Customer Reviews

Elvira's Movie Macabre: Maneater of Hydra/The House That Screamed

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Very disappointing, not in choice of movies but in the presentation. Both of these films are very entertaining. But the transfer of MANEATER OF HYDRA is appallingly bad. Not only is it pan-and-scan (which is bad enough and something I half expected), but it looks as if it was mastered from a VHS that had tracking problems (notice all the visual static on bottom of the frame throughout -- I actually have a DVD-R dubbed from a VHS that looks better than this!). The film is no masterpiece, but it is much better than one would expect, and it has a great cast headed by Cameron Mitchell, a great location in an old island villa and a great monster. It was also directed by Mel Welles (primarily an actor, known best for his role of Gravis Mushnick in the original LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, which coincidentally also featured a carnivorous plant that likes blood). Luckily THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (aka LA RESIDENCIA), an atmospheric Spanish film set in the 19th century, is taken from a wide-screen master and has excellent production values (this master is probably from a DVD of the European transfer as it is came out recently overseas -- and all these Elvira DVD releases are apparently titles that are now public domain in the USA). Anyway, be forewarned about MANEATER OF HYDRA. I've seen better transfers of public domain titles from Alpha Video and some of the other public domain DVD labels - which is scary, since Shout Factory (who released this)is a reputable company who have high quality standards. I think their quality-control guy must have been asleep at the wheel when this got through.

Nothing is as fun as watching Elvira watching these bad horror movies. Growing up in the Los Angeles area Elvira and her Movie Macabre was a weekend staple in the eighties on KHJ Channel 9.
These movies are both campy and fun. Perfect for Elvira to take a whack at. The MST3K kids, as fun as they are, should thank Cassandra Peterson everyday for making this genre hip and fun again. Maneater of Hydra is a knock off of The Day of the Triffids with a monster instead of a bunch of trees eating the cast. The House that Screamed is a pretty good little movie in the spooky drive-in movie category. It was loosely remade in the eighties as Pieces. It has been unavailable in the US years except in bad VHS copies from Europe.
All-in-all the entire package is just silly fun and thanks to Elvira and her sometimes priceless one liners, well worth the price. We love you Cassie, Happy Halloween!

OK, Man Eater of Hydra is a pretty cheesy Euro-horror flick from the 60's with a blood-sucking tree, plus it has Cameron Mitchell, so while it's still pretty entertaining (and scared the crap out of me when I was little), this probably is a good candidate for the Elvira treatment. But, "La Residencia" (The House That Screamed) is a much more classy film, and I hardly see why anyone thought the world could benefit from a version of it with Elvira's patter inserted. Of course, on the DVD you can watch both features without Elvira, and on both that's what I did, but the films are still edited for her comments, apparently, so both the sound & the picture make ocassional fades to allow for her inserts. Which is kind of irritating, but then again, is there any other way to get these films in the US? (legally, that is?) No. Well, there is one available from Movies Unlimited but that's probably their usual DVD-R. The print of "Man Eater.." is watchable but somewhat faded, and "House That Screamed" is quite good, and even in widescreen. Don't get me wrong, I like(d) Elvira just fine, back in the day, but that was a long time ago. "House That Screamed" is just not a movie that is best butchered by her commentary. 3 out of 5.

Enter if ye dare. 1969's "The House That Screamed" (a.k.a."La Residencia") is the precursor to 1974's "Black Christmas" and 1978's "Halloween" but alas, so few even know of it. Writer/director Narciso Serrador paved the road that these 70's killer-on-the-loose films drove on, but received litle fanfare for his efforts (which is a shame) "The House That Screamed" goes bumpety bump in zee night with atmosphere deluxe to burn.

Let's begin, shall we? 19th century European gurls gone mild, buttoned to the teeth a la Audra Barkley, whilst minding their manners and ballet lessons. The boarding school fronts as an elite academy, but in reality, it's just an exalted dumping ground for girls who are troubled or troublesome.

Lilli (Pictures of...) Palmer is head mistress Mme. Fourneau, a woman with a secret sealed with a kiss; She has a teenage son, Luis, with mummy issues - nay subscriptions - who is literally a kid locked in a candy store. Luis isn't a Peeping Tom per se...he much prefers "Unauthorized Biographer." In his heart of hearts, Luis' theme song is "I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl that Married Dear Old Dad." The problem is he's working on a puzzle with too many missing pieces.

Mary Maude plays the character Irene: a regal, aloof lezzie gang leader brandishing a big whip with a bigger smile. Irene is right rambunctious, not to mention bent, and rocks the school uniform until the break of dawn. However, Irene hosts the worst tea and sympathy parties, so it's best to just play dead.

Oppressive sexuality, grand architecture, and a midnight rambler to boot...Who could ask for anything more in a horror film? This is one boarding school with a student body count.

When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Nah, meet me in "The House That Screamed."

Plot for both movies:
Maneater of Hydra (1967)
This is a Spanish-West German co-production released in the former country as La Isla de la muerte ("The Island of Death"), in Germany as Das Geheimnis der Todesinsel ("Secret of the Island of Death"), and first released theatrically in the United States as Island of the Doomed. The picture is a more-entertaining-than-it-ought-to-be throwback about a mad scientist and an island of poisonous and carnivorous plants.

Six tourists - erudite James Robinson (Rolf von Nauckhoff) and his lonely wife Cora (Kai Fischer); handsome architect David Moss (George Martin) and stock ingénue Beth (Elisa Montes); frumpy shutterbug Myrtle Callihan (Matilde Munoz Sampedro); and an inquisitive scientist, Professor Jules Demerest (Hermann Nehlsen) - embark upon an unusual vacation, spending their holiday at the castle of Baron von Weser (Cameron Mitchell), a botanist so desperate for cash that he's willing to turn his picturesque estate over to the tourist trade.

There's plenty of room, certainly: the Baron's big island has been uninhabited since legends of a vampire-type creature sent the island's other residents packing. After a short digression with Mrs. Robinson living up to her name by trying to seduce an unresponsive Baron, people start disappearing or dying under mysterious circumstances, including the twin brother of mute manservant Baldi (Mike Brendel) and driver Alfredo (Ricardo Valle). Though the Baron is acting strange and overly-protective of his prized petunias and such, everyone begins to suspect Baldi of the various murders, though it's clear early on that the real culprit is a blood-sucking monster tree.

Directed and co-written by New York born actor Mel Welles, best-known for his performance as flower shop owner Gravis Muschnick in Roger Corman's The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Maneater of Hydra is actually quite atmospheric if predictable, ultimately silly but effectively played with straight faces, and even the big vampire tree looks pretty good, far better than the American one-sheet poster above would suggest.

The English dubbing, perhaps supervised by Welles, is nothing if not amusing. Mr. Robinson is given a voice that's like a parody of George Sanders, while the Madrid-born Sampedro, despite her character's Irish-sounding name, is looped with a broad, Brooklynese Jewish mother voice, like Molly Picon or Louise Lasser.


The House that Screamed (1969)
A lavish Spanish production much more in the style of Henri-Georges Clouzot than, say, Jess Franco, this is a real find, an underrated, virtually forgotten thriller undeserving of the pithy treatment given the picture by Elvira & Co. Though its denouement is a disappointment, it's a class production all the way though the poor if letterboxed transfer hardly does the film justice.

The picture, released in Spain as La Residencia ("The Residence"), may have been an influence on Dario Argento's Suspira (1977); both are set at an all-girl academy and Lilli Palmer's icy headmistress, Mme. Fourneau, is very much like Alida Valli's similarly austere character in Argento's picture. Set in late-19th century France, the story mainly follows new girl Theresa (giallo star Cristina Galbo), the daughter of a single-mother cabaret dancer (and/or prostitute), shipped off to the boarding school Fourneau runs with an iron fist.

Theresa adjusts to her new life fairly well all things considered, though sadistic head girl - and coded lesbian - Irene (Mary Maude, whose looks suggest Barbara Steele) plots to humiliate her. Meanwhile, Isabelle (Maribel Martin), in love with Fourneau's teenage son, Luis (John Moulder-Brown) is brutally murdered, her throat cut, but as her body never turns up it's assumed that the girl has merely run away. Later, Theresa likewise befriends Peeping Tom Luis after he's trapped in a boiler room vent trying to get a looksee at the girls taking showers, but soon thereafter plans to run away herself to escape Irene's brutality.

Directed by Narciso Ibanez Serrador (Who Can Kill a Child?), The House That Screamed surprisingly was condemned in Phil Hardy's Encyclopedia of Horror Movies as "cynically sexploitative" and "offensively misogynist." Beyond the irony that Hardy's book heaps mounds of praise on many of Jess Franco's inept and far more crassly-made horror-sex films, the reality is The House That Screamed is almost too restrained and tasteful for its own good. It's certainly nothing like Hardy's book suggests: though ultimately downbeat the picture is nearly as Victorian as its setting - the girls even take showers demurely clothed in undergarments.

After a slow start, the film builds to some enormously atmospheric set pieces that are genuinely creepy, approaching in the style of Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961) and Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963). Key to this are the film's stunning Franscope cinematography and Waldo de los Rios's moodily effective score. Manuel Berenguer's (King of Kings, 1964's The Thin Red Line) camera backwardly tracks through the school from room-to-room a la Stanley Kubrick, and the superb lighting exemplify the obvious care that went into the production.

Maneater of Hydra looks awful. Filmed in Techniscope, it's bad enough that the film is panned-and-scanned and that the transfer probably dates back to the early-1980s. Worse, it's derived from a battered 16mm television print complete with splices, a few jumps, and distracting reel change cues. The image is soft and murky with terrible contrast. In one daytime scene, several of the characters are wearing white shirts, which are so "hot" that they shimmer like the Planet Krypton wardrobe in Superman (1978). Particularly bad is a videotape "tracking" issue throughout the picture at the bottom of the frame. At least the nearly 88-minute film seems complete or nearly so; it even includes the original European exit music, running about a minute-and-a-half.

The House That Screams seems to have originally aired on Movie Macabre in a panned-and-scanned version, but what's presented here is fully letterboxed, albeit not 16:9 enhanced. Where this transfer was located is anyone's guess: the titles are in Spanish (and bear the title La Residencia, not The House That Screamed) and in one scene a letter, likewise in Spanish, is translated via subtitles. The English-only audio is very poor, muddy and frequently distorted, and the letterboxed image is well below par as well, soft and fairly murky, though at least the original Franscope (2.35:1) screen shape is retained.

Running times for the film vary between 76 minutes (possibly the original U.S. theatrical version) and as long as 104 minutes. This cut runs 97 minutes but clearly is missing at least one full (and probably key) scene that presumably covers Theresa's first meeting with Luis. As it is, she finds him trapped in the vent then the next thing we learn they've been seeing one another for several weeks.

As with previous Movie Macabre releases, viewers have the option to watch the film all by itself, without Elvira's segments. Even so, the film still abruptly and artificially fades in and out where these segments would be. The mono audio on both films is below average. There are no subtitle or alternate audio options, and no Extra Features.

THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED is a seminal work that's inspired surprisingly little critical analysis, or even fanish coverage, at least in the US. Yet its prescient conceit (an unseen slasher in an all-girl's boarding school) adumbrates both SUSPIRIA (likewise set in an all-girl's boarding school) and a decade of slasher-in-a-sorority films. Its influence is evident in PIECES (Italian 1983) and MAY (2002). And one may appreciate THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED as political metaphor.

Yet in his Psychotronic Encyclopedia, Michael Weldon dismisses THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED as "a sick made-in-Spain movie."

At least Tohill & Tombs recognize the film's historic importance. In Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies 1956-1984, they write: "the [Spanish] horror 'boom' really began with the success of THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (LA RESIDENCIA) in 1969." But remarkably, they say no more about it, only alluding to it later when discussing Serrador's ISLAND OF DEATH: "Like Serrador's earlier THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED, the pacing of [ISLAND OF DEATHD] is excellent. ... Again, as in his earlier film, Serrador's story deals with the effects of repression and the notion that the worlds of adults and children are separated by an unbridgeable gulf."

You'd think a book about European sex & horror cinema would say more about the film it credits with popularizing horror in Spain. No matter. I'll say more: The film opens with the arrival of "eighteen and a half years-old" Theresa (Cristina Galbo) at an all-girl's boarding school, in 19th century France (not Spain). She appears privileged, the school an elite academy (as in SUSPIRIA). But the school is really an exalted dumping ground for girls who are troubled, troublesome, or just trouble. Insolent, thievish, wanton, or simply unwanted.

Theresa is the latter. Diffident, even demure, but unwanted by her prostitute mother. Fortunately, someone is willing to pay her tuition to keep her out of her mother's way.

Mme. Fourneau (Lilli Palmer) runs the school, with the aid of a student, Irene (Mary Maude). Irene leads a gang of lesbian bullies, who act as enforcers for Fourneau. One may infer fascist symbolism from Irene's brown blouse and black tie, and her gang's role in enforcing Fourneau's will. Being a 1969 Spanish film, THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED can easily be interpreted as metaphor for Franco's rule.

The "school as metaphor for repressive politics" is an old conceit. The simpler filmic versions pit staid administrations against free-spirited students. But THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED and THE CHOCOLATE WAR (1988) are more complex, and darker, in that they feature school administrations and student gangs forming mutually satisfying alliances against a weak student majority.

As best I know, I'm the only one to identify a political metaphor in THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED. Everyone else seems to focus on the sex. John Stanley (Creature Features) praises the film because it "excellently captures the oppressive sexual needs of the girls with erotic artsy intercutting."

Well, there's that. Actually, the film captures just about every manner of sexual need, for every character.

Forneau's adolescent son, Luis (John Moulder-Brown), feels like a kid in a candy store. He skulks about and spies on the libidinal girls, crawling through walls, peering through vents as they shower.

Complicating matters, Fourneau dotes on Luis, pampering him, projecting her hypochondria onto him, fretting lest he catch cold on a warm summer day. Mother warns son that "none of these girls are any good," and counsels him to wait for the right woman, who will protect him, and "live for him," and love him, just like ... mother. Then mother kiss her son on the lip.

Further complicating matters, Fourneau appears to desire one of her students. After Fourneau has Irene whip the student, Fourneau apologizes and kisses the student's freshly scarred back.

Irene relishes wielding the whip, face aglow with sadistic glee. But she also uses sex to control the girls. Irene controls access to a workman, deciding which horny girl has earned the privilege to slip out for a sexual rendezvous. (For herself, Irene prefers the company of her lesbian gang.)

But there are still more complications. Irene flirts with Theresa, explaining that she can make things pleasant or difficult. For things to be pleasant, all Theresa need do is "obey" Irene's every wish.

This is the sexual tinderbox Theresa slowly finds herself in. (Tohill & Tombs are right to praise the pacing.) But even before Theresa's arrival, a serpent had entered Fourneau's well-ordered garden. Suspiciously too many girls are "escaping" -- and never heard from again. What began as a "exploitation boarding school film" morphs into slasher territory.

The "escapes" distress Fourneau, who stands to lose her position. As control over her society disintegrates, she increases her repression, ordering all windows and doors nailed shut.

"If the girls want to escape, they will," laments a maid. "This is a boarding house, not a prison."

"Then I will make it a prison," Fourneau responds.

When Fourneau withdraws privileges from Irene, Irene withdraws the services of her enforcers. Without Irene, the girls grow more difficult to handle. As the body count mounts, everyone wants to escape.

As political metaphor, THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED suggests that authoritarianism carries the seeds of its own destruction, in the end destroying even those who serve it.

As horror film, THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED benefits from having a strong charismatic villain. No, not Fourneau, but Irene. Or rather, Irene as portrayed by Mary Maude.

Mary Maude has a talent for playing charismatic meanies. As Irene, Maude is strong, alluring, aloof, regal. Maude also shone as the witch-hunter's callous wife in TERROR (British 1978). But when she played a docile woman-in-distress in CRUCIBLE OF TERROR (British 1971) she lost her charisma, and was less interesting. Maude also appeared in LA MUERTE INCIERTA (Spanish 1972), but remains an obscure British actress.

Will somebody please release LA MUERTE INCIERTA on DVD? Or even VHS?

Like many European films, THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED is an international mishmash. Produced in Spain, set in France, starring the English Maude and the German Palmer. The English prints are dubbed, although the actresses' lips seem to be already speaking English. In an interview for Filmfax # 75-76, Maude states: "Unfortunately, I did not dub my own voice, as I was working on something else at the time. I regret this, as I feel that only half the performance is mine. It is my understanding that the English dub was not very good. But, then again, the Spanish one wasn't much either."

To date, this Elivra DVD is the best NTSC DVD version of THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED available in the U.S. Ebay used to have VHS copies of dubious quality, mostly from Europe. Later, a poor quality DVD was released in Australia in the PAL format.

Happily, this Elvira DVD NTSC version is in widescreen. However, it's less that stellar in terms of sound and visual reproduction.

Still, THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED is worth seeing at whatever quality is available.

Maneater of Hydra, also on this DVD. It's a slow-moving, boring film about a man-eating plant. The plant can't leave the soil, and there's only one of it, so ... just stay away from it.

Maneater of Hydra (1964) Presented on DVD as a part of Elvira's Movie Macabre series , this Italian horror flick was directed by none other than Mel Welles--Gravis Mushnik from 1960's Little Shop of Horrors! Mel got Cameron Mitchell to star during his Italian period, though sadly Mitchell's excellent and distinctive voice has been dubbed here. Cam plays Baron von Weser, one of those mysterious European noblemen who own their own island and are usually up to no good. As the movie starts a disparate group has been invited for a weekend vacation at the Baron's island for no particular reason. Things get off to a bad start right away when the hired driver manages to run over the Baron's manservant as they pull in to the driveway. However, the guy's pasty complexion and a weird wound on his cheek suggest he was not in the pink of health at the time anyway, so maybe that's why no one gets too upset. Luckily the dead man's twin brother is the other manservant on the island, so no one has to get their own dinner later that evening. The Baron proves a charming host, though it doesn't take long for something to start picking off the guests one by one. You don't think it has anything to do with the Baron's botanical pursuits involving crossbreeding of plants into carnivores, do you? Well, none of the guests do, anyway, until way late into the movie. I had a good time with this one, though it's a pretty average Italian scare flick from the period. Mitchell is a fine presence, even if he is speaking with someone else's voicebox; and the special effects are pretty well done for a low budget movie. Add in some fun Elvira interludes (originally leading into and back from commercial breaks although the film is the version not edited for TV) and you have a fairly entertaining flick for those so inclined.

The House That Screamed
--------------------------
THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED is a moody little thriller out of Spain that benefited greatly from the success of PSYCHO like so many other films before it. The girls attending an isolated finishing school find it impossible to leave when several of their fellow classmates are discovered murdered after their attempted escapes from the oppressive institution. HOUSE's elegant settings and key cinematography are both reminiscent of Roger Corman's Poe adaptations crossed with the adolescent nightmares found in Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA. What is most interesting about this film is how the painfully slow pacing is broken up by intense moments of graphic gore that seem to come out of nowhere. These deaths are tastefully shot and are as unexpected as they are bloody, especially considering that the remainder of the film has all of the horror and suspense of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. It is not that the film was poorly made (quite the opposite, in fact), it is just entirely uneventful but for a few gruesome moments. If nothing else can be taken away from Serrador's film, its twisted and depraved ending will leave a lasting impression on the audience. The limited gore and early Slasher conventions that are established in THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED are still far ahead of their time, making this a worthwhile venture for Splatter fans.

-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies

I watched the house that screamed a long time ago I think its a great story and if it was remade I personally think it would be a good idea. lately for the past few years their has not been a movie (Horror) movie that I have liked I can't remember the last time I watched a good scary movie at the movies I remember walking out while watching Dracula 2000 such a boring movie.I liked Maneater of hydra I think of it more of a sci fi/horror film the two movies are good but what bothered me was the editing, their were pauses on both movies as if a comercial was next I didn't like that and it distracted me ,but all in all I enjoyed both movies but The house that screamed will always be one of my favorite movies.If I was a movie Producer I would make that movie again. I made a mistake rating 3 stars this is a 5 star.

Ilsa Goes to School

From beginning to end this film is a masterpiece of horror! From the plot, acting, set direction, photography and music everything is top notch. I don't know where to begin even parsing it because there are so many elements.

The plot: A new student arrives at an ultra strict boarding school in the nation of Europe sometime in the late 1800s where all the students are drop dead gorgeous teenage girls.

The school turns out to be more FUBAR than Twin Peaks. There isn't just one story line, there are dozens. Because the girls have spent years literally imprisoned in the gothic mansion having every human dignity and joy denied them (accept apparently 24 hour access to hair dressers, makeup artists, and clothes that make 'Bladerunner' look tame) girls seek out debauchery where ever they can. Whether it's drawing lots for trysts with the visiting woodsman, or the head mistress's horny 15 year old son, S&M whipping sessions, or just plain lesbianism, these are the only lives they know.

The big scary house holds more secret passages and dark attics, for secret meetings and abuse than any in film history. It's amazing so much was packed into only 90 minutes so effectively.

The head mistress herself isn't just an sadist and prison warden, she also has an incestuous crush on her 15 year old son whom she scolds daring to merely look at all the pretty girls he lives with. He should find a nice woman like mother. A young Norman Bates in training.

Then there's the teacher's pet. In some ways she has more power than the head mistress herself. She uses her power to force lesbian acts from fellow students but all the while has on obvious crush on the head mistress herself.

The local handy men are also slightly less creepy than John Wayne Gacy.

While all of these story lines are scary, nothing really "horror" happens accept for girls disappearing. Are they escaping? The head mistress keeps redoubling security. Are they being murdered? No bodies are turning up. Who and how many are in on the disappearances? This is more of a side plot that results in an M. Night Shamalyan style surprise ending I won't spoil.
Clearly this film, whatever its title heavily influenced VC Andrews' masterpiece `Flowers in the Attic' about a big creepy house where children were so abused they turned to incest for love. And many other haunted house movies such as Wes Craven's `The People Under the Stairs.'

But this probably most inspired the Euro trash D Nazisplotation films of the 1970s such as the `Ilsa' series, where Ilsa the sadist systematically tortured innocent women for 90 minutes. Unfortunately the Nazisplotation films went way overboard in terms of gore. Even the most hardened horror fan doesn't want to see people gang raped by midgets or animals while being set on fire. Or Nazis canalizing Jewish babies. (`Last Orgy of the Third Reich')

`The House that Screamed' features far better psychological horror than blood and guts.

The main star of the film is by far the gothic mansion itself. This is a haunted house to end all houses. The photographers did a great job in not even showing the entire house in one shot so we can only guess how big and scary it really is.

To clear up a few production notes and rumors I've seen online: this was a group European production not filmed in any one language. English, Spanish, French, Italian depending on which actor is speaking. The whole film is then redubbed for whatever country it's released in. As a result the film ends up looking dubbed in any language.

This dubbing style is similar to the Hong Kong martial arts films which may involve a variety of different language actors. The action scenes are shot and then dialogue and plot are dubbed in later

Hence it is inaccurate to say it's a Spanish film dubbed to English.

2nd most websites cite the time period as the turn of the century, 1900. However the school only uses candles! By 1900 they would have been using electricity or gas lamps at a minimum.

Anyway this horror film is a MUST SEE for all horror fans. Don't let anyone give away the ending!