Craig Rettig.com

Beaumont: “I thought that beauty alone would satisfy. But the soul is gone. I can’t bear those empty, staring eyes. You must bring her back!”
Legendre: “Aren’t you a trifle afraid, monsieur? How do you suppose those eyes will regard you when the brain is able to understand?”
Beaumont: “Better to see hatred in them than that dreadful emptiness.”

— Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) & Legendre (Bela Lugosi)

Since I started with a classic Lugosi film, I thought it appropriate to end with one. White Zombie tells the tale of what can happen when unrequited love meets madness. A young engaged couple, Madeleine and Neil, are traveling, when they meet Charles Beaumont, who falls head over heels for Madeleine. The millionaire convinces them to get married at his Haitian mansion, where he tries every means he knows to make Madeleine love him.

When traditional methods don’t work, he turns to Legendre, a witch doctor, who gives Madeleine the zombie treatment and arranges for Neil to disappear. However, once Beaumont sees Madeleine’s free will gone, he begins to have second thoughts, but Legendre doesn’t like to undo his work, and things start to unravel.

White Zombie isn’t your typical horror flick that relies on violence, costuming, or special effects. Much of White Zombie’s horror is atmospheric and psychological, relying on the audience to imagine such a scenario really happening (explored again in 1988’s The Serpent And The Rainbow). As with most films of this era, it’s definitely worth watching, and a fine addition to Lugosi’s résumé.

“The Living Dead and the dying living are all the same. Cut from the same cloth. But disposing of dead people is a public service, whereas you’re in all sorts of trouble if you kill someone while they’re still alive.”

— Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett)

Cemetery Man proves that no matter how bad your job is, at least you don’t have to re-bury bodies after they come back to life as flesh-eating zombies. Dellamorte lives in the cemetery with his barely-functional assistant Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) and has never been able to enjoy a normal life thanks to his unusual vocation.

His world gets shaken up when he finally meets the woman of his dreams (Anna Falchi), and then is forced to kill her. As he tries to get over her death, he keeps meeting her identical twins… and ends up killing them, too.

Cemetery Man is a rather bizarre black comedy/horror film that would definitely fill the need to see something “different” this Halloween season.

“Exactly. I hunted them. And shall I tell you why? I’d been a scholar all my life. I was curator of a large museum. And the war began. I who had never killed anything in my life assigned to duty as a sniper — a sharpshooter — because of my steady hand and keen eyesight. (chuckles) It amuses me now that I found it distasteful at first. And as time went by I adjusted my new activity. For what had been an unpleasant duty became a pleasure then it developed into a passion and then into a lust. A lust for blood! A lust that has grown with the years! And one that I spend my entire life trying to satisfy.”

— Dr. Albert Balleau (Wilton Graff)

Bloodlust, much like The Corpse Vanishes, is another hybrid movie, this time combining the teen slasher genre with Richard Connell’s novella The Most Dangerous Game. Two teen couples out for a joyride on a boat decide to explore an island they’ve never seen before. While looking for stuff for a clambake, they become the unwilling “guests” of Dr. Balleau. It isn’t long before they find out his real passion as well as his sinister intentions toward them.

The movie itself is true ’50s horror camp, with Wilton Graff doing his darnedest to channel Vincent Price through an Orson Welles filter. Also of note is that the “leader” of the teen quartet is none other than Robert Reed, who later became the father on The Brady Bunch. It’s by far not one of the greatest movies of the genre, but it’s fun watching nonetheless.

UPDATE: I just found out you can watch this for free online at Classic Cinema Online.

“Why, yes, in a manner of speaking. I find a coffin much more comfortable than a bed.”

—Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi)

The Corpse Vanishes is a classic flick starring horror legend Bela Lugosi as a demented scientist who kidnaps brides after they die at the altar, using them in his twisted experiments.

This movie is a hybrid of the typical “mad scientist” flick crossed with the legend of Countess Báthory. Rounding out Lugosi’s Dr. Lorenz are his crazy wife (’40s scream queen Elizabeth Russell), a midget, a mutant, the mother of the pair, and a personality-less henchman.

Dr. Lorenz has been getting away with his scheme for a while until overachieving reporter Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters) finds a clue at one of the abductions — one that leads directly to Dr. Lorenz. After an unsettling night spent at the Lorenz house, she becomes completely convinced of Lorenz’s guilt and sets up a plan to catch him in the act.

I consider this one of the better movies of the era, with an ample number of plot twists for a mere 68-minute film. Definitely worth checking out if you haven’t seen it before.

As a veritable connoisseur of free stuff (hey, who isn’t?), I happened to find this rather nice album from Amazon.com’s MP3 section. The entire album is available as downloadable DRM-free MP3 files.

I’m not sure how long it’ll be available for free, so you’d better snag it up now if you’re interested.