The Dungeon of Harrow

Okay, make no mistake - this is a pretty awful film, but I actually thought it had a couple of creepy scenes and overcame its pathetic budget every now and then. At the very least it's unintentionally funny in spots and has a definite air of creepiness and discomfort (a face burning scene, the part with the disfigured bride). This baby falls into the "so bad it's entertaining" category to me, and for that alone I would give it a star. The effects are terrible, the acting is abysmal, and the whole thing looks like it was shot in a day. You gotta love that toy ship at the beginning, too! It brought back childhood memories of seeing this on late night TV many years ago. While the Alpha DVD print looks weak and as though it was recorded directly off an old television broadcast or something, I actually liked that in this case! * out of ****

My bad film guru (and the president of the Exposed Film Society) sprang this one on us last week. There was no denying the demented gleam in his eye as he pulled it out of its brown paper bag and announced what he had in store for us: "The Most Dangerous Game", filmed on a budget of about $2.95.

Of course, $2.95 went a lot further back in 1962, but still...

Anyway, there is certainly a lot to dislike about this film. It abounds with serious technical gaffes (my favorite was the 'repeating musket' that fired twice in two minutes without benefit of a reload). The hero is a wuss who stands by while his wounded friend fights the henchman and gets killed.

More? OK -The plot is a shambles with no continuity to speak of. The movie wastes five minutes with a 'special guest star' who serves as the physical embodiment of the villain's madness and paranoia, but never shows him again. The hero is choked unconscious by the henchman but makes no mention of it when he wakes up and first meets his host. The mute servant girl is captured, put on the rack...and then the movie (and the hero, who put her in this predicament) just sort of "forgets" about her.

More? Well, the sets are cheap, and the special effects are cheaper (the makeup is an exception to this). Much of the plot is carried by the narrator's droning, monotonic voice-over, which carries less dramatic impact than the menu recital at Denny's. Most of the dialog is simply ridiculous and stilted , as if it was translated from Japanese. ("I demand that our conversation be pleasant!!!") And the color values tended to shift violently from shot to shot, as if cheap film stock and problematic lighting equipment were the order of the day. (Note - this last may have been the fault of a bad print, rather than the camera crew).

But there were a couple of nice moments here and there. The makeup effects were startlingly good in contrast to the rest of the film, the actors were LOOKED interesting, especially the mute servant girl and the Countess. And in spite of everything, there was a definite creepy atmosphere to be found, very nasty and disturbing.

So what was the deal with this movie? I thought about it a bit, and realized that director/writer Pat Boyette basically tried to put a story from of the old "EC" horror comics on film. That would account for the stilted dialog, the sketchy character development (in a comic, physiognomy = character even more than in film), the loopy interior logic of the story ("EC" horror stories went out of their way to include a nasty "shock" ending and weren't big on psychological realism), the over reliance on the narrative voice (which belongs in captions over the panels), and the interesting makeup effects that mimicked the grisly pictures that the old EC artists did so well.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that when Boyette saw his leading man during casting, he instantly saw that the fellow was as close to being the equivalent of the lanky, shambling figures and caved in faces that artists like Johnny Craig and Jack Davis drew as an actual human could be and still exist in the real world.. He used costumes and lighting to emphasize the cartoony aspect of the visuals and turned everyone into living EC comics characters. (See: the leading lady's blank beauty, the Count's strong bony features, oddly bronze skin and sharp chin, the platinum 'do on the tall, bony black henchman, etc.)

This would explain the movie's failings. Boyette knew how to 'frame' things, but he didn't know how to deal with three dimensions and moving bodies. Boyette knew how to tell a creepy story within the confines of a comics page, but the nuances of film and live actors escaped him. He wouldn't be the first person with this problem of course - look at what Joel Schumacher did to "Batman". But he didn't have a big budget to hide behind.

In any case, I'm imagine that Boyette walked away from this train wreck and probably spent less time thinking about "Dungeon of Harrow"than the folks who post on this film's message boards. He did, within certainly vague boundaries, what he set out to do, and you have to respect him for it...even if you don't care for "Harrow".

Buyer beware. The Alpha Video release uses a print that defies description. The movie was shot in color but you wouldn't know it for the first 25 minutes or so. The print that is used is so faded and decrepit that it appears almost sepia toned. After 30 minutes some color seeps back into the print but from there to the conclusion the color comes and goes. Keep in mind, even at it's best the color is pale and washed out. It looks like the print was recorded off a television that wasn't getting the best reception. Adding to this travesty is the most plodding delivery of lines that I can recollect. Even the voice over narration is stupor inducing. Every line is delivered in this irritating plodding demeanor. I found myself wishing that they would hurry and get the words out. For this reason I couldn't wait for this movie to end. It's one of those so-bad -it's- good movies but I wish that someone would find a half decent print. Adding notation December 2010--Sinister Cinema offers this title and it is struck from a pristine print. This version still has the nude scene censored.

I've seen me a lot of bad movies, and I've seen me a lot of low budget movies.

Note: those two are NOT necessarily the same! I shouldn't even have to say this, but everyone who has watched at least a few movies (and that includes almost everyone in the United States), has had this experience; you go to a theater or turn on a movie channel. Sometimes you get a huge budget major studio film that is oddly hollow, perfunctory and disappointing. Sometimes you get a film that is entertaining in spite of its low budget, transcending its limitations.

The latter is what we get here. In the world of low budget film-making, there are a few "cheats" that can be used to make up for a lack of sumptuous screen images. One is great acting. Another is great writing. We are not treated to either of those in DUNGEON OF HARROW.

But we are treated to a creepy, hallucinatory atmosphere which is quite effective, and gives the viewer a bang for the buck infinitely out of proportion with its tiny budget. Remember, this is (to speak simplistically) a period Gothic horror film shot in Texas in 1963 for a budget under $50,000. Keeping that in mind, the filmmakers and actors have come up with quite a laudable final product. Fans of CARNIVAL OF SOULS can expect similar chills on a small budget, though COS is a much better film.

For a couple of bucks, or in a cheap DVD box set, this film is well worth your time if you like late show type horror thrills.

UPDATE: This film is in the Public Domain. Readily available on YouTube or other streaming video options for free.

This film just screams cheap-jack 60's horror comics ala Creepy and Eerie, and I mean screams with a capital S, and no surprise really, being director Boyette was a well-known horror comic scribe/artiste. Where "Creepshow" failed in really capturing that "EC-vibe", "Dungeon" succeeds 100% in getting that surreal budget label Charlton Comics thing down to a tee! I say, turn it on, shut down you brain and just soak in the oddness, and this film is way odd, dreamlike really, and best watched while slightly groggy after 1 AM (it has a similar dreamy quality akin to the classic poverty row noir "Detour" in this regard, call me crazy)...that said, though, I really only recommend it to hardcore genre fans, regional horror obscurity weirdos (like myself, especially fans of Texas-lensed regional oddities), and retro horror comic fans, so if this sounds like you, Dungeons is pure gold. Now, if someone could please find Boyette's lost film "The Weird One's" my life would be complete.