House of the Black Death (1965)

Sue me I liked this. perhaps seeing it late at night with the lights out and being half a sleep the film came across as a twisted dream. Perhaps I had to eventually like a film that Jerry Warren was involved in. What ever the reason I liked the film. (Actually I think its the fact that Sinister Cinema's print is dark and shadowy and very moody) The plot has a white magician getting involved with two warring brothers who are black magicians. Lon Chaney is one John Carradine is the the other.Its a strange film that has a rhyming opening intoned by Satan, a plot that wanders all over the place and plot holes that you could drive a rampaging demon through. Its not by any real normal sense a good film, but it has mood and a sense of place and a reality that is sort of bent, I liked it.I have no idea if anyone else will but its a dark tale that clicked with me.

Relatives returning to their ancestral home tangle with warlocks and a family curse.If this was based on an actual novel, as the credits claim, it has to be filmdom's sorriest screen adaptation. (Then again, the book angle could have been fabricated by crudmeister Jerry Warren, whose cinematic transgressions include bogus credits.) Like MONSTER A GO GO ('65), this plays like an unfinished film. You pity old hands Tom Drake and Andrea King, clueless that they'll "star" in what amounts to a series of barely connected scenes.On the other hand, Lon Chaney and John Carradine probably knew exactly what type of muck they were standing in. Carradine hams his role of family patriarch so badly, Hormel could sue for product defamation. Chaney, possibly hired because the plot includes a werewolf, plays a horned satanist who limps with an (unseen) cloven hoof...or did he just drop a hooch bottle on his foot? Familiar TV face Jerome Thor is screendom's most pitiful lycanthrope, though he gives it what I guess is his best shot.Master film mangler Jerry Warren attempted to finish the film by randomly inserting new scenes that add nothing but running time. Sparse music cues contribute to the lethargy.

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", an obscure B & W horror pic from the mid-60's, marked Lon Chaney's entrance into the world of Grade Z schlock, a domain already inhabited by his co-star, John Carradine. Unfortunately, both stars would continue a downward career spiral from this point on, making numerous low-grade bombs along the way.The story here involves dueling warlocks, battling for control of the Desard family in the village of Wydeburne, wherever that is. Chaney's Belial is on the outside, looking in, lusting for his brother Andre's (Carradine)fortune. Belial employs his coven of witches to bedevil the opposing members of the Desard family in his quest for power. Spells are cast, demons and Werewolves are invoked (although mostly off-screen) but the end result is viewer boredom, thanks to an incoherently talky script and stilted performances.As originally filmed, this picture was obviously an unreleasable mess. Hence, the producers invited noted hack Jerry Warren ("Face of the Screaming Werewolf", "Teenage Zombies", "Incredible Petrified World", plus many more truly awful movies) to try to piece things together. Warren dragged in his longtime "star" Katherine Victor, for a few insert shots and dropped in some dancing girl segments, all to little avail. The movie remained unreleasable and received few, if any, playdates under an assortment of titles.Don't look for it on TV: your only chance to view this disaster is probably by ordering a copy from a PD video dealer. Take my advice, save your money!