THE MONSTER CLUB
UK, 1980, 104 minutes, Colour.
Vincent Price, John Carradine, Anthony Steel, Roger Sloman, Barbara Kellerman, Simon Ward, James Lawrenson, Donald Pleasence, Richard Johnson, Britt Eklund, Stuart Whitman, Leslie Dunlop, Patrick Magee.
Directed by Roy Ward Baker.
There was a song called ‘The Monster Mash’. This film could have been called The Monster Mash. It is a camp presentation of three horror stories. However, with tongue in cheek and the sometimes odd and comic performances of the stars, it does not succeed as horror. It is also punctuated at great length with a great number of 70s-style songs played by bands in the Monster Club. This may help fans of the music of the period but probably alienates the horror fans – and it is quite something to see Vincent Price and John Carradine swaying and rocking to the songs in the finale of the film.
The film was based on stories by R. Chetwynd -Hayes. He is portrayed in the film by John Carradine who encounters a benign vampire, played by Vincent Price, who admires his stories and invites him to the Monster Club. This is the setting for three stories. The first one starring James Lawrenson as a mutant has Simon Ward and Barbara Kellerman trying to rob him. He falls in love with the woman who comes pretending to be his assistant. He has a deadly power, able to kill objects with a whistle.
The second story is a parody. Anthony Steel appears as a film producer and his name, Lintom Busotsky, is an anagram of the producer of the film’s name, Milton Subotsky. The film shows his childhood with Britt Eklund and Richard Johnson as his parents. Richard Johnson is obviously enjoying himself acting and sending up the vampire. Donald Pleasence also enjoys himself, first posing as a benign priest picking up a little boy but really trying to track down the vampire since he is the chief of the squad. However, as he kills the vampire, he himself is bitten and has to be despatched by a stake. The irony of the film is that the vampire is not dead and has been wearing a stake-proof vest.
The third story is probably the most effective in terms of horror. Stuart Whitman portrays a film director who goes to a location in the British countryside and finds a village full of ghouls, led by Patrick Magee. They terrorise him and eventually he escapes with Magee’s daughter, Leslie Dunlop, who had a mother from the outside. As he asks the police to help him, they drive him back to the village.
The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker who began directing British films with thrillers in the 1940s like The October Man, had some time in the United States with Don’t Bother To Knock (with Marilyn Monroe) and Inferno. He had some good films on his return to England like A Night to Remember but directed a lot of horror films in the 1960s and 70s. Asylum and Vault of Horror were compendium horror stories far superior to The Monster Club.
1.For horror fans? For music of the 70s fans? How well did the two strands combine in The Monster Club?
2.The settings, the London streets, the club itself? The array of characters, their masks, representing mutants and horror characters? The secretary of the club as a werewolf? The contrast with the locations for the stories: the country mansion, the London flat? The London settings of the 60s and 70s for the film producer’s childhood? The realism of this episode? The contrast with the eerie village of the ghouls?
3.The role of the music, the songs, the lyrics, the emphasis on horror themes?
4.Vincent Price as the benign vampire, inviting the author to the club, John Carradine as the author? Their sitting in the club, observing people, Vincent Price telling the stories? Their dancing at the end?
5.The story of the plan to rob the Shadmok? The genealogy of horror characters and the intermarriage and interbreeding? Raven, his appearance, living alone, his wealth? George and Angela and their plan? Angela going for the interview, her returning, persuaded to go, working with Raven? Her tenderness towards him? George turning her against Raven? Raven’s wealth, the jewels, the safe? Raven and his proposal? Angela’s acceptance? The engagement party, the masks, her dancing with all his relatives? Her going to the safe, robbing him? Her being caught? Raven and his love for the pigeons, killing the cat with the whistle? Angela and her being deformed by the whistle, returning to George, his going into shock?
6.The story of the film producer, his manner, his reminiscences, showing the film, as a boy, an ordinary English schoolboy, bullied at school, the long jump and his going into the mud, rescued by the clergyman? The irony of the clergyman being a policeman, following him home, getting the information about his father? The domestic sequences, his mother and her being blonde, Swedish? The father and the boy asking him about his job, his ironic explanations, his manner, going out into the dark, getting theatre patrons as his victims? Returning home to sleep? The squad coming into the house, the boy having seen his father in the basement? The confrontation, the stake through the heart, the vampire biting the policeman, his assistants having to kill him? The irony of the stake-proof vest?
7.The film director, his assistant, getting the locations, driving to them, discovering the village, going through the smoke? The ghouls? His trying to settle in, their converging on him, his resisting them, moving through them? His meeting Luna and her explanation that she was only part ghoul? The attempts to rescue him? His discovering the documents, the explanations about the village? His escape in the car using the cross? Luna being struck by the stone and dying? His hailing the police, their driving him back into the village, their being ghouls?
8.How satisfactory this selection of stories? And the spectacle of Vincent Price and John Carradine dancing at the end in the Monster Club?
