (Jackson)--but with a title like "Satan's School for Girls", you gotta know there's witchcraft, evil rites, and guest lectures by the Horned One himself going on.


"Satan's School for Girls" is a better-than-average made-for-TV movie from the mid-1970s. Although uneven in its pacing (partly due to the constricting nature of broadcast TV and the habitual, barely veiled recapping of what's happened to catch up those who tuned in late), there is a nice aura of unease that hangs over the whole film, and it even manages to envoke a real sense of dread at several points. (The best of these is when Elizabeth heads into the main building's cavernous basement in search of clues.)

This could possibly have been a 7-Star film if not for the fact that it starts to fall apart in the third act. Up to that point, the filmmakers play a nice game of "maybe it is, maybe it isn't"... as in, maybe Satan WON'T be making an appearance in this film, despite the title. But then there's a really lame murder scene (where the victim could easily have simply reached up and grabbed at the girls who were poking at him with sticks, and thus made his escape), lots of over-the-top melodramatic acting, and an ending that is flat and unsatisfactory, because it's exactly what we expect it to be all along.

Despite its flaws, I think this film is enjoyable for those who like suspense and horror movies that are driven more by atmosphere than sex and gore. Fans of Kate Jackson (like yours truly) will also enjoy it, because she gives a fine performance.

'The Devil's Nightmare' is a dream of a horror flick

The Devil's Nightmare
(aka "Castle of Death", "The Devil's Longest Night" and "Succubus") (1971)
Starring: Erika Blanc and Jean Servais
Director: Jean Brismée
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A tour group (six travelers and their driver) who takes refuge in an isolated castle during a storm falls victim to the family curse of its owner, Baron Von Rhoneberg (Servais), as a succubus (Blanc) proceeds to kill them one by one after tempting them into performing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Will a young seminary student be able to save their souls, or will he too be tempted to sin?


"The Devil's Nightmare" is a nifty little film that meshes gothic horror and 1970s pop mysticism with great effect. While the actiing is terrible--with the exception of Erika Blanc (who shows herself to have an astonishing ability to transform her face from sexy to sinister with very little help from make-up and lighting), and Jean Servais (who in his relatively brief time on screen manages to present a character who is both sympathetic and monstrous)--and the dubbed dialogue is nothing spectacular, the swift pacing of the film, the clever deaths of the characters, and the curious, almost fairytale-like atmosphere that hangs over the proceedings easly make up for the film's shortcomings and make it a fun viewing experience.

Erika Blanc's revealing dinner/victim-stalking outfit is also a plus in the film's favor. :D

As with many of these European horror films from the 1960s and 1970s, there are several cuts available, often under the same title. The version watched for this review was released by Redemption and can be found in at least one DVD multipack from Brentwood ("Kiss of Death"). It includes a baby-stabbing scene and an extended bit of lesbian nookie which I don't recall from when I saw the film a few years ago. (And I'm pretty sure I would have remembered both of them.) As such, this is probably the best cut avaialable, and if you're interested in the film, it's the one you should seek out.

There's an odd little "extra" that's included on the Redeption and Brentwood versions. It's got an Elvira wanna-be and a pair of bare-breasted lesbian cannibals doing some sort of half-assed introduction--and it's so half-assed that a text screen eventually provides information about the film. While I suppose it might fill a need for boobage, I personally found myself shuttling past the nonsense to get to the movie.

Bava delivers stylish tale of gothic hauntings

Kill, Baby... Kill!
(aka "Curse of the Dead", "Don't Walk in the Park", and "Operation Fear") (1966)
Starring: Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Erika Blanc, Fabienne Dalin, and Max Lawrence, Valeria Valeri, and Giana Vivaldi
Director: Mario Bava
Steve's Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Dr. Paul Eswai (Rossi-Stuart) arrives to assist with a murder investigation in a remote village. He finds the place gripped in fear of some evil whose name they don't even dare to mention. Although he at first dismisses it as superstitious nonsense, Paul finds it increasingly difficult to deny that the town is being haunted by the ghost of a vengeful little girl (Valeri)... particularly after he and a young woman with a mysterious past (Blanc) become targets of the spirit's wrath. Will he discover the secret behind the hauntings before it's too late to save himself?


"Kill, Baby... Kill!" is an Italian production that has all the production values and moodiness of some of the best Hammer gothic horror films from the late 1950s and early 1960s. If it wasn't for the bizarre color schemes that director and cinematographer Mario Bava likes to use to light his sets--lots of reds and greens, even in outdoor night shots-- and a somewhat more ponderous pace throughout, one might mistake this film as coming from the hands of the likes of Terence Fisher.

The film has a decent cast, an engaging, convoluted story that keeps twisting and turning up to nearly the very last moment of the film, and a very creepy little girl ghost. (Yes, the stringy-haired Japanese ghost chicks weren't the first underage phantoms in skirts to massacre the fearful.)

On the downside, the film suffers from a pace that never quite gets to where it should be. Bava treats us to some great visuals but he goes overboard with them and they become drags on the film at several different times than mood setters... there's just a little too much calling attention to the tricks of the trade than simply applying them. (And here's where Fisher leaves Bava in the dust... he made gorgeous, moody pictures, but he never felt the need to call the audience's attention to his work... instead, we just absorbed the whole.)

Aside from Bava's cries for attention throughout the movie, the end also suffers from a touch of "deux ex machina". It's an ending that makes sense and which is well-founded in the events of the film, but I would have liked the hero and heroine to have been just a little more directly involved in the resolution. I can see the rationale for why they weren't--the fact that the village sorceress (Dalin) is ultimately the one who stops the ghost plays into the conflict between science and superstition that is part of the movie's core. However, I think the ending would have worked better if science and sorcery came together to resolve the curse that gripped the town.

(And, frankly, given the way the sorceress deals with the root of the problem, even Erika Blank's damsel-in-distress character could have played a part.)

Although flawed, "Kill, Baby... Kill!" is a decent ghost movie. Fans of European horror films from the '60s and '70s should enjoy it. Heck, the fans of stringy-haired Japanese ghost girls will find quite a bit to like in this film, too.

It's not much of a Christmas homecoming in'Silent Night, Bloody Night'

Silent Night, Bloody Night (aka "Death House") (1973)
Starring: Mary Woronov, James Patterson, Patrick O'Neal, Walter Able, Astrid Heeren, and John Carradine
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Jack (Patterson) moves to sell the mansion he inherited from his grandfather, a past believed to be dead and buried returns to haunt the living with furious, bloody vengeance. Poor Diane's (Woronov) Christmas gift list will be reduced to virtually no-one by night's end.


"Slient Night, Bloody Night" is not as overtly Christmas-themed as the title might imply, but it is a great little proto-slasherflick and quite possibly the first horror film to flirt with a holiday theme. (In fact, it might be more than a proto-slasherfilm. It's got all the elements that are present in "Halloween", except for fornicating teenagers. We do, however, get an cheating lawyer (O'Neal) and his horny secretary (Heeren).

The bodycount is low by modern slasher-movie standards, but every death is shocking and unexpected. Although I had a vague notion of what I was in for, the first murders took me completely by surprise.

It's a fast-moving film with a bare bones plot, although I wish it could have been a little less bare-bones. I'm still wondering why Jack had to "borrow" his lawyer's Jaguar when he appears in the story. How did he get to the mansion in the first place if he didn't have a car? I also feel that the framing sequence was an odd choice... telling the movie as a flashback undermines a bit of the suspense.

Still, as an example of a thriller/horror movie that was part of the cinematic evolution that led to the slasher flick subgenre, "Silent Night, Bloody Night" is far better than several of its contemporaries.