Category Archives: film

Movie reviews. Genre commentary.

Hosts of Horror: A History

Since the early days of TV, there have been television hosts that have made their careers out of showing (and lampooning) horror films. From “Grandpa” Al Lewis and Elvira to Sinister Seymour and Zacherle, the list literally runs from A to Z — with dozens upon dozens of hosts, local and national, having entertained audiences for over 60 years. Mosts are merely comedic figures who poke fun at bad movies. But is that all there is to the horror host? One could argue that the best among them represent more than just b-movies and bad jokes.

Maila Nurmi (1947)
Maila Nurmi (1947)

First among the horror hosts was a true original: Maila Nurmi as Vampira. I have already extensively written about her elsewhere, and can’t say enough about the impact she had on 1950s subculture. She was not a clown, by any means, and the character she created was more sardonic than comedic.

THEN THERE WAS ZACHERLE

Born in 1918, Zacherle — a University of Pennsylvania grad and repertory theater actor — got his start at WCAU-TV in Philadelphia in 1954 (the same year Maila Nurmi’s Vampira Show debuted in California). Zacherle was hired to play numerous roles; among them was an undertaker for the station’s western, Action in the Afternoon. A few year later, in 1957, he followed Nurmi’s example in exclusively hosting horror films, refining his role of undertaker, and becoming the star of Shock Theater.

John "Roland" Zacherle
John “Roland” Zacherle

As a host named “Roland,” Zacherle the undertaker lived in a crypt with his dead wife (“My Dear”), and Igor, his lab assistant. Unlike Vampira, whose humor was more subdued and subversive, Zacherle’s approach to hosting involved parodying films with comedy skits, sight-gags, and a bit of gore (including chocolate syrup as an effective substitute for blood, suitable for black & white TV). Though popular with young baby boomers, the show ran for only 92 episodes, closing shop in 1958. Like The Vampira Show (’54-’55), Shock Theater ended before it really began. Each ran only one year.

Yet each host became an icon of high camp, introducing into the horror genre a tongue-in-cheek playfulness missing from the many Universal, Paramount and MGM films they hosted (with the exception, perhaps of a few Abbot and Costello films). It was an era of excess and cold war paranoia. These were the early days of b-movies ready-made for parody: doomsday monsters and malicious alien science fiction films. These were the days of post-war commercialism. There were the days of the atomic bomb. Zacherle made the horrific silly at a time when America needed it most.

After his show ended, Zacherle parlayed a friendship with Dick Clark (who reputedly gave him the moniker “The Cool Ghoul” — into hosting gigs when American Bandstand went on the road. There was even a Dick Clark-backed recording of “Dinner with Drac,” a rock n’ roll record that made the top ten. The record — and appearances on various television shows — reinvigorated Zacherle (now sometimes printed as Zacherly) and revived his career.

He would go to New York to repackage Shock Theater as Zacherly at Large for another relatively short stint for WABC-TV in New York. From there, he had radio gigs, live appearances, a return to hosting horror films in 1963 — even playing host to a dance contest. One could even argue that his  brand of humor contributed to the success of 60s telvision’s beloved sitcom The Munsters — which debuted in 1964.

Zacherle’s career was varied and long, winding down when in his 80s with small appearances into his 90s. He died in 2016, at the age of 98. To this day, you can still pick up Zacherle t-shirts and other merchandise at horror and sci-fi conventions across the country.

Larry Vincent as Sinister Seymour
Larry Vincent as Sinister Seymour

He had imitators, most notably (for me, at least, in the Philadelphia area, where I grew up in the 1970s) Dr. Shock, played by magician Joseph Zawislak. And on the left coast was Larry Vincent, playing Sinister Seymour on Fright Night on KHJ-TV and Seymour’s Monster Rally on KTLA — both in Los Angeles.*

There were many others across the entire country, but it is with Sinister Seymour that the history of horror hosts considerably pivots.

ENTER ELVIRA

In 1981, six years after the death of Larry Vincent, producers of Fright Night, approached  Maila Nurmi to help relaunch the show. She worked with them briefly, but left the project after he choice for the new Vampira, Lola Falana, was rejected. Ironically, the producers new search for a host resulted in the woman Nurmi would go on to sue unsuccessfully for stealing her likeness: Cassandra Peterson as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

Part Valley Girl, part Goth — full of cheesy jokes and a whole lot of cleavage — Elvira brought to Movie Macabre a style that was a marriage of Zacherle humor with Vampira-esque sexuality. The combination was perfect for a new age of unbridled consumerism that not only used sex to sell everything, but was in desperate need of sophomoric humor and simplistic b-movies in a time when technology and politics were shaping a generation that dealt daily with the anxiety of their parents divorcing, and the Russians ever more inclined to drop the bomb.

Yes, Movie Macabre was derivative, but it was new to Generation X. Gen Xers knew nothing of Zacherle, and could only vaguely remember local shows like Dr. Shock’s from their formative years.  Baby boomers owned pretty much everything — except, perhaps, Gen X’s unique brand of neurosis. It was the age of AIDS, after all. Sex could kill you. So Elvira came along at just the right time.

Flippant, sarcastic, and replete with risqué double entendres, Elvira appealed directly to the disaffected, horny youth of Gen X. If Halloween and Playboy came together to create a woman, she still wouldn’t be as contagious and outrageous as Elvira.

Elvira on set
Elvira on set

She was self-aware and self-absorbed at the same time. Not afraid of cornball humor. Comfortable with being a sex symbol. Not only capable of making fun of bad movies, but also, more importantly, critiquing her own persona while exposing more than just, um, her assets; the show’s contrivances — from poor production to pathetic props — were fair game. She seemed almost annoyed with the gig of having to watch terrible movies from a red velvet sofa on cheap set in a third-rate television studio; and it made watching her watch the movies all the more fun.

By the end of the nineteen eighties, Elvira had multiple seasons of Movie Macabre under her dagger-accented belt along with a feature film and more merchandising, ads, and photos online than all other horror hosts combined. Her popularity continued well into the nineties and beyond, with Coors Light commercials, television cameos, a successful book celebrating her 35th anniversary  — even a newly-published comic book series from Dynamite. But after three and half decades, live appearances have tapered off. She has gone into semi-retirement, no doubt enjoying the rewards that come with being one of world’s most well-known brands. Visit her website at www.elvira.com.

NEW BLOOD

Now, two decades into the new millennium, one wonders if the horror movie host may actually be becoming a thing of the past.

In an age of movies-on-demand, YouTube celebrities, and short attention spans (have you really read this far?), watching a bad movie for two hours with a horror host occasionally interrupting to make a bad joke or two is no longer (if it was ever!) must-see tv. But there’s new blood keeping the low to no budget form alive (or undead, as the case may be).

An independent network called “Reel  TV” has a fanged female host in Ohio by the name of Lamia (pronounced phoenetically as “Lay-Me…Uh”) who, in addition to hosting films, holds a “Horror Hotel” film festival every year (you can find them on Facebook).  Then there’s a Rob-Zombiesque Karlos Borloff from Washington, D.C.; his multimedia assault called Monster Madhouse has been around since 2006. Mixing music, horror-themed events and traditional b-movie hosting, it has the distinction of being the first such show to be on public access television and live-streamed on the internet. Many more are out there. Your town may have its own. They are a new breed of horror hosts, taking full advantage of the intersection of goth, rock, horror, camp and gore.

Svengoolie
Svengoolie

Still, there are the traditionalists. The most popular of these may be Svengoolie (played by Rich Koz). His Saturday night show on basic cable is, in many ways, reminiscent of Zacherle. His trademark rubber chicken reminds the viewer that, when all is said and done, the horror host, in its purest form, is an entertainer more interested in chuckles than anything else.

Koz has been at it for many years, having played the role off and on since 1979. Still going strong, the Svengoolie show can be seen nationally on MeTv.

* It’s no coincidence that the 1985 horror film Fright Night features a TV horror film host named Peter Vincent. Elvira may have played herself on the silver screen, but Larry Vincent inspired a character who goes beyond b-movies to become a bona fide vampire hunter.

Sven Squad
IMP, Gwengoolie, Sven, and Nostalgiaferatoo (photo from MeTV)

Update September 23, 2023. Is it possible the Svengoolie has found his successors after all these years? IMP, Nostalgiaferatoo, and Gwengoolie (aka Pinup model and aspiring horror host Sarah Palmer) look like they have permanently joined the “Sven Squad,” assisting Sven with hosting duties.

Vampires & Victims: Women of Hammer Horror

Twins
Playboy Playmates Mary and Madeleine Collinson in Twins of Evil (1971)

I grew up with the women of Hammer Studios — vampires, victims… even Victor Frankenstein’s first successful female monster. For a boy who spent much of the late seventies and early eighties glued to Saturday afternoon horror movie marathons, my first real exposure to buxom blondes, brazen brunettes and titillating twins came not in the form of Hollywood starlets or Playboy magazines*; instead, my dream girls were Ingrid Pitt as a lesbian bloodsucker in diaphanous gowns; Caroline Munro, as a vampire hunter’s gypsy sidekick; Martine Beswick as a seductive Sister Hyde; Susan Denberg, an alluring creature wrapped in strategically-placed bandages; and Ursula Andress, who is simply “She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.”

Before the age of ubiquitous internet porn, and unedited premium cable, there were few avenues for the adolescent male to use as the stuff of fantasy. For those of us who came of age in the 1970s and 80s (and were rabid fans of the Saturday afternoon movie marathon and their hosts of horror), we found our fantasies fulfilled in the technicolor flesh (lots of flesh) and blood (lots of blood) that was Hammer. In an age before VCRs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and now, streaming, the broadcast of a Hammer horror film was appointment television.

Sister Hyde (1971)
Martine Beswick as Sister Hyde discovers her feminine side (1971)

I’ve written about the finest films of Hammer studios before, but never have I looked inward to find the young man that first really became aware of the opposite sex by watching Ingrid Pitt rise from a tub (Vampire Lovers, 1970), or Martine Beswick gaze into the mirror at her exposed female form (Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde, 1971). And when I try to picture that boy attempting to make sense of what he was seeing as his body and mind matured, I have to laugh: what a strange way to first really become aware of the opposite sex?

These women were a bit intimidating. Though products of their time — models and actresses often known for their racy pics in British tabloids of the day — the characters that many of them played were surprisingly empowered. Perhaps indicative of the revolution in attitudes toward women at that time, Hammer’s women of the late sixties and early seventies were much different than those of the decade earlier. Just ten years before the sexually-charged Vampire Lovers, 1960’s Brides of Dracula presented women as one-dimensional, all-too-typical victims. Actresses like the delightful Yvonne Monlaur and Marie Devereux were mere fodder for the fangs of Baron Meinster; it takes the all-too-familiar interventions of the hero, Peter Cushing’s Doctor Van Helsing, to save the heroine and the day. Monlaur, the female lead, is otherwise powerless to do anything in the presence of the oddly blue-eyed, blonde-haired vampire. Still, this is quite romantic compared to the degradation, humiliation, and rape of Yvonne Romain as the mute jailor’s daughter in Curse of the Werewolf (1961).

Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith
Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith in The Vampire Lovers (1970)

A decade later, in 1970’s Vampire Lovers — an adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” — Hammer places its first leading female vampire in a position of power. Sure, she too is dispatched by Peter Cushing (feminism hadn’t yet come THAT far), but Ingrid Pitt is able to play an imposing figure that is not only sexual, but dangerous. The virginal Madeline Smith cannot resist the seduction, nor can the governess, played by Kate O’Mara. And there to set the trap is Dawn Addams, the mysterious Countess who insinuates her daughter into two unsuspecting families’ lives (sure, there is the man in black on horseback in the shadows, but notice how only the women speak!).

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Susan Denberg and Peter Cushing in Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

Of course, bloodlust is not confined to vampires. Susan Denberg is given plenty of screen time in 1967’s Frankenstein Created Woman to wreak havoc. She kills those responsible for injustices inflicted upon Hans, the man whose soul now inhabits her body — courtesy of Victor Frankenstein (again, played by, who else?, Peter Cushing!). Sure, it’s a man’s spirit in a woman’s body — suggesting that only a man could have the murderous inclination necessary to seek revenge — but the message is nonetheless clear: death can come from a beautiful woman.  Ingrid Pitt as Marcilla (Carmilla) with fangs bared in Vampire Lovers. Yutte Stensgaard covered in a victim’s blood in Lust for a Vampire (1971). Martine Beswick, stronger as Sister Hyde than her male counterpart, the doctor, could ever hope to be.  Valerie Leon, fighting, then embracing, then fighting again, possession by a malevolent Egyptian lifeforce in the underrated and often overlooked Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971).

These were strong women. Strong in the sense that some were dangerous, yes. But even those presented as mere victims often seemed capable of fighting back.

There was Caroline Munro as a wild gypsy in Captain Kronos (1974) helping to hunt vampires.  Dracula , Prince of Darkness (1966) finds the Count sinking to a (running) watery grave courtesy of Susan Farmer firing the first shot into the ice as Father Shandor stands idly by. Then there’s perennial victim Veronica Carlson. A mere object of desire in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), she at least manages to stab Frankenstein’s monster one year later before being killed off by (you guessed it) Peter Cushing in Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (1969).

These women weren’t the empty-headed, defenseless and promiscuous teens of the many slasher films so popular a decade later. With the exception of Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in Halloween (1978), it would appear that the late seventies and early eighties were a step backward for feminism in horror. But Hammer? Hammer’s women seemed empowered. At least to impressionable me. Sure, these were the sixties and early seventies. Many of Hammer’s heroines were women in distress — victims in need of saving — and the antithesis of the woman fighting for equal rights of the time. But they were no shrinking violets either. Credit the actresses for bringing more to their roles than may have been written on the page. As much as they were flesh and blood for sake of exploitation, they were flesh and blood for sake of characterization, too.

Be they vampires, victims or Victor Frankenstein’s most ambitious creation — Hammer’s actresses were unlike any other women in the history of genre film.

Veronica Carlson
Veronica Carlson

“Cheesecake” photos from the age of what has since been called “Hammer Glamour” (coined perhaps by Marcus Hearn in his book of the same name**) abound. They are coveted by collectors today. eBay is loaded with them. Ingrid PittYutte StensgaardMartine BeswickCaroline MunroVeronica Carlson. Many of these women have long since passed away. But through the magic of film, they are young forever — like the undead creatures many of them played. Their autographs on photos are cherished keepsakes. Even the briefest meetings with just one of them at a convention is a treasured memory.***

These are the women — and the films — that opened a world to me. A place where both desire and fear dwell. A place for fantasies, to be sure, but a place of mystery, too. How strange, erotic, and even a tad ironic that they be cloaked in the stuff of nightmares.

 

* Yes, the Collinson twins were Playboy Playmates of the Month in October, 1970, but in my defense, I was barely a year old and not yet aware of such a pair(ing).

** Be sure to pick up Marcus Hearns’ Hammer Glamour, a book that pays tribute to each of the women mentioned here — from Veronica Carlson to Ingrid Pitt and so many more. Barbara Shelley. Madeline Smith. Too many to mention! Collectors might also want to track down the September, 2000 issue of Femme Fatales Magazine as it is a double issue dedicated to the “50 Sexiest Figures of Hammer Films.”

Meeting Ingrid Pitt in 2004
Meeting Ingrid Pitt in 2004

*** I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Pitt while promoting my book in the summer of 2004. She was one of the nicest women I’ve ever met. A real class act. She told me I was sweet when I confided in her that watching Vampire Lovers was a seminal moment in my reaching puberty. One of my favorite films made by Hammer, it is the subject of a great article by John J Johnston which I highly recommend [this note was added in 2020, the films’s 50th anniversary]). It is arguably Pitt’s finest performance (among a small but impressive list of films that, in addition to Vampire Lovers, include Where Eagles Dare, , Countess Dracula, The Wicker Man, and The House that Dripped Blood).

A photo Pitt graces the feature section of this blog post. She passed away in 2010.