The Monster Club (1981)

I hope that no one in the '80s mistook this movie for The Monster Squad.  That would be one heck of a surprise, as well as one major lesson in disappointment.  Even if intentionally watching this film, which sports Vincent Price and John Carradine as well as some other horror luminaries among its cast, that sense of disappointment is going to linger.  One expects to see a few neat short horror segments introduced by these two and almost gets something as bad as Night Train to Terror. 

Horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes (Carradine) is in London perusing a display of his works when he is attacked by a vampire named Eramus (Price).  Eramus doesn't kill him or turn him because he realizes who he is, being one of the author's big fans.  Instead, after taking a quick drink, he invites the author to join him at a place called the Monster Club, a special hang-out for all types of creatures. 

While they sit down for a drink Eramus begins educating Chetwynd-Hayes on the different types of monster hybrids, with Shadmocks, the result of generations of hybridization, being at the bottom.  However, they have a special ability in their whistle, and this is revealed in the first story about a larcenous couple (Barbara Kellerman, Simon Ward) who plot to steal the money of a lonely Shadmock named Raven (James Laurenson), with disastrous results.  The second is recounted by a film producer named Lintom, a vampire who recounts a story of what happened when a vampire hunter named Pickering (Donald Pleasance) attempted to kill his father (Richard Johnson).  Finally, with the author's curiosity piqued about a picture of a seemingly normal girl, he is told the story of a film director named Sam (Stuart Whitman) who visits a strange village full of ghouls.  

The stories themselves aren't bad despite being quite old-fashioned and predictable.  Robert Chetwynd-Hayes was a British author known for his science fiction and horror novels.  I'm a bit confused, since they were using his stories, why they just didn't get him to play himself, as John Carradine and Vincent Price are only in the wraparound story and it is obvious they did their usual day or two of filming at their going rate.  They are good as usual, although they have to pretend to like what's going on around them in the club.  Still, surely Chetwynd-Hayes could not have been so bad of an actor that he couldn't pull this off. 

That club is the whole problem with the movie.  With actors like Price and Carradine I was expecting high-backed green leather-upholstered chairs and guys - or ghouls - sitting around reading newspapers.  Instead, it's a bunch of people in second-rate Halloween masks pretending to enjoy third-rate British new wave music with a slight horror theme.  I know the Pretty Things aren't usually third rate, but this seems to be one of their later incarnations that was desperate for a few pounds.  The only halfway decent number is "The Stripper" by Night.  In contrast, the music to the segments is great, with John Williams even providing the score to one.  

Since none of the segments approach even the best British horror anthologies of the 1960s or 1970s the wraparound takes up a lot of the time and the music and cringeworthiness in nigh unbearable.  It is embarrassing rather than fun, and I felt embarrassed for Carradine and Price having to endure it, although if I was able to demand the price they got just for showing up I'd bring my earplugs and deal with it.  As it is it brings the movie to a crashing halt whenever a segment comes to an end.  

As for the stories themselves I liked "The Shadmock Story" the best, which is rare with these movies as they usually get the less demanding, and less interesting, story out of the way early.  "The Vampire Story" has a good ending, with Pleasance gleefully overacting and an appearance by Britt Ekland as the mother.  Patrick Magee is an innkeeper in the last story, which I found the least interesting despite a good buildup. 

I know that without the club sequences this would have not made the 90-minute mark and it still would have been an unremarkable compilation of stories.  As it is they provide respite from having to listen to the horrible music.  It would have been more interesting to pick better stories from the author's selection as he appears to have quite a large range and not just the same hoary, tired creatures that dominate the film.  That is perhaps why I liked "The Shadmock Story" the best; it was a creature I hadn't heard of before with a special, interesting ability.  It has the ring of old tales about it but presents something new.  I just wish this movie had more of that. 

The Monster Club (1981)

Time: 104 minutes

Starring: Vincent Price, John Carradine, Barbara Kellerman, Simon Ward, James Laurenson, Richard Johnson, Donald Pleasance, Warren Saire, Stuart Whitman

Director: Roy Ward Baker