One old horror flick still retains its 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A second old horror flick is saddled with a 5% rating. The two of them made for an interesting double feature on a recent dark and stormy night outside my abode.
So what are these two gems? The 1971 “haunted house” anthology, The House That Dripped Blood, is a British film from Amicus Productions, much in keeping with the popular Hammer Horror Films of the 1960s and ’70s. Empire of the Ants (1977) is one of many shlock B-creature features of that era. Interesting pairing, ya think?
THE RIDICULOUS
I laughed my way through an hour-and-a-half of Empire of the Ants, so I guess it was entertaining enough. The thing is, it wasn’t a comedy, as the actors played it straight all the way from start to finish. The plot, “loosely” based on a short story by H.G. Wells, would have caused the great writer to spin around in his grave. Oh, it had star power, the much-honored actress, Joan Collins, playing a crooked land developer, Marilyn Fryser. (Maybe she just needed a paycheck at that stage of her career.)
Joan Collins gets up close and personal with the ants.
A quickie overview: toxic waste dumped somewhere in the Everglades turns ordinary ants into mutated giants. When Fryser takes a bunch of potential investors out to see the land where a supposed new development will be built, the ants start knocking them off, one by one and two by two. The few survivors make it to a small town that contains an enormous sugar processing plant, where they discover that a queen ant controls everyone in town, including the law enforcement. She sprays the residents on a weekly basis so they’ll be compliant and keep producing tons of sugar for the hungry colony. (I’m not making this up.) It’s up to the survivors to stop her.
THE SUBLIME
The House That Dripped Blood offers four tales, all written by Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, linked by a framework story and connected to an old, creepy house somewhere in the English countryside. Horror movie royalty includes Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and the wonderful Ingrid Pitt, about whom I’ve written both on this blog and in my latest novel, The Magic of the Bike Path. (See my post, “From Concentration Camp to Film Stardom.”)
Another brief overview: a no-nonsense Scotland Yard detective has arrived in the small town near the creepy house in search of a missing film star, Paul Henderson, the last occupant of the house. In the framework segments he is told about the three occupants preceding Henderson by a police sergeant and the rental agent (the latter’s last name is Stoker), all of which he dismisses as baloney.
Story #1: a horror writer rents the house to write a new novel about a psycho killer named Dominic. He even draws a picture of the deranged murderer. Naturally, Dominic comes to life.
Story #2: a retired man (Peter Cushing) moves into the house. One day, bored with his usual hobbies, he visits the nearby town. Guess what, the town has a wax museum of horrors, with quite a few decapitated heads around…
Story #3: a widower (Christopher Lee) moves in with his creepy young daughter and hires a tutor for her. Why is it that this guy would be overjoyed to see the kid deceased? And why is it, after the well-meaning tutor enhances her reading skills, that the kid is perusing books about witchcraft?
Carla (Ingrid Pitt) is ready to feed.
Story #4: finally, Paul Henderson. The actor is in town with his girlfriend/co-star Carla (Pitt) to star in a new horror movie as a vampire. Dissatisfied with the props, especially the vampire cape, he stops at a weird antique store and buys one for a pittance from the creepy proprietor. The first time he puts it on, in his dressing room, he cannot see himself in the mirror. When he rehearses a scene with Carla, he tries for real to bite her on the neck. You get the picture.
That night, in the creepy house, he tries to explain to Carla just what happened. I won’t tell you more than that.
In the final framework scene, the detective—still poo-pooing all of the backstory—goes by himself to the house. At midnight. With no electricity in the house. And descends into the basement. With a four-pronged candelabra. And discovers a sub-basement…
I must say, The House That Dripped Blood proved a great way to conclude a dark and stormy night.