In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss “Assignment Terror,” a 1970 Spanish-German-Italian production full of vampires, werewolves, the monster of Farancksalan, an undead mummy and a fiendish alien plot. It’s one of the many Paul Naschy werewolf movies and it also stars Michael Rennie in his final performance.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And Hey, folks, if I sound a little bit different than usual today, that is because I am recording not from my usual location, but from a top secret secondary location that may or may not be uh the dungeon underneath a German monastery that's full of battle axes and and plate armor for some reason. Or it also may or may not be the basement of my parents house. Well, I mean, you sound fine online, so I imagine it's going to sound fine for the listener as well. Here. Okay, I just didn't want anybody thrown off or or thinking I've made a permanent switch to a different microphone or room or whatever. But before we got going here, we were indeed talking about the room I'm in is just covered in the posters that I thought were cool in high school, a solid majority of which have Jim Morrison on them. Well, you also have the uh the Monty Python um poster on on the wall there from the Monty Python the Holy Grail. That's still cool. I think that that still holds up and which Rob initially thought was a family portrait. Well, I couldn't see all of it. Your head was blocking part of it. So I just saw sort of half of Eric Idol's face, the big mustache, and I was like, could be as like seventies early eighties family photo. Could be an album cover I'm not recognizing. But then yeah, when you moved your head, it was clear it was Monty Python. I could see it. Yes, Eric Idle could well be my um my wild West outlaw grandpa. Well, we we have a pretty fun movie to talk about this week. We're returning once more to the exciting world of Spanish B movies, and this one's also a true monster fest or real real monster slabber knocker here, except you're not getting the universal monsters of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and the Mummy. No, you're getting Count Janos. You're getting the monster of Frankle. I Gains. I'm not even sure if I'm saying this right for wrong Salon. I think yes, for wrong Salon's monster you don't want You can't call him for wrong Salon. He's for Salon. You can call him for Salon. It's okay. But there's more. There's Taletet the Mummy, and then there is the Werewolf, Count Valdemar Danyinsky. What a cast this is? Now? How could you fit all of these classic monsters into a film unless it also had Abbott and Costello in it. Well, yeah, the the alchemy of this film is going to be kind of fun to discuss. But the result is Assignment Terror, which comes out in nineteen seventy also known as The Monster Years of Terror. That's the direct translation of the original Spanish title Los Monstros Still Terror. It's a Spanish, German, Italian co production. It came out under various names. I heard that the original screenplay had the title Operation Terror, and I think in Mexico was released as as the Spanish of Operation Terror. But it also had a number of other release titles, which is pretty standard of the day, including um some releases that promoted it as Dracula Versus Frankenstein. Yes, there is a an off brand Dracula. There is an off brand Frankenstein in this film, but they never fight each other. They're on the same team. Yeah, that's true. I think it was also somewhere called Frankenstein versus The blood Sucker Did I read that right? I think probably so. Yeah, and uh that that also is not accurate. But they have very different energies, but they're both bad guys. Though there is a monster on monster combat, yes, but it's just it's just not that matchup. It's ultimately were Wolf versus everybody. I think that's right. Yeah, And and I believe also didn't this film in a way give rise to a series or other sequels that were more focused on the Wolfman as a hero. Wait, we just went off Mike to look up whether what I said was correct. It was not correct. This is the third in a series of like a dozen movies that are all Paul Nashy centric, and they're of a very hairy persuasion. Yes, Paul Nashy playing this were wolf character, the doomed Count Valdemar Deninski. It's very much based on the the energy of the old universal Wolfman movies, the old Lawn Cheney Junior stuff, which Paul Nashy apparently just really idolized, looked up to to this man and looked up to these films and channel that in his performance and in his writing of these various pictures. But they're not a continuous narrative either, like you don't need to you don't need a set all in and start watching the dozen or so count Valdemar Dninsky uh films. I think you can jump in wherever you want and sort of make your choice based on how weird that particular picture is, because they seem to get pretty weird that I have not seen, uh any of the other ones yet, but they vary greatly. Some I think are more traditional sort of universal esque gothic horror films about a doomed werewolf character, but there are others where he like travels to like China, into beet and battles other monsters or encounters martial arts. The werewolf goes West. Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of places that a werewolf on the run can go to. Uh So, what would you would you say for elevator pitch? It's something like Assignment Terror is a film in which aliens from the planet Umo decided to conquer the weak, pathetic, emotional, impulsive Earthlings by resurrecting store brand versions of the universal monster movies Monsters. Yeah, pretty much. This is not Plan nine from outer Space, but I'm guessing this might be Planned ten or perhaps Plan eight. I'm not sure where this particular plan falls into place, but yeah, it seems to revolve around unslaying famous monsters, and if memory serves there, they at least make passing reference to a plan to sort of combine elements of them to make like an army of super monsters that will conquer the planet for them. But we never get to that point where you have like even a prototype for our heroes to battle, which I assume that's where they wanted to go, and maybe the budget wasn't there. This film has at least seventeen unfired Tchehov's guns. It has Chekhov's golem, which is never delivered upon the There's tons of stuff like that, just sort of an issue that's raised and then forgotten about another thing. I wonder what you think about this, Rob I detected a critique in which Assignment Terror is actually a film attacking certain types of meritocracy narratives by ironically contrasting the aliens in this movie, giving these incessant, smug monologues about their superior worthiness and intellect and compared to the humans, their relative lack of impulsiveness and emotion, and contrasting that with scenes of those same aliens getting killed by Frankenstein because oops, they had a crush on somebody. Yeah, I think that's a that's a good read on what's happening in the film. It it's it is hard to hard to drill down to the core of what Paul Nashy, who not only stars in it but also wrote the screenplay, was really going for here other than you know, clearly there's a lot of love for monsters and monster movies and uh. And it has been pointed out, including pointed out by film historian Troy Howarth in the commentary track for the Blu Ray edition that I watched for this from Scorpion Releasing, Like he really points out that Paula actually, along with O Sario and Jess Franco, it was really kind of a profit of horror in Spain at the time. Like he was basically a voice, a creator and actor at the time coming into Spanish cinema granted at up at a B or lower level and saying monster movies, horror, this is what we need. These are amazing things. We need them, and uh, into a certain extent, maybe it's Spain was perhaps not ready at the time yet, but eventually they received the message and embraced it. So much like this film might not have been made under ideal conditions, I also watched it under non ideal conditions. Normally I would try to, you know, for a for a weird house movie, I try to put it on the big screen if possible. But I watched this one on an iPad on a bed at my in law's house during baby nap time. But nevertheless, I could tell that this movie is a jolly good time and should become a staple of Halloween. Goof reels the world around. Multiple times, I accidentally woke my baby up with my laughter. Well that that in and on itself is kind of terrifying, but also good good sign on the laughter side there. I mean, she got right back to sleep. It was okay, But I mean it was that kind of viewing experience. Yeah, it's a it's a fun flick. It uh it it holds up pretty well. It's it is better than some reviewers would have you believe. I think. I before we actually watched it, I'd run across some reviews who maybe, um, uh, you know, heaped a little bit too much dirt on it, and we're a little too quick to dismiss it. I mean, yeah, it's a it's a lower budget picture, but there are many ways in which they seem to do a really good job with their limited resources. So it's it's it's very watchable and also, I guess kind of shocking for some for a picture from this time period and and from the sort of the B cinema horror world. It's not really graphic or anything. There's some there's some bloody scenes in there, but nothing too bad. We've we've definitely seen worse on the show. Uh Yeah, as far as the blood goes, it's very catchup level. It's it's not anything too convincing. Yeah, one more thing I wanted to say about this movie for a non alien, non monster psychatronic element to discuss, can we give a nod to the interior decor in Assignment Terror? I was so I was watching it with Rachel and she could not help but observe the pattern of interiors of people's homes with wallpaper on every surface, including the ceilings. Ceiling wallpaper with chaotic or disorganized color schemes that that don't really match one another. It was disorienting at times. Yeah, there's some wild wallpaper and in general indoor decor in this in this particular film. Yeah. Also there's a great go go club where the walls are just out of this world. Uh. And it made me think also about I mentioned this earlier, but the fact that the Aliens take up residence in what is repeatedly called a monastery. But it's just like it's like a castle. It's full of suits of armor and battle axes. Yeah, I noticed. I ended up doing this thing where on the Blu ray, the Scorpion releasing Blue Ray, which again is really great. Um, you had the choice of watching it in Spanish with English subtitles or English dubbing. Uh. And I went with the English dubbing, but I used the subtitles as well. And if the subtitles were different, because it's you know, it's it's not all interconnected there of course, And so the subtitles were saying castle and the dubbing was saying monastery. So I don't know which is is true or to the original. I see a question about your viewing experience. I wonder if there are different versions of this, uh this out there right now? On mine, I would call the editing rather choppy. There were a lot of moments where the film would cut before the sound would change, or something like a sound from our previous scene continues into the new scene, or it would or there would be a cut right in the middle of a musical theme without the melody resolving. M hmm. I don't know. I didn't notice anything that jarring in my viewing of it, but but I was also taking more notes than usual during it. So except for the final twenty minutes of the picture, in which case I set the computer aside and just settled in for the monster battle. But no, I thought they might have cleaned it up a bit on this, because this is a pretty pretty good look. It's a very colorful film. Um it's I mean, it's not a Mario Baba picture by any stretch of the imagination. But there's some fun gaels and there are some nice colors in the Mad Science labs. There's some great scenes of uh, you know, some some various towns and locations in I think mostly in Spain, but also a little bit in Germany. And uh, it's it's a pleasant picture to look at it. It doesn't it doesn't look as cheap as perhaps it might. Have been. Oh and speaking of location, yeah, the castles are also really great. Um there are a lot of these, like ruined cathedral, ruined castle, set slash locations, and in many respects they look a lot like the very same locations you see in other Spanish horror movies like two of the Blind Dead movies and um um horror Rises from the Tomb. But they look really good. And I'm not entirely clear on the science of applying fake spider webs to things, but boy did they apply some fake spider webs in this movie, and that the results look pretty darn good. They lay it on thick. Yeah. Uh. So I mentioned the commentary track by a Film and Story and Troy Howarth, and I want to point out just a few other little points that he makes. It's this is a guy who's has written, I believe, a whole book on Paul Nashy, so he's perhaps the uh the English language expert on the man. But a couple of things that he pointed out that I thought we'd rather telling with this film. So first of all, this is a film that you don't have to be a film historian or even an expert in genre to realize that it has a bit of a crisis of identity. There parts of it that feel more like a universal horror movie knockoff. There are other parts that feel more like a like a police thriller, spy movies sort of a thing. Uh, you know, kind of late sixties Bond sort of stuff. And according to Howard, part of that is because Spain wasn't really ready for horror yet. So again, Nasci, oh Sario Franco would all be three key players and bringing about the Spanish horror scene. But it's telling that so much of the film keeps switching back to non horror fare. So things get a little monstery, but then they get kind of super villainy again, or then they get You spent a lot of time with the investigators in the film that are just kind of living bondesque lifestyles as they investigate missing persons cases. Yeah, there are a lot of non monster scenes that could be from Danger, Diabolic or something. Yeah. Uh, and I thought those were pretty fun too. Earthmen describes them as sort of less exciting and maybe kind of bringing the engagement down a bit, but I have they were pretty fun. He also points out that Nashi was a huge fan of ninety three, Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, and that's heavily reflected in the film. There's a vampire side show bit that apparently is right out of House of Frankenstein. He also points out the most of its filmed in Spain, but some shots are in Germany. Again, it was a Spanish, German, Italian production, and this was really interesting. He points out that it's set in Germany and at the time it was actually forbidden for Spanish horror movies to be set in Spain. It had to be somewhere else. In Germany was often a good pick because you know, there's a certain Gothic um allure to German settings with horror stories like this, and also German money was often involved in the productions, so they're it was, you know, a shoe in to to get some maybe even get some some actual locations in Germany. But this reminds me of how films like Return of the Blind Dead, which we previously covered on Weird How Cinema. I believe that film was set in Portugal and it wasn't the lorialized grasps that in Germany. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That was supposed to be a German horror story set in a German locale. So that's a funny regulation. Like it was sort of a type of censorship law. And it wasn't that you can't make horror movies. It was just like you can't set them in Spain. Yeah, like we're not saying that horror doesn't exist, but just not within the borders of Spain. Oh. You could almost take a weird nationalist interpretation on that, like horror only takes place elsewhere. Yeah, monsters only exist in other countries. Al Right. Well, on that note, let's go in and hear some of the trailer audio for Assignment Terror m whom more two or six calling Earth reply, Please contact made Kirian DNA surgeon killed in war action, Malabor Cheirstein, doctor of biochemistry killed in automobile accident. Both persons have required characteristics and have been incarnated by our envoys. They will contact you. Remember, success of mission depends on exploiting to the whole the superstitions prevalent among the Earth creatures. The first objective is blushed at fairground. M m m m m M. Now I think that had a little bit of a groovy music that will refer back to in it there. So this is again, this is a picture that is and you see it reflected in the score. At times the score is very spooky and scary and kind of gothic. But other times it cuts loose and it's a little bit groovy. It's a little you know, it's a go go dancers and and so forth. It's my happening baby, and it freaks me out. All right, let's start talking about some of the folks involved in this. At the top, we have the credited director of Tulio di Michelle, who lived nineteen fourteen through nine Argentinian born Spanish director, writer and film producer. He directed and wrote I Think a Good sixty films from nine seven and is veryently best known for his work in tango films. Um and worked with some major tango stars of the Golden Age of Argentine cinema, such as uh Tita Morello. Uh Tango of course as as a dance style, and it originated in the Rio de la Plata region on the border of Argentina and Uruguay during the late nineteenth century. And I have to admit, like tango cinema is not something that I had any familiarity with or even really knew was a thing. But it makes sense given you if you have any kind of popular craze, if it is occurring, deering or in close proximity to the age of cinema, somebody's gonna say, hey, we can do a movie about that. Sure. So a lot of the bigger films that Di michelle was involved with were either tango films or they were serious Golden Age dramas, but he seems to have dipped his toes into various genres over the years, including westerns, swashbucklers, thrillers, and comedies. But if I'm not mistaken, this may be the only film he worked on that could be described as sort of a pure horror slash science fiction property to the extent that it is, because again, it's also kind of confused and exactly what it is. Yeah. It's also worth pointing out that there are additional names that are mentioned as having some sort of hand in directing this picture, all of them uncredited on the the initial release. Argentine director Hugo freganas a, Spanish director Antonio Saucy says Mindy, and German producer er Hard Mischner Uh they all have uncredited um directing mentions on IMDb, with south as Mendy noted as having actually finished the film. There were allegedly a lot of production problems due to financial difficulties, which also impacted their ability to bring what sounds like a pretty loaded script to life. Uh. The original screenplay apparently had golems and flying saucers in it, in addition to all the other fantastic elements that are already present. I think they basically told the screenwriter, Hey, go go nuts, have a great time. We've we've got we've got all the money in the world to make this film, and just go ahead and write it. However your heart pulls you. But I feel like they didn't even go back and and correct for that in post because I mentioned the mini unfired Chekhov's guns in this One of them is the golem. We're giving a full set up with like a page in a book that displays the golem, like along with all the other pages of the monsters we're gonna meet. So we're promised to golem, and then there's just no golem. It's never never mentioned again. Yeah, And then I wonder how much of it is is that? And how much of it is is budget cuts and then how much of it is the screenwriter just bringing a lot of zeal and a lot of ideas to the table, because again, it's a movie that has like four monsters, aliens, various murders and kidnappings, and there's a lot to work with here. Well, they could have at least gone back and scrubbed that out of the scene, like cut before he turns to the golem page. I don't know, Yeah, yeah, I agree. So the screenplay writer here is also Paul Nashy. I can't remember if we've mentioned that already, but yes, Paul Nashy wrote it, uh screenplay and story, and he plays the werewolf Valdemara Denyinsky in this. Uh yeah, this is the legendary Paul Nashy lived nineteen through two thousand and nine. Paul Nashy is both a beast and a machine. You know how there's like the classic uh tales, Tales of struggle. You know, you have man versus nature and man versus the machine. Paul Nashy is all three of those things. Yeah, he is. Ah, He's a fascinating figure, a fascinating cinematic presence. This is only the second film of his that we've talked about, the other being the ninety three film Horror Rises from the Tomb, in which he plays an undying beheaded wizard, and and in that he has a lot more screen time. He has far more opportunity to really chew the scenery. In this film, he's one of several monsters he doesn't have as much screen time. Uh, and he only has a few scenes where he really gets to break out and bring all the emotion, often when changing into a werewolf. Oh and by the way, if you're trying to picture it, this is not the American werewolf in London, long snout, dog like werewolf. This is the classic universal style werewolf, the lawn Cheney junior style werewolf. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean that's where Paul Nashy's heart was, and so that's the sort of where wold if you see with Count Valdimerica Ninsky, who again pops up in a good dozen films over the years. Um, we we talked about Paul Nashi a good bit on the Horizon from the Tomb episode. I'm not gonna go through all of it again, but yeah, basically have a guy that was born into a pretty successful Furrier's family during the UH during the Spanish Civil War, and initially he was going to pursue a serious adult life of professional weightlifting and architecture, but deep down he wanted to be the Wolfman. He'd seen Um Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman at a very early age and apparently had a huge impact on him. He idolized Lon Cheney Jr. And his career as a result of of that long and I remember thinking in hor Rizes from the Tomb that he also, uh, he sort of wrote the movie as a showcase for his own coolness, like this is a movie about how Paul Nashy is awesome. Yeah. Well, he did play three characters in that movie, yes, uh yeah yeah, and several of them he gets to show off his muscles pretty good. Paul Nashy is buff. But another thing I had question about, what do you think it means that Paul Nashi spent his life wanting to be Lawn Cheney Jr. And wanting to play these werewolf characters and he came from a Furrier family. Mm hmmm. I'm I'm assuming that's something that that people like ho Earth have have explored. I mean, there's just there seems like there's some sort of connection there. Yeah. So he spends his childhood, uh you know, walking through the shop rubbing on these animal furs and either thinks I could be this further, this fur could cover me, I could be the wolfman, or thinks I could be the creature that hunts these animals in the wild. Yeah. So again in this film, he's he's not the main character, but he's still he was able to ride himself a number of cool parts. He got his stuff in for sure. Now, Uh, the top build actor and that's probably the at the time. Certainly the most famous actor in this film is Michael Renny who lived nineteen o nine through one. He plays our chief um antagonist. I guess, uh, dr Odo Vornoff. He in this movie is kind of like a cross between Grand mof Tarkin and King Charles of England. Yeah, except he's also an alien and I wasn't sure on this. Is he also an alien that's stolen a dead man's body? Yes, that's correct. Yes, The main two aliens in this film are somehow like aliens psychic projections that inhabit the resurrected corpses of Earth scientists, which is you know you're gonna I'm gonna do it. That's that's a pretty good way to do it, less paperwork that way. So like they refer to this character as Dr Vornoff, which a little side note at the second possible Edwood connection. So the plot of this film is in a way a redo of Plan nine from outer space. You know, aliens are going to resurrect the dead or monsters to it act the living, and that's part of their envisioned plan. The other thing is the main alien is named Dr Vornoff, which is Bella Legosi's character's name in Bride of the Monster, the other main Uh Edward movie from the fifties. Well that can't be a mistake, um, in part because I know that Whole Earth points out that there are a few other characters in this whose names are clear connections to Universal Monster pictures. So um, I mean, I'm not entirely sure if Paul Nash she had seen any Edward movies, but I mean clearly he was a big fan of guys like Lan Jr. And Bella Legosi, So it seems probable or they could be taking from a common source. I wonder if Edwood got the name Vornoff from some other previous monster movie. That's true, great great minds may just think alike. Yeah, so, Michael Rennie Uh, a name that I imagine a lot of you were familiar with. Either you remember him from playing klap To in the science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still from or if you haven't seen that, you probably know that. He has referenced in the lyrics for science fiction Double Feature from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Other films of note include nineteen sixties The Lost World, nineteen sixty nine is the Battle of l a Lamine, and nineteen fifty two Le Miss Robs, in which he plays Jean Valjean. Uh, this is the main character, as I remember, I've it's been a while since I sped read uh this novel in school, and it's been a while since I've seen the musical. Oh yeah, well John val Jean. Yes, he is the main character. He is the uh it's all you know his it's his redemption arc. He begins as a as a as a thief who is imprisoned after stealing bread to I think feed his sister's starving child or something, and then he's in prison for many years but then he escapes prison and then he dedicates his life to goodness and he's very strong, and he's pursued all the time by the inspector Javert. Oh yeah yeah. And then he um, he meets that hun back and he has to wear that iron mask for a while and he he has his face gets scarred, and he starts living in that opera house. Yeah, there are a lot of ins and outs. I'm not gonna lie. I'm a sucker for the musical. I love him is so. Michael Renney was also a Nree is the Robe. Here's a lot of war films and thrillers over the course of his long career, fair amount of TV as well. Um. He pops up in the nineteen sixties Batman series as the villain Sandman, who I don't remember this guy, but he does not look like whatever you're thinking. If you're not familiar with us and you're imagining like a d C comic book Sandman, this is not it. He he has like a big fur coat on the I just looked him up. Okay, Well, to come back to the theme of fur coats. Yes, I don't know what else to say about him. He's very distinguished looking. Uh. He he looks like a like a man of great stature and who deserving of respect. And he's wearing a gigantic, thick, thick her coat. Yeah. So Assignment Terror was his final picture, but it isn't the only European B movie that he did. He also appeared in Antonio Margaretti's film The Young, the Evil and the Savage, which which was a Jollo film that was also released under the title Naked You Die Man. They were great with titles, weren't they. Yeah. But so before this, I mainly knew him as clot Too. He's clat too in the famous as you said, the Day the Earth Stood Still. He's great in that role in this movie. Uh, you know, Michael Renney, he's got good presence. But I'm gonna be honest, he's kind of phoning it in. I get the feeling he's sort of collecting a paycheck on this film. Yeah, but still he's Michael Renney, So you know, he's he's excelling, even if he's if for his own ability, he's just kind of keeping it at mid level. Yes. Now, a lot of the secondary actors, though, give much more impassion to performances, and I would say one of them is Karen dor Yeah. She plays Maliva or malva Um, who is a science that she's okay, she's a scient a dead scientist, right, No, yeah, yes, both of them. She's she's just like Michael Renney. She plays an alien who is like a psychic projection inhabiting the body, the resurrected body of a dead Earth scientist. I was really confused about who she played at first, because she is probably best remembered as a redheaded actor. Uh she has red hair. In nineteen seven's You Only Live Twice, the Bond film, she's she's not a Bond girl, She's a Bond girl villain, right. She's Um, an underling of one of the adversaries in that picture. She works for Donald Pleasants as blow Feld, and she there's a scene where I think she's supposed to kill James Bond, but instead she's won over by his charms and somehow he gets away, and then as punishment, Donald Pleasants drops her into his pit of piranhas and she is stripped to the bone by the by the toothy fish. Uh Man, we still need to come back and do episodes on Piranhas. But anyway, Karen Door was also in nineteen sixty seven The Torture Chamber of Doctor Sadism with it's a very tasteful sounding film. Yeah, various German films of the fifties and sixties, including nineteen sixty two is the Carpet of Horror, a title that got me really excited at first, because I was imagining some sort of a monster carpet, like hopefully some sort of shag carpet that eats people. But it doesn't seem to be about that. It seems to be about like some sort of like um gas based murders or something, some sort of thriller. What okay, then, why is it called that? I don't know, I don't know, but I'm I'm less curious now that it doesn't seem like it's a monster carpet, death carpet, the carpet that these people. Uh well, so in this one, she yeah, she plays an alien and uh she she sort of learns to love before the other alien, main alien does her. I guess maybe he never does. But she gets a lot of stern lecturing by Michael Rennie. Yeah, there's a whole lot of lecturing going on in this film about passion and about how passion is a human weakness. And even though you've taken on the form slash body of a dead human, don't you dare have human emotions, because they will, They'll mess you up, they'll derail the whole plan. And of course that's exactly what seems to happen, right, that they're what makes humanity weak and why we are the rightful inheritors of this planet. We're They're emotional and we're not. They're impulsive and we're not. Now, our hero of sorts in this film would be Inspector Toberman played by Craig Hill, who lived through Uh. We kept laughing at him. I think this detective he's supposed to he's very handsome, and he's supposed to you know, woo the lady who will get to in a minute. But he is just such a dope. Yeah yeah, Now, now Craig Hill himself playing the character American actor who had a small role in nineteen fifties All About Eve. He also appears in the Italian horror film The Bloodstained Shadow from seventy eight. Uh. He was apparently a twentieth century Fox contract player who then moved to Spain mostly to work in western so if you look him up, you'll see a lot of pictures of him in cowboy hats. He has just very expressive eyes, you know, eyes that really really look good, uh, staring out from under the brim of a cowboy hat, that kind of thing. In this he's your don't think he does ultimately does a good job, but he's playing your standard smoking and drinking detective who just might fall in love a few times rather inappropriately, um as he investigates the case. Yeah, this film has several scenes of like, oh, guess these people are kissing now, Okay, Yeah, And the main person he ends up kissing is this character, um Ilsa sternberg Elsa, played by Patty Shepherd, who lived nineteen. She was an American born actor who appeared in a whole host of notable Spanish B movies up through the late nineteen eighties. I believe her connection with Spain began as a child, as she was the daughter of the United States Air Force Brigadier General Leland C. Shepherd Jr. Uh She's um She's the sister of actor Judith Chapman, who is mostly known for her soap opera work, but also pops up in films like Night of the Running Man and is King Richard. But yeah, Patty Shepherd is a face you'll recognize if you watch a lot of Spanish films from the UH from from this time period, from the nineteen seventies especially. Her mini credits include seventy ones The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman. That's another Paul Nashy werewolf picture. And I believe she plays the vampire or a vampire in that. Okay, I'd watch that. Yeah, she's in seventy two, Is My Dear Killer nineteen seventy two is a House without Frontiers, which I don't think has any connection to Peter Gabriel Um nineteen seventy three, Crypt of the Living Dead nine seven's rest in Pieces, slugs in Night Edge of the Acts. Slugs. Is that a Is that a one Piquer Simone movie? It is? Yeah, Yeah, it's a It's a pretty it's pretty gross one, pretty stupid one that we may have to come back to. Um. But oh oh, but she Patty Shephard was also in a hole in a string of westerns as well. Her westerns include twenty Paces to Death from nineteen seventy, The Legend of Frenchie King from seventy one. The Man Called Noon from seventy three and nineteen seventy four is The Stranger and the Gunfighter. I cannot emphasize enough that The Stranger and the Gunfighter stars Levan Cliff opposite Hong Kong action star low Ley. It was a kung fu spaghetti western comedy film directed by Antonio Margaretti and co produced the Shaw Brothers, WHOA I've yeah, I've never heard of that. I would watch it. I will also say you included a picture of of Patti Shephard in her role in The Man Called Noon, and she looks awesome. She she does cowboy cowboy get up really well. Absolutely yeah. So, like I said, she was kind of a standard casting of the time period. Alright. So going back to the aliens that are inhabiting human form, the other main alien crony is Dr Kirian, played by um Agel del Pozo, Spanish actor who also pops up in the Star studied nine three film The Three Musketeers uh the seventy two Spanish film Horror Express. He basically did a lot of westerns and in later horror movies. We also have Manuel Didlath who plays Count Janos the meal Hoff. This is essentially our our our discount Dracula. This is where so we're getting into the monsters now. Yeah, we're getting in the monsters now. This is our Dracula character and also one of two counts. It's kind of confusing that our werewolf is account but also our vampire's account. That's true. Okay, so as we go, I'm going to rate the Monsters. I will say that, uh, this movie is Dracula. I enjoyed every time he was on screen because he had a kind of a pleasurable, amusing appearance. But also Count Yanush is just an absolute cretan, just a wretched dweeb and uh Rachel and I were getting offended by the shots where they tried to do the Bella lego see callbacks with him, like the single shaft of light falling across his eyes as he leans over you. And yeah, he he is no bella. But I did love his hilarious acrobatics and the way he walked around with it. He never closed his mouth, He's just walking around going the whole time. Yeah, Like, like the directors like we want to see those teeth of those teeth. Um, Yeah, it's it's not a great Dracula. Luckily the film seems to realize that, so they kind of like sideline him. You would think Dracula would be the ring leader, like he is in Monster Squad or something, but instead he's kind of he's kind of a second fiddle player to like for Frankenstein or excuse me for rank Salon. Yeah, he has more non sperato energy than he has Dracula energy in this um, despite clearly having the Dracula makeup Anyway, that the actor here is Spanish actor pops up in quite a few things over the years. He's but he's still active apparently, and has been active since sixty one. He was in the Armando Diosario nineteen four Blind Dead movie, The Ghost Gallion. He was in seventy four is the Dead, The Devil and the Flesh. He was in some of these. I'm just listening because the titles are great. Nineteen seventy seven's a dog called Vengeance, and then there's Slugs, which we already mentioned n The starring Paul McGann and oh Christopher Columbus. The Discovery Goya's goes from two thousand six and two is Uncharted. Just small parts in those last three, but still you know, he's still out there, still getting his face on camera. I watched Uncharted on a plane. Don't remember who this guy was. I think it was a very small part, but he's still out there. Don't don't particularly recommend that one. Now. The Monster of Froxylon is played by Fernando Morolo, Spanish actor active in film and TV through two thousand and seven. Um nothing really stood out to me all that all that much though, Um I mean, he plays a Frankenstein in this, so I'm gonna say, uh different review on the Frankenstein. So his makeup not good and makeup not good at all. He looks kind of somehow, they kind of make him look like Phil Hartman, so I kept doing you might remember me from such monster films as you know, Frankenstein still cruising or I don't remember what I said, but anyway, so he looks like Phil Hartman and kind of yellow green, almost kind of vomit colored makeup. It's not a great design, but he's a really good presence in this movie. He's sort of the main muscle for the villain. Yeah, yeah, when they initially unslay him or resurrect him. Um the evil alien doctors like he was powered by electricity, We're gonna make him atomic, so we get essentially an atomic Frankenstein in this So we don't really see much that seems to indicate that there is truly atomic energy at play in his um anatomy and physicality. Now, but uh yeah, I agree, strong presence in the film, but also not the best Frankenstein makeup I've seen, not the worst, and also the makeup I found looks worse in photographs. When you see him in action, it looks a little better. I think part of it is that they didn't go for the smooth forehead. They seem to go ahead and incorporate the line between prosthetic four an actual forehead as kind of a scar which and depending on what angle you're looking at, it can make it look faker. Yes, I agree, you could clearly see he was wearing a cap. Okay, But then there's toot At the Mummy played by Gene rayas uh He's only only has like thirteen credits that I could find, and no birth or death dates, and he seems to have been frequently cast as indigenous Americans and Westerns, or as Asian or Egyptian characters in various genre pictures. Um Preferencetance. He has an uncredited role in Just Franco's nine The Castle of fu Manchoose, starring Christopher lee h. He plays an Egyptian character in that. Okay, that kind of thing that aside, though, what do you think of the Mommy costume? Well, the Mommy costume was pretty good. And one strange thing about the okay, I have all kinds of questions about the different monsters powers. I wonder if we should save that for when we talk about the plot. But I was not clear on what the mummies powers are, like what can the mummy do? Um? Well, like, I think this is a common trap of mummy pictures. We may have talked about this before you get a mummy on screen. The mummy is really convincing, is it's it's gonna shambling around? But then how do you do the kills? And a lot of times the best you can do is kind of a loose strangle, uh, and generally not a very convincing strangle. Um. I think I'm sure I've mentioned before that I think one of my favorite renditions of a killer Mummy is actually Entails from the Dark Side, the movie in which the Mummy uh like straightens out a coat hanger and remove somebody's brain through their nostril, which I thought was nice and uh and fitting like fits in with the whole mummification process thematically appropriate murder. Yeah, yeah, but a lot of times, Yeah, the mummies can be underwhelming. Once you actually get him on screen, you gotta you gotta figure out how to use them in a threatening manner. And in this film, we see the Mummy kill one dude who's already asleep, is not a main character, and he just kind of loosely hugs him to death in a manner of seconds. Yeah, that is just sort of a proof of concept. It's right after they make the Mummy arise and then he just attacks a random dude. I don't think the Mummy in this film ever causes harm to any of the villain's enemies. No, but there's a cool fight towards the end. We'll get to it when when when the Mummy actually has his final battle. It was a highlight of the film for me. Same here, yes, now, just a I think one final credit here on people involved in making the film. Franco Selina is credited with the music composer, who scored several films, including nine seventies Churchill's Leopards, a Spanish war film that starred Richard Harrison, Frank Barna, he's the Sam the eagle looking guy that we've we've mentioned before, Helga Lena, who has been in a couple of other Spanish films that we've watched, and also Uh, klaus Kinsky on this film. I can't speak to other films that he's worked on, but I don't know. I thought the music was pretty solid in here and this one. It's spooky in places, groovy and other places, perhaps in a jarring fashion, but whatever energy the film is into at a given moment, I feel like the music backs up the vibe pretty well. I totally agree. And speaking of groovy, Uh, the film kicks off with pretty groovy vibes, groovy music, kind of a psychedelic screen splash on there as the aliens from another galaxy or or whatever are communicating with us and or the some of the main characters. They talked to each other through TVs, much like we would see in Robot Monster or other such films. Yeah, and I guess, you know, for a film of this caliber and at this time period, kind of advanced, kind of ambitious, and for the most part, they pull it off pretty well. It's easy to take for granted today in our our screen based world. But what did you make of the fact that sometimes the aliens talk, even to people who are in the same room with them through a TV. Do you remember these scenes? Oh? Yeah, I know there's one later on where somebody's talking to somebody basically in the next room through a television. Well, I think there's a scene where the inspector or somebody busts into the room where Michael Renny is and he's standing there with his back to him and talking to him, facing him through a television screen on the opposite wall. Mm hmmm, Am I wrong? No, that that sounds likely. I think that might what happened. Maybe maybe that tangent and nowhere I'm sorry, No, No No, it's deep, deep thinking will be required, perhaps something to do with the aliens view, you know, our relation to media. I'm not sure. Well, the very first thing we see is, yeah, these TV screens that are showing a sort of tie dye lava lamp background. You know, it's it's hippie o'clock, and the Aliens are talking about their plan to take over planet Earth, which involves resurrecting the bodies of dead Earth scientists and inhabiting them. And then I think initially, now, one thing that I found confusing, Rob, I wonder if you took it the same way I understood it that the aliens initial plan was not to resurrect Dracula or store brand Dracula, Frankenstein and so forth. Instead, it was initially to uh to like psychically possessed like a bunch of beautiful Earth women and have them infiltrate the like halls of power and like influence powerful statesmen and scientists and stuff. But then in doing that they immediately get sidetracked when they accidentally resurrect to Dracula. Did you did you take it the same way? Yeah, It's established pretty early that the doctor warren Off here played by Michael Rennie, is all about resurrecting so not only scientists but some utiful scientists to go out and control the men of the world and manipulate them. But yeah, they almost immediately pivot and and use this ability not to influence, say the leader of a country, but instead to seduce the owner of a like have a carnival side showed Dracula uh um act and steal his Dracula skeleton that he's showing off, right, So I guess we're going to start off by, like, let's go to six Flags Frankfurt. Yeah, yeah, we're somewhere, You're a German fair somewhere. And there's this guy up there. And again this is a scene that's apparently right out of the House of Frankenstein. But this guy's like, like, see the skeleton of the vampire. Look, behold it as a stake through its chest. Uh. It's temporarily immobilizing the vampire and preventing it from having life. And so our aliens, who just minutes earlier, we're like, the humans of this world are so superstitious and they're so emotion enal. But then they realized whoa wait, actually monsters do exist. They weren't lying about that. Uh here's one here. Um, go seduce the guy who owns this thing so we can steal it. And that's exactly how it goes down. Malava seduces the man, steaks the vampire. Showman with his own steak right out of the body of the dead vampire bones, and they also go ahead and kidnap his blonde assistant for good measure. The blonde assistant is a character named Ilona played by Gela Geisler, who wasn't in a lot else, but she's the beautiful blonde assistant that they decide they need her as well, I guess because she's beautiful. And now it's like plan A just to have beautiful people that the aliens control. Um. But there's a great scene here. They've barely unstaked the vampire skeleton and it's already beginning to regenerate, reconstituting guts and eyeballs. First, Oh yeah, we we loved that scene, Like just playto intestines and throbbing livers and lungs and eyeballs popping in. That one was good. And it's shortly after this that we meet Craig Hill playing Inspector Toberman, who's immediately on the case. This movie keeps us abreast of the investigation every chance it gets. What is Inspector Toberman doing or not doing regarding this case? Oh, it will even take a moment to give you a scene of Inspector Toberman just reporting that he has gotten nowhere with the case, and or or he seems to have taken a few minutes to himself and gone to a bar to smoke and drink. Um. Not that he just smokes and drinks at the bar. He smokes and drinks pretty much everywhere else he goes. But uh, yeah, even if he's not doing anything, the movie is like, I wonder what Inspector Toberman is doing. Let's go see. But as much as we cut tow Toberman, we also cut away from him. So we go back to the alien castle and it's mad science time. It's a nice laboratory they have going on here, lots of cool will gadgets, some gel colors. Uh. They decided to put the blonde assistant into the neuroelectric chair they have there. I was a little foggy on exactly what they were accomplishing with any of those, but a lot of scenes of are an electric chair getting shocks. Well is it shocks? I thought they explained that it was sounds, because there is a sound. That's a horrible sound. I'm gonna say a note to aspiring filmmakers out there, if your film includes a plot element of a device that makes excruciating sounds to torture people. You don't actually have to play those sounds for the audience. You can like have it take place within headphones and we just see their reaction or whatever. This film made a really piercing, high pitched squeal that I found unbearable, and it went on for way too long. Oh, I mean it that reminds me of and Or Have you watched and Or yet? No, I haven't. I've heard it's very good. Yeah this no, no, this is a very mild spoiler. But at one point there's an interior gation scene where they explain, we have some sounds on what we're about to play for you. It's the like the extermination cries of a species that the Empire killed off. Um, and they talk it up about how awful it's going to be, but they never play the sound for you, and they don't have to because they've given this this wonderful introduction to what it's going to do to your brain. Yeah, that's how you could do it. You don't actually have to have a piercing, high pitched squeal on the soundtrack of the film. We the audience will understand what's happening. Yeah, but hindsight this is this is the late sixties when they filmed us, so they play it out loud for us. Anyway, we also see that they do have a casket, an open casket here with the slumbering prints of darkness himself count janos Um and there's I think some mild another one of the many um Um ideas that are laid out and never really expanded up on. They're like, I wonder what would happen if we injected his blood into new subjects? Oh, yeah, Chekhov's gun number seven, that they've got a whole Dracula blood plan that do they do anything with that? Or if so, I don't recall now I think I think Nashy was just just went ahead and sort of made notes in screenplay for possible future projects. So Toberman, still on the case, he checks in. He's like, all right, I need to get ahold of the writings of Professor Ulric Vaughan Frankel's Frank Salon Um Frank Salem, Frank Salon, Frank Salon, Yes, Salon and uh. And so he goes to like the local library to to check it out, and they're like Hey, someone else was asking about these writings as well. I believe that means that it was Dr Voronoff that was there looking into it. But he finds a copy. It's the Anthology of Monsters. He finds it in the archive. Uh, and almost immediately blood starts dripping on it from a dead man overhead. I have many questions about this book. First of all, this was a book written by a reesely living scientist. Why does it look like an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages? Uh? Second, what exactly was this book? This isn't so he's the guy who created the Frankenstein Monster, the far Salon monster, but he also just wrote an encyclopedia of monsters with the illustrations by hand. I guess so it's ye, it's part travelogue of creating Francalons monster, but also chronicling other monsters created beings that exist. That's the way I was led to understand it. So we see the count to the Vampire, we see the Wolfman, we see the Mummy, and then we see the golem. So we're sure to get a golem in this film? Right? No? No, I think golem was cut for budget or time. Alright, so more stuff occurs. We get more time in the Alien lads, more electric chair stuff. Um, we go to the a nice morgue scene and it's really splendid, more environment that I feel like I've seen a more just like this in many films, so it's always a de light. Um. They start talking about this jelatine substance was found on on a victim's clothing, that it might be vampire blood. I mean, I was wondering, is this vampire blood? Is this alien blood? I'm not sure, but they'd sure to talk about it a lot. Oh yeah, I don't remember what happened with the gelatine substance. They keep checking in on it. Meanwhile, Toberman has been reading the Anthology of Monsters, which you know, deals again with created beings. He's reading more and more about what's out there. Meanwhile, Dr Warnoff and his stooges they go out to rob some graves it looks like but no, they're digging up uh Francelon's monster. And meanwhile I have to point out Earth is still somewhat populated by humans, so things are just beginning to roll along here. Yeah, they're really not not hopping to it. You would think their bosses would be like, now, what what exactly is it you're working on? I thought we had like super weapons from space. Yeah, like they clearly established earlier they want to colonize the planet, so they need to really step things up a bit. But okay, so they got for wrong salons Monster. When when are we gonna get away? Actually I need a wolfman. When do we get one? I think? I think Actually I was incorrect. They haven't got ferronc Salons Monster yet. Instead, they have found Count Valdemar Danyinsky, the werewolf Nasci's werewolf um, who seems to be I guess subdued in a casket with wolf spain or something. Oh I thought it was with a silver bullet had Yes, yes, yes, we find that out. That's right, because immediately we cut to surgery, which is a nice surgery scene, nice and bloody that I think might actually incorporate some stock footage of open heart surgeries as well. They're getting in there and they they have beautiful, colorful equipment, um, beautiful nurses standing around as the aliens remove the silver bullet from Paul Nashi's heart. Uh and he This is where we learn that the only way a werewolf can actually be killed, is to be shot in the heart with a silver bullet by not just anyone, but by a woman who loves him, truly loves him so much that she is willing to die for him. And I think the problem was he has currently been sitting in suspended animation because he was shot in the heart with a silver bullet by a woman, but maybe she didn't quite love him enough for it to fully work, so instead he's just been like an incorruptible saint's body, lying there frozen in time and waiting for the aliens to come get him. I mean, he's got to be more clear about what he wants from a relationship. Need to put that right out on the profile. I'm looking for a woman who loves me enough to shoot me with a silver bullet and made me stay dead. So in in in resurrecting him, and it's I was a little unclear to on what their their main goal with him was, because they they basically see him to bring him back, to have him serve as kind of a stooge, as another bit of hired muscle. But they're not going to take advantage of the were wolf aspect of him. As much because they're saying, well, we're going to use a serum on him that's gonna keep him in line, keep him from transforming. Clearly, were wolf Dninsky is just too much for us to control. But if we just have hunky Paul Nashi on hand, like we can, we can use that. We need somebody to swing a pickaxe. They need a Paul Nashy who's like seventy percent of the way to wear a wolf already. So that's just enough. Like he's really hunky, really beefy. He can do what needs to be done, but he's not going to get out of hand like wolf, like wolf mode of Valdemar. But he's hunky, he's attractive. Uh. Immediately the alien, the main female alien, Malava, starts falling for him. She's she's already having feelings about him. I think they all do, right, doesn't the blonde alien ified lady also fall in love with him? She does, She directly falls in love with him. And I think the Maleva, the alien she is like so inspired by their love for each other that she she gets like sympathy love feelings. I guess I don't know how to fully explain that. Yeah, and I guess what the aliens like Malva. There's this feeling that it's like, well, I'm an alien, but I'm occupying a human form. Oh. Human emotions are are welling up and I don't know what to do with them. But our blonde assistant here, she she's just human in love with this man. Right. Anyway, the plans coming together at this point, uh something about using all of these unslayed, undying monsters to create an army of monsters to conquer the earth. I think, Um, maybe I'm reading too much into it. We cut to a scene where do Nynski is chained. He's in a dungeon, and the transformation begins. Classic wolfman transformation. Seen here. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Camera cuts away, a little more hair on the hand, Camera cuts back to the face, a little more hair on the face, repeat repeat. Yeah. Yeah, of course chains are not going to hold a fully transformed werewolf. He pulls the chains out of the wall and he escapes. So I guess the serum hasn't been developed yet or hasn't been administered at this point. Yeah. I was also unclear on that. We touched in with the police briefly they're not getting much work done. We go back to do Nynsky. He's prowl in the night. Had no news from them, but d Nynsky's he's about to try and get stuff done. He's in full werewolf mode, prowl in the streets at night. There's a scene where a young lady is in a car and she's about to light up a smoke and he reached and it reaches in through the window, the open window, after her, and it's hard to tell if he's going for her or the pack of smokes in her hand. I found the scene rather funny because I was like, oh, man, he really he really needs a smoke right now. Yeah, I thought he was grabbing at the cigarette, but no, I think he's just trying to slash it people. Because later he he just slashes a random lady in the street, and I thought he was gonna eat her, because isn't that what a werewolf does, don't they eat people? But he didn't eat her. He just kind of like scratch scratch and then runs away. Yeah, he murders her and then then runs off basically, so yeah, the first lady escapes by rolling up her window really fast, which is all you need is the first lady, Patty Shepherd, I think it is. Yeah, I believe so. At the time, I was a little confused about this, but yeah, this because she's going to be a survivor. That factors into the plot. Lighter cool. But now at this point the film hasn't been groovy enough in a little bit, so we cut directly to a like a go go club, a place called the Golden Egg. Yes, I love this place, and I'm not sure much is really accomplished in this scene, but there's some groovy music playing. I think the same groovy music from earlier cool kids are dancing in a colorful club. Dr Varnoff ventures in, likely on alien business, but all this hippie nonsense seems a little bit too much for him. Toberman is there, I guess on the case. Everyone's having a drink though. Toberman orders the Scotch and water and um and then and then Dr Varnov leaves and nothing really happens. Oh, we were on the lookout for Ja and Beeve and I didn't catch any Yeah, they never. We never got to even see the drink served. It's like, come on, what was this scene about. Nobody interacted with each other, and we didn't even get to see the drink. But somehow the Aliens, I think, they recapture Voldemar, they get the werewolf back. So Paul Nashi is once again and chained. And then they're like, uh, somebody's fault that he got out. Probably it's it's probably this blonde woman's fault. Uh. So we're going to play the high pitch noise at her and at you again. H So there's a torture scene for both her and um and Doninski and uh and you know it's not gonna work. Clearly, they're they're not gonna be able to break this this love bond that is emerging between these two. But I mean, that's the aliens whole thing. Dr Varnoff is like, is always harping on the fact that that the passion is a weakness, and uh, we need to to sort of bleed the passion out of these two so they can continue to service. Oh but that's when the Alien TV chimes in with news the money of Tao Tad has been found, presumably in Egypt. Thank god, now we'll get to find out what the Mummy's powers are. So there's this some stock footage of a t w A flight going to Egypt, presumably, and and then we see um the two main alien underlings and Count Donynsky in a muscle shirt with a grave robbing pick axe going into some Egyptian ruins to rob a grave, which also makes me think these three flew together on that t w A flight to Egypt. Well, I wanted to see that scene. They got a werewolf on an airplane. You never bring a werewolf on an airplane. You might do the math wrong, cross the international date line. Suddenly it's a full moon. You didn't plan af Oh my god. Yeah. But anyway, they get their nice tombs set, even if it basically feels like a redecorated tomb set from any given Spanish horror film of this time period. But they bust through one wall with some very modern looking bricks, and they bust through another wall, and boy, the tomb is just loaded with loot um. They do it like kind of an Indiana Jones ask amult reflection deal to to put put some light on the Mummy's tomb, and immediately the mummy starts coming to life, emerging from the tomb. And that's when we get this wonderful death by hug scene, and once again I think this is the only person harmed by the Mummy and the whole film. The Mummy otherwise just kind of menaces people but never does anything until, of course, Paul Nashy destroys him, and Paul Nashy, by the way, destroys everything. Paul Nashi is smashing through walls, Paul Nashy and swinging the pickaxe. Paul Nashy is pulling chains and uh and like turning a giant wheel. Paul Nashy is just a mountain and he it'll all make sense if you see him in this performance especially or in any performance. But he's an interesting screen presence because he's not you know, he's jacked. Uh. But he's not what you might think of as you're sort of handsome leading man character. I mean, he's you know, he's he's not a bad looking guy by any stretch, but um, he doesn't have that like sort of western leading man look. And there's some sort of kind of you know, awkward elements to the to his energy. There's kind of like a reserved energy to some of his performances, especially in this film. And I would also say he's sort of classic round jacked, not like vacuum packed peanuts jacked. Right. So, anyway, they've successfully robbed the tomb, and I don't know how they fly back. Do they go? I mean, did they travel back via t w A. Do they have to get an extra seat for the Mummy's flying with them? Um? How's that going to work? I have no idea. But they make it back so almost instantly, though, it's clear that well, your alien lab has a lot of monsters in it at this point, and there are going to be some problems. The vampire is hypnotizing the ladies. Uh, but still samples are being collected, more warnings against human emotions and human weaknesses. Uh. And there's this great monologue from Michael re anywhere. He's like, look, the Mummy's heart is dead. It's empty. Be more like the Mummy. Up next, We're gonna get this uh, this Frankenstein creature. He he doesn't even have a heart. Uh. That's that's how great he is. Be like the Frankenstein. And oh, by the way, we're gonna make him atomic once we get him. Also, these aliens do not realize that the heart, as the seat of emotions is a metaphor, like the emotions in a literal sense come from the brain, and they're talking about literal anatomical features as as limiting of emotions. Yeah, but I mean it's it's all new territory for these aliens. I guess. Now the vampire, our count Pianos, he escapes, he starts running around the castle at night. Um, he's um he's he's sneaking into into the main alien minions room and trying to hypnotize her. He's being a wretched creep. Yeah. So he's chased off. Oh yeah, and then he just he just runs away when the aliens catch him doing that. He's so he's a wretched creep. But he's also not a very powerful vampire. Did you get the sense that the vampire in this movie even has like super strength or anything. I did not know. He's just he's just creepy and he just comes out at night. I guess he's really quiet. He's like a rat. Yeah. I think his only power I recall is that he can hypnotize people with his eyes. Yeah. Now this is when Frank Slan's monster is brought in and they've we don't get to see them dig him up or find him in a warehouse or stitching back together anything like that. But they're like, good news, we found him here he is, we got him at a police auction. But then we get a cool scene though, where, um, where where? Michael Renny's like, we gotta test this monster out, so he sends him into the cell to go after d Nynski. That was a tense scene. I was like, oh, no, you are not going to do this to Paul Nashy. Yeah, because he again he's on the serium. Now we've had scenes where he's been injected so he can't turn into a werewolf. In Battle of Franks Salon's Monster, so Frank's Alan's monster like pretty much almost kills him. Um hasn't has him in a death chokehold, and it's the blonde assistant who calls out and says, no, you've got to spare him, and so Michael Renny's character does, but also makes it Unleash is another monologue about the uncaring universe and the uh and and the dangers of passion. Speaking of passion, this whole time, there's a developing love story. Oh my god, this b plot with the love story with Inspector Toberman, the handsome detective, and uh and Patty Shepherd and then like her dad, who's a judge who saw a werewolf once? Yeah, and the werewolf in question, I think is uh is Paul Nashy. So it's like there's some sort of connection there and it really feels unnecessary, but they they stitch it all together. Well. I mean, I think the detective already believes in monsters. And when Patty Shepherd is like, I wanted to tell you my father knows that where wolves are real because he saw one one time, the inspectors all over it. He's like, oh, finally, you know my my theory of the case is developing. I've got to meet this judge dad. Yeah. There there's this great scene. I get. You get the impression Toberman has been reading too much about monsters, and they don't really develop this too much. But there is this fun scene where he goes to a local pub for a drink and a smoke and he sees a vampire on a date. But then he like kind of goes ruulu and looks again and oh it's just a person. Uh. So he's like, why I better drink more and has another shot. I was confused by this scene. I think it was not actually a vampire. He was just he's just got vampire is in the brain. Yeah, because there's a later scene where he comes back to his apartment. He looks in the mirror and he sees himself as a monster, and so clearly the case is getting on top of him. He's taken it too personal. Meanwhile, back at the alien monastery, the alien assistants um that the man and the woman are giving into their emotions and they're doing sex with each other. So Dr Otto h vernoff here he watches on via his closed caption television system does not approve, so he sends in Ferranc Salon's monster and kill Has it killed Dr Kirian? Yes, so like two of the Remember these are aliens inhabiting the resurrected bodies of dead human scientists that I guess the human passion gets too much for them. They fall in love, and as punishment, Michael Rennie sends Frankenstein to kill them or kills one of them, Yeah, kills Dr Currian. And then once Dr Cirian is sufficiently strangled, Ferranc Salon's monster just casually walks out, which I thought was a nice touch. It's like out mission accomplished them just a passionalist servant at this point, he has no heart, He only has a capacitor. Yeah, so this is what I was talking about earlier with like the scenes of the aliens will not stop talking about how they are superior because they have no emotions. And then it's the movie just becomes all about crushes. It's nothing but crushes. Yeah, but they do kind of deal with it in a in an interesting way in that um, Yeah, clearly the alien underlings have beginning of given into their emotions. And then meanwhile the work is getting too much for Toban again. He's starting to see monsters in the mirror when they're not there. He gets a call from Patty's character and he's gonna check in on her. He's like, all right, I'm coming. Uh. You know, it seems like it's an emergency, but it's not an emergency monster emergency. It's a romantic emergency. So they spend the night together. Yeah, she I, I love you because we are humans. Yeah. Back in the lab, Dr Varnov decides that Malva needs some some chair time for her irrational emotional choice. Says and There is a fun scene though, where she she like lashes back and she's like, actually, you have emotions. You're letting emotions getting the better of you because you're jealous, and that's why you sent in France Salon's monster to kill Dr Carrion. You could tell Renny is like, really threatened to buy this? Ah you response he has never heard anything like this, So again there, This does seem like an element of the plot where this could have been expanded upon and dwelt upon more. This idea of like, um, you know, aliens without passions occupying human forms and then being overcome by passions. I imagine this is something that's been explored better in other pictures or books well, and picking up one what we just said, the fact that they have passions also now gives rise to new patterns of speech, gives rise to rhetorical ploys, and turns like like oh you yeah. Now, I'm not sure I didn't accurately represent this in my notes. But the other thing that Malva has done at this point that has earned the ire of her master is that she freed the werewolf and the blond assistant. She freed um uh Do Nynsky and like she saw the love they have for each other, and she's like, no, it's fine, I respect your love. You should go and she unlocks their cage and lets them go free. It's heartwarming. Yeah, So eventually we returned to d Nynsky and Um and his blonde accomplice here, and they're wandering some more of those wonderful ruins that you see throughout the picture, and they have some kind of like cool doom metal dialogue here where they talk about how they have no future and they're cursed, but they have this bond between the two of them, and he makes some decision to seek out the judge that we established earlier on uh, that he has some history with, and the blonde character says, okay, well let's do that. But also I love you enough to shoot you with a silver bullet and kill you. Um, so just so you know I'm here for you when that time comes. Heartwarming once again. Now, meanwhile, the law enforcement is beginning to close in on on the operation here, I guess I mean Toberman is getting ready to wander into the monastery for some reason. Right, he decides to show up, and there's groovy music as he shows up for some reason. But then the gates closed behind him. Uh. Dr Varnoff says, is clearly expecting him. He's admitted to the control room and Dr Varnoff chats with him via close circuit television for the next room, and um, he just goes ahead and tells him everything. Um. And not only does he tell him everything that has occurred and his plan, he also says, hey, I have video footage from the future, and he shows him um Elsa's death. Uh. And he also shows Toberman footage of his own body in chains in a dungeon. And if I understood this correctly, he's also saying, yeah, I'm gonna change you up in the dungeon. Here's footage from the future when it happens, and these other bodies are gonna come to life and claw your eyes out. No, not the other bodies, bats, he says. Bats will come and claw your eyes out. That's how you will die. That makes more sense. I will chain you up and then there will be bats and they will attack your eyeballs. Well, well, that's that's good because that's more in line with what occurs. Yes, but I was also floored by the execution by bat. What but also footage from the future. The aliens have videos, Like is this actual video footage from the future, like information translated through time, or is this like a simulation of what he has in store for him? That was a very good question. I I do not know though. It just sort of transition, didn't it Like he's looking at the footage of himself in the future, chained up in the dungeon with the bats, and then suddenly he just is chained up there. It's almost like by looking at that it manifested his reality. Yeah. Meanwhile, back in the human world, Um, news of all this has reached the mayor, so now you know things are pretty serious. Uh. The judge is there, he's concerned over his daughter's disappearance. The judge reveals the whole Werewolf d Nynsky connection, and everybody's like, all right, let's go investigate this monastery. Let's get all the cops together, let's head up there and see what's happening. So we got our pitchfork wielding mob yep, or they're getting the pitchforks together. Uh. And meanwhile back there at the monastery, we see the future has come true Toberman is in chains. He's harassed by bats. But as he's being harassed by bats, who shows up to save the day But d Nynsky, the werewolf he arrives with with his blonde uh lover here they free uh Toberman and Donisky Warnson though it's like, look, you gotta get out of here. You gotta get things moving along because the full moon is almost upon us. I'm not injected with serum, and there's no way I can stop what is going to happen to me. He's gonna go hulk mode. Yeah, and as two Tiberman escapes, he goes through skeleton and cobweb written crypt. He's going to seek out Elsa and save her. But for Donninsky, finally the change is coming. The full moon is here, allegedly somewhere, he starts the long emotional transformation sequence. Um is an acting tour to force. As he slowly transforms into full wolfman mode, He's like staggering down the hall. You can see the cuts when the cuts happened to put the more hair on him, but I don't know. It's it's a pretty good sequence, nonetheless, and I was thinking, Okay, we're finally going to see him smack down the vampire but nope, nope, nope, somebody else smacks down the vampire. It is Toberman encounters the vampire, once again emphasizing the vampire not only doesn't appear to have super strength, it appears to be weaker than the average man. Yeah, Tiberman just kind of what breaks a pool queue and owners and like just kind of walks him into a corner and then stabs him through the heart and then the vampire melts. The vampire does sort of do a flying like a turnbuckle jump at Toberman before that, but other than that, he's he's not very impressive. Yeah, not much of a fight here, but there is a cool fight coming up. There are a couple of cool fights, so you get we're Wolf versus Mummy, and then we're Wolf versus Frank Salon. Yeah, and the Mummy battle was a lot more solid than I was expecting, mainly because of the way that d Nynsky deals with the Mummy. There's this big spinning wooden wheel part of the set that I'm not sure what function this had in the castle of this had to do with, Like I think it's a rack. I think it's a track. Is it just pure torture they show because Doberman Doberman Toberman, whatever his name is, the detectives on it earlier, and he's like tied to it. They're stretching him out. Oh yeah, But I guess it's multi purpose because you can also shove somebody inside it, and so that's what d Nynsky does with the mummy. Shoves the mum inside this wheel, starts turning the wheel, and then grabs the torch, shoves the torch in there with the mummy, lights the mummy up, and so we get this kind of maccabre scene of the flaming mummy thrashing inside of this rotating wooden torture wheel, which I thought was a pretty pretty cool visual. That's right, but I would say this is still not the main SmackDown, which is Werewolf versus Farron, that's right, and Atomic Farron coming at a full powered Valdamir Doninsky Werewolf. It is a big, drawn out battle with lots of pushing and shoving and clawing and strangling and slamming. Eventually, though the werewolf wins. He pushes the atomic Monster into some electronic machinery and the shock takes the big man down takes the big monster down, defeated by electricity, as many monsters in films are. Uh. And then, of course, what's going to happen to the werewolf and the and is he going to be shot in the heart by his true love with a silver bullet, not just by his true love, by the woman who loves him enough to die with him in an exploding monastery slash castle slash alien laboratory. Yes, that is exactly what happens, though they really they just met. Thing, is this this romance? Really? Um? What was was on speed run? But yeah, she basically after he's defeated France Salon's monster, he turns on her. You know, he can't control the monster. The werewolf just wants to kill and and slay and all. So she pulls out the gun, she shoots him, and then we cut to this scene where now we have Dnnski back in human form, with a with a gunshot wound in his chest and then laying next to him also dead is Um is his blonde lover, and she's been slashed by werewolf claws and they you know, they're hand in hand. So yeah, they're they're the doomed. Uh, they have no future here, and we get this kind of uh you know, Gothic into their romance. Though. Of course, Valdimir Doninsky will be back in a number of Werewolf films. They'll do a do over. Oh and then the of course Michael Renny is chastised. He he gets chewed out by his bosses. Yeah, there's the scene where the aliens start talking to him through the TV screen. Uh, and you know, he's like, well, the labs about to blow up. Um, and they're like, yeah, you failed, and he's like, well, I failed, but you should spare my assistant here. Her failure was my failure. And then the aliens are weirdly well like, well she's not really in any way, and they make her vanish and then the lab blows up, destroying everything. I'm not sure what that meant. Yeah, she does, she just disappears. Is that a better fate for the aliens? I don't know how they appeared in the first place. Yeah, it feels like maybe they were working up to something else than they ran out of time or energy to finish that particular part of the plot. But the fight, we get a speech at the end. It's kind of like the speech at the end of it conquered the world, which where we learned that man is a feeling creature. And this time they talk about how actually the aliens thought it was our passion that makes us weak, but in fact, it's our passion that makes us strong. The whole reason they couldn't beat us is because these human bodies they just fall in love on speed run mode, and that basically it makes us useless as soldiers in our own destruction. And the aliens seem to I guess they realized that this is true and decided just to not come back. They're like, yeah, Earth unconquerable. I learned too late. That is our passion that makes us strong. Okay, I got one last thought about Assignment terror. Uh. It's it's nearly there, it's not quite complete. But I kept thinking about the monsters in this movie as the Breakfast Club, right, because you got can't count Yeno, sure, count yanush uh whatever? His name is the Dracula store brand Dracula, He's Anthony Michael Hall. He's the nerd uh. And then you've got the Mummy is clearly Molly Ringwald because Rich Royalty aloof there you go. Uh for Ron Salon is obviously Amelio Esteveez. He is definitely the jock of the group. This Frankenstein would eat a bag of twelve sandwiches for lunch and and so forth. The wolf Man, that's Judd Nelson, because he's the bad boy with a heart of gold who falls in love in the end, like his badness is tamed by love. Uh. It kind of falls apart because I couldn't think there's not really any equivalent for Ali Sheety, who's a very important part of the breakfast Club. Kind of wonder well, maybe if we had known the golem, the golem would have been Alie Sheety, like putting pixie sticks on on toast or something. But the last element there that clearly works is that Michael Renny's character is Paul Gleason the principle to a t Yeah, I mean, the story arc is there even right you You you start off thinking it's just cold and uncarrying. He doesn't understand these kids. But by the end of it, you see that there's more to him. You get to know him a little bit more, and uh, to a certain extent, the same thing it's true with Michael Renney's character. I think this could have legs. I kind of want to see a monster, a true monster remake of The Breakfast Club. Well, we're gonna go and close it out there, but we'll remind everybody that Stuff to Blow Your Mind and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind channel primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's we do listener mail, On Wednesday's we do a short form artifact or monster fact, and then on Friday's we cut loose and we focus on less important matters with weird House cinema and which we we set everything else aside and just talk about a weird film. Huge thanks to our audio producer J J. Pauseway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.