Behind the Couch

1940 Dir. Jean Yarbrough Dr Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) devises a plan to extract revenge on his employers, the owners of a cosmetics company, whom he believes have exploited and betrayed him, getting rich on a product he created. Concocting a new aftershave (!), he offers it to the sons of his employers and then releases an electrically enlarged bat, trained to hone in on the distinct aftershave (!!), and slaughter its wearer. The series of mysterious deaths sparks the interest of roving reporter Johnny Layton (David O’Brien) and photographer, One-Shot McGuire. The two set out to investigate the murders and put a stop to the diabolical mastermind orchestrating them, before they too become victims of the ‘death-diving’ giant bat. The Devil Bat was produced by PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), one of the more modest production studios of Hollywood’s ‘Poverty Row.’ PRC produced mainly low budget B-movies, particularly horror films, westerns and melodramas. The film compris...

1959 Dir. Ed Wood Whilst investigating reports of dubious activities and ghost sightings at an old house in the middle of nowhere, Lt. Dan Bradford, a specialist in supernatural crimes and lover of opera, encounters the rather odd and obviously phony physic Dr. Acula. It turns out Dr. Acula has been conducting fake séances and ripping off bereaved families desperate to contact their dead loved ones. However, it turns out that Acula’s dabbling in the occult may actually have summoned forth a few bewildered and vengeful spirits and as the night unravels, it won’t just be his collection of skeletons that are going bump in the night. No. It will also be the rickety sets, plodding pace, terrible acting and the unnecessarily overlong exposition throughout Night of the Ghouls . This is after all an Ed Wood production, so what do you expect? Director Edward D. Wood Jnr. has (posthumously) garnered a cult following as the worst director to ever work in cinema. Harsh, but this is not ne...

1942 Dir. Wallace Fox The Corpse Vanishes  was one of many B-movies to star Bela Lugosi in the 1940’s, a particularly prolific period for the actor. The story follows reporter Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters) as she tries to discover who is murdering brides on their wedding day. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Lugosi is the culprit: stealing the bodies of young brides to extract vital glandular fluids from them to keep his ailing wife (Elizabeth Russell) youthful. Lugosi is aided in his diabolical quest by the freakish sons of his housekeeper: a sadistic dwarf and a dim-witted giant. The film begs no pardons for its exploitative subject matter – it relishes in the sensationalism and its shock value goes for the jugular every chance it gets. ‘Its sensational! Another kidnapping of a dead bride – what a story!’ scream the newspaper headlines that spin across the screen, imposed over shots of a busy printing press. After the bizarre opening shots of Lugosi in...