cult film freak: john van eyssen

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Written by James M. Tate / 1/13/2025 / No comments / carol marsh , christopher lee , dracula , hammer films , horror , janina faye , john van eyssen , melissa stribling , michael gough , peter cushing , terence fisher , valerie gaunt

CHRISTOPHER LEE WITH PETER CUSHING IN 'HORROR OF DRACULA'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisSHSEEWAKGX89FRujgO2Bsg_p6jHmqdlJ3jY2ki8UUDL7dGY71phNbkrlCZRh13DH9iUwnAToArYPOg827ONDgSCJRe_YjItL3XeaCtvKNFjiI-enBQi5LphTiW7cWBK8GJPFRQdQqWKJVJ2MmyPRknmRr1h1FW0Ia6vBgXGmVH_B66cbV6KcoKptepp6/s1946/Screen%20Shot%202025-01-09%20at%2012.38.57%20AM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1340" data-original-width="1946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisSHSEEWAKGX89FRujgO2Bsg_p6jHmqdlJ3jY2ki8UUDL7dGY71phNbkrlCZRh13DH9iUwnAToArYPOg827ONDgSCJRe_YjItL3XeaCtvKNFjiI-enBQi5LphTiW7cWBK8GJPFRQdQqWKJVJ2MmyPRknmRr1h1FW0Ia6vBgXGmVH_B66cbV6KcoKptepp6/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-01-09%20at%2012.38.57%20AM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Valerie Gaunt facing Christopher Lee's poster image for HORROR OF DRACULA/DRACULA Year: 1958 Rating: ***1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>While Hammer's groundbreaking horror-remake <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2025/01/cushingcurse.html">THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN</a> proved that Frankenstein was a man and not the monster, their follow-up HORROR OF DRACULA was to also show the monstrous Dracula as a man... And quite dashing and attractive he is... especially when Christopher Lee first shows himself, along with a barrage of sinister music, to solicitor Jonathan Harker, exactly what he's supposed to be... a gentleman wealthy enough to need someone to look over his books, getting his business in order...

carol marsh, christopher lee, dracula, hammer films, horror, janina faye, john van eyssen, melissa stribling, michael gough, peter cushing, terence fisher, valerie gaunt

CHRISTOPHER LEE WITH PETER CUSHING IN 'HORROR OF DRACULA'

Valerie Gaunt facing Christopher Lee's poster image for HORROR OF DRACULA/DRACULA Year: 1958 Rating: ***1/2 While Hammer's groundbre...

BARBARA PAYTON IN HAMMER'S 'THE FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-GIjwOyNWVbxwxV3p5N2-GpGAhb5rEy0C3wNJCp3bmfeapoC4HZhyphenhyphen2z9FQ7jR7Mlpwd9IAKKu2knh9RTGpsMhP8DZpbyQNOA4wQi9fb4qQO2UtXbTGETFo91ezQHbDlCvXjgSZYAEToxv62WLAt60YHOqRkd-OLLUzH1uqa2d-kLxEX6dg6AsO3cUMVGA/s2148/Screen%20Shot%202024-02-27%20at%202.14.20%20AM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1286" data-original-width="2148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-GIjwOyNWVbxwxV3p5N2-GpGAhb5rEy0C3wNJCp3bmfeapoC4HZhyphenhyphen2z9FQ7jR7Mlpwd9IAKKu2knh9RTGpsMhP8DZpbyQNOA4wQi9fb4qQO2UtXbTGETFo91ezQHbDlCvXjgSZYAEToxv62WLAt60YHOqRkd-OLLUzH1uqa2d-kLxEX6dg6AsO3cUMVGA/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202024-02-27%20at%202.14.20%20AM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: THE FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE (Spanish Translation: OF THE EVIL GENIUS) Year: 1953 Rating: ****</td></tr></tbody></table>Before Hammer's Golden Age of Victorian Horror, from DRACULA to FRANKENSTEIN, primary director Terence Fisher got prepared for the latter, involving an ultimately mad-scientist creating the duplicate of lead actress Barbara Payton within a familiar kind of dark laboratory, filled with sizzling electrical wires when the right buttons are pressed... The catch is that Payton's Lena has been in love with central inventor Bill's best friend Robin since childhood, beginning with a prelude of that era where she literally chooses one over the other, and, cut to the present where both grown men are absent of their companion (momentarily back in America), they invent a machine also reminiscent of what would be in THE FLY, placing an object on one enclosure as its copy's created miraculously inside the other, initially tested with a pocket watch and signed check...

barbara payton, british, fifties, hammer films, james hayter, john van eyssen, science-fiction, stephen murray, thriller

BARBARA PAYTON IN HAMMER'S 'THE FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE'

Title: THE FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE (Spanish Translation: OF THE EVIL GENIUS) Year: 1953 Rating: **** Before Hammer's Golden Age of Victorian...

STANLEY BAKER INVESTIGATES HARDY KRÜGER IN 'CHANCE MEETING'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8PGbyWmFmkrzdeuWj9Ysm1gt6uUpC0nDZpMiE9jSRP5UK760PegX4qd2wwVRsExm8yXdHSoHEi3oZFqBHZFL4qrbrUM_OIgkeICQiQSjpGY8m-gdHdxlirJ29vsSyoZt6yXKnMJr09t7Za-2uj2AYwSbRZ5Ybkcgk9moJw8XR0mWubyl_LVdCl954lE-K/s2022/pefFect%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="2022" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8PGbyWmFmkrzdeuWj9Ysm1gt6uUpC0nDZpMiE9jSRP5UK760PegX4qd2wwVRsExm8yXdHSoHEi3oZFqBHZFL4qrbrUM_OIgkeICQiQSjpGY8m-gdHdxlirJ29vsSyoZt6yXKnMJr09t7Za-2uj2AYwSbRZ5Ybkcgk9moJw8XR0mWubyl_LVdCl954lE-K/s16000/pefFect%202.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: CHANCE MEETING Alternative: BLIND DATE Year: 1959 Rating: **1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>The first of a handful of movies directed by Joseph Losey and starring, or in this case co-starring, British actor Stanley Baker, as a cop providing pointed questions for frantic answers by flustered slain rich woman's lover Hardy Krüger... Who, balancing genuine surprise with a glib indifference, spends most of the picture dealing with Baker's intensely probing (yet living room located) interrogation — and the French title's translation is INSPECTOR MORGAN'S INVESTIGATION, proving that Baker's importance goes beyond the token hard-boiled noir cop role...

british film noir, hardy kruger, john van eyssen, joseph losey, mystery, stanley baker, thriller

STANLEY BAKER INVESTIGATES HARDY KRÜGER IN 'CHANCE MEETING'

Title: CHANCE MEETING Alternative: BLIND DATE Year: 1959 Rating: **1/2 The first of a handful of movies directed by Joseph Losey and starrin...

VAL GUEST DIRECTS HAMMER'S 'QUATERMASS 2' WITH BRIAN DONLEVY

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioyZg0Kx1EyTtRn5bpUU8Xh6ITNHLx_qI0nhdoPrk46sD2XSytSao061EtYHGqNkRAqYiAU5Di_qOpuTlhx0xJA-x47LxqozMN7Eg4aCjvWIE9TWCTXIxJSeuP_5j58bmDP0amPjNybHt0TB9n8dGLEBu0RXiHWPqTYh5VA5Cm8nJ5OqDgo4PGeo6l3zWl/s2226/Screen%20Shot%202024-03-16%20at%205.46.55%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1184" data-original-width="2226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioyZg0Kx1EyTtRn5bpUU8Xh6ITNHLx_qI0nhdoPrk46sD2XSytSao061EtYHGqNkRAqYiAU5Di_qOpuTlhx0xJA-x47LxqozMN7Eg4aCjvWIE9TWCTXIxJSeuP_5j58bmDP0amPjNybHt0TB9n8dGLEBu0RXiHWPqTYh5VA5Cm8nJ5OqDgo4PGeo6l3zWl/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202024-03-16%20at%205.46.55%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original British Title: QUATERMASS 2 American: ENEMY FROM SPACE Year: 1957 Rating: ****</td></tr></tbody></table>Both of Val Guest's 1950's <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2021/04/qmass1.html">Hammer QUATERMASS</a> vehicles rely on different science-fiction scenarios, so you don't have to watch one to enjoy the other: starting with a Frankenstein story involving the titular scientist's funded return-space-flight gone awry, and the second has aliens behind a project meant to send rockets back up into space (while some kind of comet dust is randomly burning people's skin)... Condensed into a 90-minute programmer involving an enigmatic town, created within a power plant to supposedly make food for humans to live on a moon colony (borrowed from Quatermass's abandoned project), then engulfing one man with a tar-like substance: a horrifying image that this particular Hammer's best remembered...