Post #795259 by howlinowl on Mon, May 20, 2019 7:05 AM

On 2019-05-08 11:22, HotelCharlieEcho wrote:
I recently watched a black and white schlock horror film called "Terror Is a Man" (Valiant Films, 1959) that turned out to be a densely-packed tikified romp weaving together a number of my favorite threads of early/mid-century pop-culture nerdiness.

To wit:

[SPOILER ALERT]

Universal Monsters: Check. This clearly isn't a genre defining film like the core Universal classics, but director Gerardo de Leon had obviously boned up on those films before making this one. The "mmmmaaaannnn...MMMMAAAANNNN" scene gave me goosebumps in the same way as "It's alive! It's alive!" We also get 1941 Wolf Man-esque scenes of the monster wandering through the jungle, and most of that wandering consists of limping around in bandages looking for all the world like the Mummy with funny ears. It even starts with one of those "It might even horrify you!" disclaimers, with the most objectionable scene preceded by the ringing of a bell (sidenote: does anyone else hear echoes of the "The Beachcomber will not serve more than two Zombies to each person" from early Don the Beachcomber menus?). The ending scene is straight off the pages of Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein novel. It's almost like they just mashed up all the classic monster movies they could think of (Cat People anyone?).

H.G. Wells Sci Fi: Check. The movie quite obviously belongs among the Island of Dr. Moreau adaptations, even if Wells is uncredited. In fact, I think it's one of the better adaptations, possibly even the best outside of Paramount's 1932 version. Terror Is a Man itself apparently spawned several sequels, which I can't wait to check out.

Pinup: Check. Greta Thyssen (former Miss Denmark 1952, who started her Hollywood career playing a Marilyn Monroe double) wasn't in danger of winning an academy award for this performance, but she definitely hit all the robotic-pinup-model-as-damsel-in-distress notes. Smoking.

James Bond: Quarter-check. For some reason, while watching Francis Lederer's performance I couldn't help thinking about Desmond Llewelyn's Q tinkering away down in the lab. Even had to google it to make sure it wasn't actually Llewelyn himself.

Hitchcock: Hitchcock? Hear me out. I'm going one-eighth check on Hitchcock, solely because of the shadowy bird specimens in the mad doctor's office. Watch the scene and try not to think of Anthony Perkins in the hotel office in Psycho.

Tiki? Oh yeah, tiki. I'm going three-quarter-check here. It's set on an imaginary Pacific island and filmed in the Philippines, so the setting is right. And most of the interior sets include Paul Frankl style rattan furniture, some obviously Pacific-island influenced (PNG? Philippines? not sure) shields and weapons scattered about as décor, and nicely done bamboo/lauhala construction. But the kicker is this little guy:

Does he remind anyone else of the Suffering Bastard? Kinda hard to tell from this angle, but he's in that distinctive sitting/squatting, elbows-on-knees pose.

To be clear: This is not an objectively good movie, and one you will only enjoy if you like mid-century sci-fi schlock mashed up with tropical/Poly-pop setting and décor. Lederer's performance is head and shoulders above the rest, but otherwise the acting is average to poor. The cinematography was at times excellent, and at other times had me scratching my head. The sound editing is very bad (the "crashes" of lightning made me laugh out loud). It succeeds, if at all, only in achieving that same sort of vague gothic dread the best old horror movies induce. You will only "like" it if you enjoy similar campy old horror films right on the edge of taking themselves too seriously (think "Island of Lost Women" with a monster, or "From Hell It Came" with a slightly less ridiculous monster).

[ Edited by: HotelCharlieEcho 2019-05-08 13:52 ]

He's probably a Bulul. Guardian of the rice crops of the Ifugao tribes of Luzon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulul

howlinowl