The Signalman

This is an interesting 1976 TV special that was on the BBC, 37 minutes in length.

I had seen one of the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas specials before, but it was before Christmas in ’24, I watched 1974’s The Treasure of Abbot Thomas. Then and now, Shudder has some. The BBC made some in the 70’s and there have been sporadic effects since 2005. An old oral tradition was to tell supernatural tales around Christmas. They started off adapting stories from English writer M.R. James but this came from none other than Charles Dickins.

IMO, ghost stories like this are as fitting for Spooky Season as they are for Christmas. Bernard Lloyd stumbles across Denholm Elliott, the titular signalman for the railway. This is back in the day of locomotives. His dwelling is in a dark valley, right in front of a spooky tunnel in the woods. The setting itself is great, augmented by the two talented actors engaged in discussion w/ each other, including Elliott’s love of the job despite the isolation & loneliness.

There is some great imagery shown in this cold, foggy setting, each breath visible in the night. The supernatural element is a spectre that Elliott has seen; each appearance foretells doom & disaster. The Signalman isn’t action-packed, full of spooks and calamity. Rather, the mood & atmosphere slowly envelops the viewer. This spectre doesn’t tell the signalman how to prevent those accidents, after all, and even Lloyd becomes haunted by those moments.

As the sound design is aces throughout & the finale is chilling to the bone, The Signalman can be viewed during any month of the year.

 

The Mummy's Tomb

The Mummy’s Tomb (1942)

Runtime: 61 minutes

Directed by: Harold Young

Starring: Lon Chaney, Jr., Turhan Bey, Dick Foran, John Hubbard, Elyse Knox

From: Universal

There’s no need for me to ever see The Mummy’s Hand…

This played last night on the Universal Monsters streaming channel found on platforms such as Pluto TV. I would have watched The Mummy’s Hand (the second in the franchise-Tomb is the third) except that the channel wasn’t playing it last night. That was irrelevant anyhow as the first 1/5th (!) of this film is a CliffsNotes version of Hand, told 30 years later by the lead in Hand-a character w/ the surname Banning- to his family in the living room.

The villains (both human & mummy) seek revenge 30 years later; at least this being a direct sequel explains why… this time the mummy is shipped to New England to gain revenge on the Banning family. The “tomb” in question is at a cemetery in New England. The mummy is guided by Turhan Bey. Now, this isn’t the best Universal Horror by any regards and has its silly moments; one example is that a guy phones the sheriff after hearing a wolf howl!

Yet, the movie is still enjoyable, a fine hour spent with a decent score and some atmospheric moments. Wallace Ford had a supporting role as the typical wisecracking Wallace Ford character. Plus, Lon Chaney, Jr. was the titular mummy, Kharis. It does plenty of killing even as it shuffles about and only has one working arm. Bey had a Turkish father; no surprise that he portrayed many “ethnic” roles during his career, including Egyptian in The Mummy’s Tomb.

Tomb is not a must-see film, not the best of the Universal Horror sequels of the 30’s through the 50’s. This does not mean there isn’t fun to be had viewing a mummy stalk then strangle people to death as if it was a slasher movie villain. If you’re familiar with The Mummy’s Hand, the first 12 of the 60 minutes being devoted to recapping that will be irksome but otherwise the film is competent, w/ several memorable moments.

 

Species

Species (1995)

Runtime: 108 minutes

Directed by: Ronald Donaldson

Starring: Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker, Alfred Molina, Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger, Natasha Henstridge

From: MGM 

Somehow, a movie I’d never seen before last night. Recently, I was to cancel the MGM+ subscription I had on Amazon but they gave me a sweetheart deal to stay on for a few more months. Plus, they have a few 24/7 streaming channels, this playing on their Marquee channel late last night.

I was happy to view lurid sci-fi/horror trash which had an overqualified cast & crew in a fun milieu. Creating a human/alien hybrid via instructions sent to you via alien signal was a poor idea, especially when she becomes Natasha Henstridge and wishes to mate; yes, end-of-the-world potential. In my opinion, nothing wrong w/ trash where the film was sexual & was happy to present nudity. Henstridge is a lovely lady, swell for this sort of motion picture.

The movie is silly yet full, full of campy dialogue… at least I hope it was meant to be campy! If not, then it accidentally was a win. The team tasked w/ hunting down the villain was Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger, Alfred Molina, and Forest Whittaker, the latter having telepathic abilities; that’s a quality crew. Having an established director like Roger Donaldson was also a nice asset.

Species does not have high, arty aspirations; apparently, the script was originally more high-brow but instead we received an exciting film with fun protagonists (late in the movie, they bond over… Long
Island Ice Teas), & formidable villain in a world with nice bloody practical effects, a creature created by H.R. Gigler, early CG which wasn’t offensively bad, and a few chuckles. Who knows if the sequels will ever be viewed but this was an engaging 90’s creature feature.

Hot Spot

Hot Spot (2026)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: Agnieszka Smoczynska

Starring: Andrzej Konopka, Reika Kirishima, Noomi Rapace, George Aurimas Cris, Filippa Kaye

From: Many different European companies

Going into a theatrical movie almost blind doesn’t always work out. It wasn’t until Tuesday that I had even heard of Hot Spot; one location in Orlando has it. The movie is from the lady Polish director w/ the long name that did The Lure. Some will be offended that none of her movies had been seen by me before, not even The Lure. I knew that it featured Noomi Rapace & a lady who was in Drive My Car—yet another picture unseen by me as of now. Otherwise, the setting was the only other detail known.

This should have been to my tastes, and as first I thought it would be. The world is a dystopian hellscape-water a precious resource-where everyone is plugged into AI to survive. There are those that oppose this of course-they resemble the Fremen from Dune. Our detective lead is an 80’s-looking dude w/ an amazing head of blonde curly head (the director’s husband, it turns out) who not only had the appearance of a JOE EXOTIC cosplayer, but listens to 1980’s songs and has incredible fits. He rides in a driverless car which is a 90’s Citroen sedan. As a synthwave 80’s-sounding tune is heard, I was hoping this would be an oddity right up my alley.

Now, I never saw a trailer for the film; from reading other reviews, that was incredibly misleading anyhow. From the opening, I thought the story would concern a murder and that Rapace would be involved. Well, her role wasn’t too large anyhow; what the movie was about instead… unfortunately this is one of those where the director has literally told viewers this is more about “vibes” than “plot” or “story.” That is typically an “uh oh” for me.

Sadly, this is one of those obtuse, irritating European arthouse flicks I’m happy to normally avoid… only it seems that even some who enjoy such things found Hot Spot to have a muddled plot. This being shot in English (I know done mostly to earn financing) wasn’t the best idea when the accents and pronunciations were sometimes incomprehensible to my ears, and I usually don’t have a problem with such things. That didn’t help with my confusion, but I’d have been baffled anyhow even w/o this issue. A major plot point could either be literal or figurative… it’d be WTF if literal but then again this is a world that now has hairy small sandworm creatures and a supporting lady has elf ears, except that it appeared they were a fashion accessory as it looked as she took them off before a major event occurred.

I know some will enjoy this weird & HORNY film and that’s great. I at least was more puzzled than angry about the experience. The cinematography was nice, as was the desert setting which featured Brutalist architecture. It is a shame that an original property like this from Europe that has details I enjoyed featured a nothingburger of a story which missed the mark this badly. Perhaps it’d be better for everyone (me included) if a streaming rental at home w/ subtitles occurred as that’d eliminate a major problem but I would still not care about the characters, feeling totally detached from the experience.

Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars

This is my second-ever Who, and the 1975 serial is the first w/ Tom Baker: 

I know Whovians will be delighted I finally saw Tom Baker in the role. This serial was one of a few recommended by a mutual on Letterboxd who is a diehard fan; I also see that the general consensus on the site is rather high. I won’t compare Jon Pertwee and Baker, given that I’ve only seen one serial of each. Baker had a few conceited moments… but he is a Time Lord and not human, which companion Sarah Jane needs reminding of. Plus, there are also a few angry moments-considering this tale has end-of-the-universe stakes, it’s understandable.

It was nice to see the inside of the TARDIS for the first time-not to mention the usage of the Sonic Screwdriver, another device from Who that was known beforehand due to cultural osmosis. This tale had quite the plot: the Doctor and his companion Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen was a familiar face from the Pertwee serial I saw… Invasion of the Dinosaurs) are in 1911 England. A professor visits Egypt and discovers a tomb, which unbeknownst to him gives a long-entombed alien named Sutekh a conduit to not only escape, but destroy all life in the universe. “Sutekh the Destroyer” is an apt name.

The effects are low-budget yet were all charming-even w/ the TARDIS “flying in space” on a string-and I was greatly entertained by this tale which was engrossing whether indoor (on decent sets) or outdoors in the woods, which I’ll presume is a common shooting location for Who episodes. The budget and effects were irrelevant when I enjoyed Baker as the Doctor, Sarah Jane & her interplay w/ him (including humorous moments), Sutekh was quite the intimidating villain-a masked villain marvelously voice-acted by Gabriel Woolf-and the story was a fun yarn which involved “mummies” and while not horror, still had some frightful moments.

This won’t be on my Spooky Season list for this year, BUT I do plan on seeing at least one Who serial horror-related by the time Halloween arrives. I’ve done Google searches so the possible candidates are already known by me.

 

A Chinese Ghost Story

A Chinese Ghost Story (Sien Lui Yau Wan) (1987)

Runtime: 96 minutes

Directed by: Tony Ching Siu-Tung

Starring: Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong, Wu Ma, Lau Siu-Ming, David Lam Wai

From: Cinema City/Film Workshop/Golden Princess Film Productions

Now here’s a movie that could have only come from 80’s Hong Kong-compliment. This is in fact a tale which involves ghosts (a family of them, in fact), the undead, horror, comedy-usually at least worthy of a chuckle-romance, and action. Heck, a key character even sings a song midway through the picture. To quote a Letterboxd mutual, this might have been inspired-at least partially-by the Greek myth of Orpheus & Eurydice & definitely was inspired by old Chinese lore.

A dim-witted tax collector stays at a haunted temple-after encountering red-eyed wolves-meets a bearded Taoist priest, and encounters a lovely lady; despite the context clues and her telling him she’s a ghost, he just won’t believe. Sure, the ghosts in this universe have a physical corporeal form, but our lead is still amusingly dopey—which is much better than an infuriating sort of dopey.

The film is a singular journey, one that’s greatly compelling as the viewer doesn’t know what will happen from scene to scene. They were obviously inspired by The Evil Dead; however, the most bizarre plot points, I have no idea how they came up with such loony ideas, especially involving a tongue! It’s not as bonkers as The Boxer’s Omen-but only a miniscule number are to that level anyhow. I was always interested in the trek our lead experiences while experiencing this creative lore, whether it’s sweet love, his unknowing close encounters w/ the undead, stop-motion animation or the wild climax.

Ghost Story has two sequels; it may be years before those are viewed but undoubtedly I’ll view at least one other movie from this part of the world for Spooky Season 2026.

Sheba, Baby

Sheba, Baby (1975)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: William Girdler

Starring: Pam Grier, Austin Stoker, D’Urville Martin, Rudy Challenger, Richard Merrifield

From: AIP

This Pam Grier blaxploitation effort is leaving Prime at the end of the month; this plus “Director: William Girdler” intrigued me.

The fact that most of the movie is set & filmed in Louisville, Kentucky was also of interest; that’s not a common filming location, especially for blaxploitation. Grier is an ex-cop in Louisville turned Chicago PI-she must be successful, judging by her Gucci bag-who returns to her hometown to protect her father-owner of a loan company-from gangsters that want him to sell out. Austin Stoker is her dad’s business partner and potential love interest.

Is Sheba as good as Coffy or Foxy Brown? Nope. This does not mean there wasn’t fun to be had. The acting, action beats, characters, period clothing, funky score, & scenarios are all fine. The villains are all hissable; the setpieces include action on a river and a chase through a county fair. For the older Americans reading this review, you might be amused that a short scene is set at a Burger Chef restaurant; there’s a long-defunct chain from the past.

It was also nice seeing Austin Stoker and D’Urville Martin in major roles—the latter was a bad guy known as PILOT. The movie is funny as there are multiple characters w/ pro wrestling monikers: BRICK, SHARK, HAMMERHEAD, KILLER, WHALE, RACKER, and TANK. Pilot was one of several hysterical OOT characters.

It was the standard boilerplate blaxploitation that included some offensive terms I won’t repeat here; thankfully, I enjoy the standard boilerplate, along with the few William Girdler films I’ve checked out. Grizzly and Day of the Animals were unpolished yet still fun animal attack pictures. In the future, more will be viewed.