Cheeky and campy, The Monster Club is a graveyard smash.
The Monster Club (1981), directed by Roy Ward Baker; starring Vincent Price, John Carradine, Donald Pleasence, Stuart Whitman, Barbara Kellerman, Britt Eckland, Simon Ward, and Richard Johnson.
This film is generally considered the last of the legendary anthology horror films released by Amicus, even though it’s not actually an Amicus film. However, it does offer the same formula as famous Amicus offerings like The House that Dripped Blood (1970) and the original Tales From the Crypt (1972), and it's created by much of the same crew, including Milton Sabotsky as the producer and Hammer/Amicus veteran Roy Ward Baker as the director.
Often self-knowingly campy and tongue-in-cheek, The Monster Club is a delightful end to a brilliant, sixteen-year run of Amicus (or, in this case, Amicus-inspired) anthologies.
As usual with anthologies, the film starts with a “framing” story that wraps around stand-alone tales of horror. In this framing story, horror legends John Carradine and Vincent Price play, respectively, a famous horror writer and an affable vampire.
The vampire, Eramus, helps himself to a snack at the writer’s expense (the writer has the same name as the real-life author of the novel version of The Monster Club, R. Chetwynd-Hayes). He then offers Chetwynd-Hayes a drink at his private club, The Monster Club, which is restricted in membership to ghouls, zombies, werewolves, vampires, and assorted hybrid in-betweens.
It’s the early 80s, so the club features punk rock performances and performers in skinny ties and lavender lipstick (the real life bands Night and The Pretty Things, and singer/songwriter/actor B. A. Robertson). Memorable song titles include “I’m a Sucker for You,” for which all the vampires go wild.
Three Stories Introduced By a Vampire
Eramus and Chetwind-Hayes settle in at a table made from a glass-topped coffin. Then Eramus introduces three stories that he wants Chetwind-Hayes to write up into horror novels. Price as Eramus is polite and gentlemanly, and he thankfully restrains most tendancies toward scenery-chewing and hambonery. Carradine is low-key but effective.
The club scene fades into three stories that are longer and more involved than segments in previous Sabotsky/Amicus anthologies. In addition, the filmmaking style is noticeably different from that of the last Sabotsky/Amicus anthology From Beyond the Grave (1974) (also based on stories by the real-life Chetwynd-Hayes).
The camera is less static, the costumes show more skin (at least for the female performers), the acting is less stagey. Grave is only seven years older than Monster Club, and yet the two films look like they’re from two totally distinct eras. It’s a stark record of just how much pop culture changed from the 70s to the 80s.
The first story deals with a “shadmock,” a hybrid monster descended from various permutations of ghouls, werewolves and vampires. The shadmock, named Raven (played by James Laurenson), is a lonely soul who lives by himself in a huge Gothic mansion filled with priceless treasures. Although his appearance is ghoulish, Raven’s only “power” is being able to melt living things by whistling at them.
He hires a beautiful young secretary, Angela (played by Barbara Kellerman), to help him catalogue his expensive collections. He falls in love with Angela, but she and her secret boyfriend (Simon Ward) are only interested in Raven’s money. The pair eventually finds out what happens when Raven whistles. This story is more sad than scary.
The middle tale features horror veteran Donald Pleasence as a vampire-hunter named Pickering who worms his way into the affections of a little boy who doesn’t know that his father (Richard Johnson) is a vampire. The boy invites Pickering home one day when his father is asleep in his coffin in the basement, and Pickering brings along two men with stake kits hidden in violin cases. The staking of the father doesn’t go quite as expected for Pickering, though. This episode is deliberately light-hearted and campy, and reminds me of the lighter Roger Corman Poe movies, such as The Raven (1963).
The last episode is the darkest and best. Stuart Whitman plays Sam, an American horror movie director filming on location in England. He hits the road to find a creepy, remote English village for a scene in his film, and ends up in Loughville. The residents of Loughville are all carrion-eating ghouls and they eye up Sam as their next feast.
The innkeeper's daughter, Luna, is different from the others — she’s a “humgool”, a cross between a ghoul and a human. She rescues Sam and helps him escape back to the main road. Unfortunately, the escape isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, as the story ends with a creepy “twist.”
Baker directs with assurance; Price, Carradine, and Pleasence turn in old-pro performances; the punk-inspired soundtrack is a delight. Strong recommend for those times when you don't want to take horror too seriously. On disc and currently streaming, free to Prime members, on U.S. Amazon.
