House of the Black Death

Filmed in Sept 1965, "Night of the Beast" was the debut feature for novice producer William White, better known to horror fans as actor Bill Hampton, from 1959's "The Hideous Sun Demon" and 1965's "The Human Duplicators," while director Harold Daniels scored a success with the 1958 "Terror in the Haunted House" aka "My World Dies Screaming." The exceedingly small budget must have run out as completion neared, and the filmmakers lost control of the footage, soon picked up by schlockmeister Jerry Warren, whose additional 11 minutes of added scenes extended the running time to 74 minutes, but otherwise served little purpose due to his inept editing. A black and white movie that could only get playdates on the bottom half of double bills under the title "Blood of the Man Devil" (or even all night drive-in creature features), what is now better known as "House of the Black Death" languishes in obscurity to this day, little seen even on television despite the presence of genre heavyweights Lon Chaney and John Carradine (alas, not once sharing any scenes together). Sibling warlocks in service to their master Satan, Carradine's Andre Desard represents the wealthy upper class, while Chaney's Belial Desard heads up the plebeian tier, leading the tiny town of Widderburn to revolt against Andre and usurp his all powerful status with their lord and master (the book from which the excessively wordy script was adapted was titled "The Widderburn Horror"). Displaying the goat's horns that make him an even greater emissary of the Devil, the top billed Chaney gets more footage than his co-star, threatening the souls of Andre's son Paul (Tom Drake), cursed by lycanthropy, and daughter Valerie (Dolores Faith), whom Belial seems to covet for himself. Virtually everyone is defeated by the ill conceived screenplay, but even under these impoverished circumstances both Chaney and (especially) Carradine are remarkably professional. Jerry Warren never shied away from taking credit for the film's belated release, but as editor he blunders badly on several occasions: we see doctors Mallory (Andrea King) and Campion (Jerome Thor) accompanied by villager Stokes (Sherwood Keith) BEFORE Belial assigns him as their guide, while Carradine's Andre claims he must rest, but is being chastised by Valerie in the very next scene for revealing the family secrets to Campion. The most egregious error was in showing us Chaney's goat horns well before his supposed 'big reveal' in front of a shocked doctor Mallory! Gorgeous blonde bombshell Sabrina, known as 'Britain's Jayne Mansfield,' provides plentiful eye candy dancing for Chaney's delighted amusement, but otherwise serves no purpose and has no dialogue. Warren's new scenes feature a brunette dancer of lesser merit, and regular stock company performers Katherine Victor and George Andre attempting to plug a few gaps in continuity, their repeated chants only adding to the numbing sense of boredom. Still, it just might qualify as the best film that Jerry Warren was ever involved in! (Carradine and Victor would rejoin him for his 1981 comeback feature "Frankenstein Island").

Jerry Warren, Harold Daniels and (if we can believe the credits) Reginald LeBorg all had something to do with putting this movie together. Jerry is famous for importing Mexican movies, adding new scenes and releasing them as "new". CREATURE OF THE WALKING DEAD and CURSE OF THE STONE HAND come quickly to mind. He also directed MAN BEAST and introduced to world to "Rock Madison" an actor who never really existed! Harold Daniels directed the original version of BAYOU (1956) which was spiced up with "Adults Only" footage a few years later and re-released as POOR WHITE TRASH. Reginald LeBorg had worked with stars Lon Chaney and John Carradine previously in things like DEAD MAN'S EYES, THE MUMMY'S GHOST and THE BLACK SLEEP. The combination of these three culminates with a movie that is . . . well . . .unusual to say the least.

The small town of Wydeburn (it seems to only have 20 residents) is controlled by the feuding DeSade family. The good warlock Andre (John Carradine) controls half the citizens and bad warlock Belial (Lon Chaney) rules the others. Andre tells us that Belial has a cloven hoof but we never see it. Chaney's limp is no doubt due to an attack of gout which he was plagued with for the last years of his life. He does sport a nice pair of horns though. Another member of the family is supposed to be a werewolf and to be fair we do get a brief insert shot of the man wearing what is meant (I guess) to be a werewolf mask! Another DeSade brother (Tom Drake, who costarred with Chaney in THE CYCLOPS back in 1957) comes home with a doctor colleague (Andrea King, best remembered from THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS) to save his sister (Delores Faith) from what he believes is the family madness. Without spoiling too much of the plot (actually the directors did that themselves!) he soon learns that not all of Life's mysteries can be explained away in medical books!

Continuity is barely there and scenes jump around so much you have to wonder who did the editing. At one moment Carradine declares he is tired and must rest yet in the very next scene he is in the living room talking about the family history! Watch how Delores Faith is wearing high heels when she leaves Carradine's house but is barefoot when she arrives at Chaney's place. Everyone I this picture had experience with the genre and I can only assume they did the best they could with a budget that from probably non existent from Day One and three directors all going in different directions. Katherine Victor from THE CAPE CANAVERAL MONSTERS shows up long enough to initiate a new member into Belial's coven. One name "Adults Only" star Sabrina (qv THE ICE HOUSE)shows up as a harem dancer.

If you think Roger Corman's THE TERROR (1963) is all over the map plotwise sit down and try to watch this movie! It's too incoherent to even to be funny. Oh well, call me a completist but I'll watch anything with Lon and John in it. Nice try, guys.

House of the Black Death (1965)

* (out of 4)

Two warlocks, one good (John Carradine) and one evil (Lon Chaney, Jr.) battle over human souls. I really don't have the faintest idea what this film is about because there are three story lines going on and none of them make any sense on their own so mixing them together is even more confusing. One of the stories deals with the warlock's other brother who's a werewolf but we never actually see the wolf. Again, here's a film that you hang onto because you're expecting something to happen but nothing ever does happen so in the end you've just wasted your time. To make matters even worse Chaney and Carradine don't share any scenes together.

If the goal here was to make a good movie, they failed miserably.

If the goal was to confuse, disturb and disorient the viewer, then JACKPOT, baby! This movie is not scary because it evokes a disturbing real atmosphere of fear the way something like Night of The Living Dead does. The effect here in HOTBD is much more surreal.

No, the world of House of The Black Death, aka Blood of the Man Devil is not a world that you or I might recognize. But it is a world that sucks you in. A world of grainy, back-and-white horror; a world of creeping, Gothic torment, a world of a furtively glimpsed fever dream while under the influence of absinthe or laudanum, as you are restrained with rubber hoses in a rusty dentist's chair from the 19th century and assaulted with various antique dental implements.

The stark textures of the muddy, washed out print I viewed only added to the sense of ennui and nausea endured while watching this exercise in creepiness, a tableau which added death-desiring boredom to the mix during the endless talky scenes of people discussing the battle for the soul of the Dessard family between Carradine and Chaney. The extra added frisson provided by the poor condition of the print I viewed was clearly not intended by the filmmakers, but you know what they say, when life hands you lemons...or, more concisely, whatever works.

Now that I have accidentally referred to Woody Allen and Larry David in this review, a highly inappropriate turn of events, I will end with just one command: I importune you to watch this film only late at night, with the lights off, preferably when you are so tired that you will not be able to stop dozing off (if you weren't already there, the dialog will see to that). The wretched visuals of this nightmare of a psychotic will mix with your own dreams as you drift off into an impenetrable trap amongst the ether, of both your own making and that of the (many) directors of this "film."

Pleasant screams.

UPDATE: As of 1/2014, now available on DVD from VCI Entertainment, who have released 2 volumes each of three Jerry Warren "classics." For those with strong constitutions only...

This is one movie that probably would have been improved if Ed Wood had directed it instead! The whole thing plays out like a fever dream after you've eating a bad chicken salad. It's impossible to say if Jerry Warren "improved" on it or not; check out the ax job he did on "La Marca del Muerto", repackaging it as "Creature of the Walking Dead". The story of two brothers with Satanic powers dueling it out over the family fortune(and bragging rights over a kitschy-looking standing stone called the "Devil's Saddle") is barely coherent, the direction is barely coherent, the acting is barely coherent, and I was barely coherent after watching it. It was so bad it wasn't even funny--Warren seems to have that magic touch, doesn't he? The only good thing I can think about this turkey is that Bruno VeSota(a reliable Warren alumnus) didn't have to appear in it. Hmmm. Maybe if Warren had taken a cue from "Attack of the Giant Leeches"...but that's just me. BTW: I caught this on the old late-night schlock show, "Fright Night" hosted by "Sinister Seymour". When Seymour did a bumper between commercials, saying "...and we'll be right back with 'House of the Black Death'! Whaddya think of that, fringies?", they cut to John Carradine sitting up in bed and screaming in abject terror! I know how you felt, John, believe me, I do...