Shameless Self Expression

Peter Van Eyck devised a way to murder his wife. He drugs her, gasses the room, seals it up, hides under the floorboards and uses a snorkel attached to air pipes to that he can breathe. When the body is eventually discovered and police see that the house has been locked from the inside with no signs of anyone else around? The crime is judged to be suicide. Van Eyck can emerge from his hiding spot at a convenient time and walk away unscathed. However, his young stepdaughter (Mandy Miller) already suspects Van Eyck of having killed her father some time ago and is determined to prove him guilty of this crime as well. Betta St. John plays Miller’s governess who falls under the charming Van Eyck’s spell, whilst Gregoire Aslan plays the police inspector who dismisses the child’s accusations.   Based on a story by character actor Anthony Dawson (co-star of “Dr. No” and “Dial M For Murder” ), this is essentially a Hammer version of Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” . A nifty 1958 crime...

Paranormal psychologists (including Charlie Spradling) converge at a hotel in Bodega Bay after hearing about the events of the first film. Unsurprisingly, Andre Toulon’s living puppets don’t take kindly to visitors and start bumping them off. Nita Talbot plays a psychic, and Steven Welles eventually turns up as a heavily-bandaged man who claims to have inherited the hotel. He allows them to stay through their investigations, but won’t allow them into his quarters. George ‘Buck’ Flower and Sage Allen play a couple of elderly farmers.   Full Moon’s resident FX guy David Allen ( “The Primevals” ) takes the helm for this 1990 sequel to the film that helped build Charles Band’s other company after the end of Empire Pictures. Although most reviews state that Allen wasn’t up for the task of directing, I actually think this one’s ever-so slightly better than the first film. Basically “Prince of Darkness” with puppets, it’s essentially the same film done marginally more effectively, w...