Monkey Business

TROG (1970)

TROG is played by Joe Cornelius, a professional English wrestler known as The Dazzler. Cast for his physique and athletic abilities, the "missing link" costume was a salvaged 2001 ape mask and some fur.

HAVING grown up in poverty and suffered abuse as a child, Joan Crawford was famous for her fighting spirit. Directed by Freddie Francis from an original story by Peter Bryan and John Gilling, TROG was Crawford's final film. Concerning the discovery of an Ice Age troglodyte in contemporary Britain, the faded star probably needed her then preferred tipple of vodka to get through the production. As The New York Times stated, "[TROG] proves that Joan Crawford is grimly working at her craft. Unfortunately the determined lady, who is fetching in a variety of chic pants suits and dresses, has little else going for her."

When an ape-man is found in a Peak District cave, anthropologist Dr Brockton (Crawford) brings him back to her lab for study. This is especially irksome for businessman Sam Murdock (Michael Gough), who is equally venomous about a waste of taxpayers money for the research facility, and that Brockton has the audacity of being a woman. As the experiments continue, Trog relives his illogical past copiously illustrated by Ray Harryhausen/Willis O'Brien dinosaur footage from THE ANIMAL WORLD. Murdock remains troubled, particularly when the municipal court (headed by Thorley Walters) sides with Brockton and a now international band of scientists. Enraged, Murdock releases Trog, hoping the caveman will be killed by locals or the authorities.

Trog checks out Joan Crawford's muscles on set; in the picture, even a movie star can't save him in the name of science. However, to be fair, the "monster" does kill four men and a dog, plus kidnaps a child.

Developed by Tigon, the project was sold to American B-movie producer Herman Cohen (who can fleetingly be glimpsed as a barman). But TROG is a hilarious misstep by anyone's standards, the caveman's ramshackle appearance summed up by Inspector Greenham (Bernard Kay), when he states "it looks like something out of a student's rag week." Brightly lit in his cage, fully exposing its contrasting skin tones, Trog's initial training involves winding up a toy doll and swaying lovingly to classical music (his affinity to Brockton's scarf also makes one question his sexuality). But during his climactic rampage more brutish qualities come out, such as spiking a butcher on a meat-hook that predates the infamous scene from THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE.

A guilty pleasure even for the most hardened cult fan, TROG does play a significant role in horror history. A young John Landis saw the picture which led him to make his debut SCHLOCK, a homage where the director played an ape-man emerging from a Southern California cave. Having been a Fox mail-boy Landis knew John Chambers, the make-up maestro behind PLANET OF THE APES. The important thread was that after Chambers declined to make the required monkey man on budgetary grounds, Don Post Studios put Landis in contact with Rick Baker. Baker's suit for "The Banana Killer" is wonderful, and clearly the highlight of the movie.

Films That Vanished

CRUCIBLE OF TERROR (1971)
SCREAM - AND DIE! (1973)

In the same year as being burned at the stake in TWINS OF EVIL, Judy Matheson gives a memorable performance in the disposable curio CRUCIBLE OF TERROR.

THESE two Seventies horrors are hardly forgotten gems, more underrated guilty pleasures. Ted Hooker's CRUCIBLE OF TERROR tells of painter and sculptor Victor Clare (former pirate radio DJ Mike Raven), who lives in isolation above a disused Cornish tin mine with his troubled wife Dorothy (Betty Alberge) - who has regressed to a second childhood because of Clare's bullying and womanising - and Bill (John Arnatt), Victor's only friend and household cook. Victor's speciality is making bronze statues from murdered young women, which is rekindled when art dealer Jack Davies (James Bolam) and Clare's son Michael (Ronald Lacey, of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK fame) arrive with their wives Millie (Mary Maude) and Jane (Beth Morris). The artist's current muse Marcia (the extraordinary Caroline Munro lookalike Judy Matheson) is a constant presence, but as Jack and Michael try to acquire more pieces for their gallery, the power of possession ultimately trumps the body count.

After appearing in LUST FOR A VAMPIRE and I, MONSTER, Raven was the self-styled "next big thing" in British horror. Such a deluded reputation was severely dashed with this Glendale release (and a yearning that became terminal with his next attempt, the Super 16mm DISCIPLE OF DEATH). Afterwards, Mike retired to become a sheep farmer and sculptor in Bodmin; his distant acting style wanted to draw from Roger Delgado and Christopher Lee, but a more legitimate nod to Hammer's legacy here is the casting of Melissa Stribling, appearing as an art backer. The supernatural conclusion seems a little forced, especially after suffocation by plastic cushion, a screwdriver stabbing, rocks to the head and acid in the face, but the dialogue is priceless and the photography bracing.

Israeli poster for Joseph Larraz's dreamlike SCREAM - AND DIE!

In between his early psycho-thrillers and descent into late 70s Eurosmut, Barcelona-born Joseph Larraz helmed slow-burning British classic SYMPTOMS and perennial cult favourite VAMPYRES. He also made the sluggish English giallo SCREAM - AND DIE!, which is also known as THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED and DON'T GO IN THE BEDROOM. The film opens with glamour model Valerie Jennings (Andrea Allan) witnessing a murder in a fog-enveloped country house. After boyfriend Terry (Alex Leppard) goes missing and her flatmate Lorna Collins (an all too briefly used Judy Matheson) is raped and killed, Valerie discovers that her fresh-faced, mask-making compatriot Paul (Karl Lanchbury) is the culprit. 

Larraz started his career as a comics artist, specialising in action adventures. With a leap to script writing and directing, he attempted to rise above the too-generalistic term Eurotrash Cinema, and even today his output feels under analysed and under appreciated. Allan and Matheson make for alluring beauties, but the nudity doesn't stop there; the film is most (in)famous for sex involving Paul and his aunt Susanna (Maggie Walker). This being Larraz, the sequence holds a real sensual charge, and creeping use of British locations in winter add to the building bursts of depravity. The characters are unrealistic - Valerie brushes aside the missing Terry and the brutal demise of Lorna - yet this adds to an otherworldly canvas which even includes a nude woman and a monkey.