Scott LeBrun "The Monster Club" is sort of the unofficial final anthology film from Amicus, retaining Amicus veteran Milton Subotsky as a producer. It's great fun, especially in the wrap-around segments. These come complete with a devilishly entertaining performance by old pro Vincent Price, and a few musical numbers by acts such as Night, The Pretty Things, The Viewers, and B.A. Robertson. In fact, I dare say that the wrap-around portions are more entertaining than the individual stories! It's all done in high style by director Roy Ward Baker, who at this point was a seasoned genre veteran.Price plays Eramus, a vampire who sinks his teeth into the neck of renowned horror author R. Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine, who has some priceless reactions to the goings-on), whose material provides the basis for each segment. As a means of apologizing for the "snack", Eramus introduces the writer to his favourite haunt, the Monster Club of the title. Here he educates Chetwynd-Hayes on the various types of monster offspring before the writer hears three different stories.Story # 1. "The Shadmock". Angela (the beautiful Barbara Kellerman) goes to work for Raven (James Laurenson), a creepy looking but pitiable character who only wants love. In truth, Angela and her boyfriend George (Simon Ward) only want to rob the guy, and when his heart is broken, he unleashes the deadly force of his "whistle". Laurenson is wonderful, and there's an effectively nasty ending.Story # 2. "The Vampire". A movie producer, Lintom Busotsky (Anthony Steel) - which, as you may well figure out, is an anagram of Milton Subotsky - tells the tale of his childhood, when he learned a macabre secret about his father (Richard Johnson), a count who is only out and about at night time. When Pickering (Donald Pleasence), leader of a "B squad", arrives on the scene, he intends to put an end to the fathers' days, only to fall victim to an unforeseen circumstance. Played partly for laughs, this is agreeable stuff, with a delightful performance by Johnson. Britt Ekland plays the young Lintoms' mother.Story # 3. "The Humgoo". A cantankerous horror film director, Sam (Stuart Whitman) scouts a remote location for a future production, and meets the decidedly decrepit locals. He also encounters the lovely young Luna (Lesley Dunlop), and tries to flee the place with her. He'll find that this is a very hard place to escape. The always welcome Patrick Magee co-stars as an innkeeper.With some of the soundtrack music supplied by the pop group UB40, "The Monster Club" is a good time for lovers of this format. It does know how to send its audience away with smiles on their faces.Eight out of 10.

Phil Hubbs The title for this film and the poster are pretty cool, I wonder if Fred Dekker borrowed the idea for his movie 'The Monster Squad'. Anyway here we have another horror anthology (not Amicus) that's piece de resistance was having Vincent Prince and John Carradine star in the bookend story. Other horror (anthology) regulars such as Donald Pleasence and Britt Ekland also pop up but no Peter Cushing this time. Carradine portrays real life British horror author Chetwynd-Hayes whose stories are what this anthology are based upon.The film starts off in a fine manner with Price playing a vampire (he didn't play them often...or ever) and biting Carradine in a most polite way of course. To thank Carradine Price takes him to the Monster Club where various ghouls and...errrm monsters hang out and let their hair and fur down. Now this sounds pretty sweet no doubt but I'm afraid to say the entire idea is let down with the most dreadful looking sequences you'll have seen for some time. Think of the Mos Eisley space cantina in 'Star Wars' with all the alien creatures but no where near as good and with terrible costumes.When I say terrible costumes I mean it, they look like kids Halloween costumes your mum bought at the local supermarket. Absolutely horrendous, so much so in fact I'm not even sure if it was done like that on purpose for comedic relief. What's even stranger is the musical interludes between the short stories, you have a horror tale followed by some weird ass pop group dressed up with bad makeup singing a bad song, was this filler? At one point Price gets up and dances with the monsters on the dance floor...I'm still not sure if I should look on this as uber cool or just a crappy run time extension, its nothing like 'Thriller' so don't get excited.The actual stories are reasonable but pretty timid frankly, what's more they create new monsters or hybrids which sound daft. The first is based around a Shadmock which is the offspring of...something, I can't elaborate because the sequence where Price explains what monsters are called when they mate with other monsters is so confusing I just ran with it. Basically this creature looks like a pale male human but his whistle can somehow burn things to a crisp? whatever. The story is merely about a couple trying to get a hold of this Shadmocks huge fortune by having the young woman marry him under false pretenses of love. The setting and location are nice and atmospheric, bit of a 'Beauty and the Beast' or 'Phantom of the Opera' type premise but not up to the same standard.The next short is about a vampire family, well the man of the house is a vampire but his wife and boy are not oddly. Donald Pleasence is part of a secret vampire hunters team that carry violin cases that contain stakes for killing vampires (Robert Rodriguez see this film?). Pleasence follows the boy and eventually talks him into exposing his father even though the boy never knew his father was a vampire. In the end Pleasence gets bitten and must fight off his own men, its very shallow and hardly a horror tale at all, its not even spooky really. It raises more questions than anything but I guess its only a vignette.The final story is easily the best and revolves around a film director travelling to a small remote village in the English countryside to scout the location. There he discovers a century old race of ghouls that eat corpses. When trying to escape this village of the damned he only gets so far before discovering that more people outside of the village are in fact ghouls and escape may well be futile. Again many questions are raised but the tale is the most interesting and could easily be expanded, its basically your common zombie apocalypse type flick that obviously has lots of similarities with the 1960 film 'Village of the Damned'.I kinda had high hopes for this film but felt disappointed in the end. Everything looks a bit cheap and nasty and the vignettes are pretty low key with little thrills or excitement to be had. The cast is solid as usual but that doesn't really make much difference, its all about the stories and apart from the final one its all very drab.3.5/10

callanvass Eramus (Vincent Price) is a vampire, who hasn't been fed in over two weeks. He comes across a horror writer R.Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine) and lures him in, so he can take a bite out of his neck. Eramus reassures Hayes that no ill effects will happen, and he won't become a vampire. Eramus invites Hayes to a club filled with all sorts of monsters and ghouls. Eramus shares three unique horror stories. In the end, Hayes might just be the most fascinating monster of allI wasn't too impressed by this anthology. It starts off amusing enough, with two consummate pros like Price & Carradine, but after the first story ends, it dwindles away into boredom. How is it that Carradine goes unscathed, after a vampire bite? I get that this is tongue in cheek, but come on! That's a bit much. Price and Carradine's bantering is fun, but the roles they have aren't big enough for my liking. I also got annoyed by the punk rock music. This was filmed in the U.K, and never got released theatrically in the US. Onto the storiesStory #1 The Shadmock. Raven (James Laurenson) is a lonely Shadmock, who nobody wants to date or see. He also happens to be filthy rich. George (Simon Ward) and his girlfriend Angela (Barbra Kellerman) conjure up a plan to obtain Raven's money. The plan is to make Raven fall for Angela, so Angela gets off Scot free with the money. I liked this episode quite a bit. It was original, and refreshingly unorthodox, with some really creepy atmosphere to go along with it. Raven's crippling whistle is also terrifying. I legitimately felt for the poor sap, as he clearly was in love with Angela. The ending is especially creepy, with Angela's disfigurement. I did feel that Simon doesn't show nearly enough shock at Angela's hideous appearance at the end, and kind of ruined some of the impact. But I liked this tale overall. Aside from Simon Ward, it's extremely well acted. Poor Raven. All he wanted was for Angela to love him 3.5/5Story #2 Vampires. This is not quite as weak as the third story, but it is rather lame. Busotsky's Father is a vampire, and he doesn't realize it. He often wonders why he won't play with him during the day, and only comes out at night. The B Squad, lead by Donald Pleasence is out to get Busotky's Father. This is mostly for laughs, and it's not that funny to be honest. Donald Pleasence is great as per usual, and Britt Ekland is a sexy M.I.L.F, but it's just a lame story. The ending is extremely silly, and had me shaking my head. It's a really poor gag.2/5Story #3 The Ghouls. Sam (Stuart Whitman) is a movie director, looking for the perfect place to film his movie. He comes across a decrepit village, which is completely isolated from society. The Innkeeper is rather spooky, and he meets a peculiar young woman named Luna. The village is filled with ghouls that have a thirst for the flesh. This was such a stupid and insulting story. Not only was it moronic, but very boring. It was a complete and utter snooze fest, and I had trouble paying attention. The ending is predictable and lame as well. By far the weakest of the trilogy 0/5Final Thoughts: Aside from a good first story, and the presence of Vincent Price, and John Carradine? There isn't anything to see here, really. I suppose it's worth a look if you're a huge fan of anthologies, but you're not really missing anything. It's average stuff5/10

Ali Catterall Many years ago this reviewer subscribed to fantasy-horror magazine 'Starburst', then in its infancy and rivalling 'Fangoria' for its lurid colour photos of blood, guts and exploding latex. One such issue covered new release The Monster Club, and to this 10-year-old it looked utterly brilliant, with its gallery of werewolves, vampires and ghouls. There was even a woman with a melty face! Yet if pre-teens had actually been allowed to see it, they might have found it less impressive. The monster masks alone, fashioned by freelance designer Vic Door, who also worked at a milk processing plant, are laughable when compared with those from the Mos Eisley Cantina just three years before - lending understandable succour to the myth that they were made by producer Milton Subotsky's milkman.Amicus Studio's death-rattle, and a homage to the 1970s glory years of its portmanteau horrors, if The Monster Club has accrued a certain cult status it's mostly down to its sheer awfulness; yet, bafflingly, The Monster Club, adapted from Chetwynd-Hayes' 1976 novel of the same name, does in fact boast a highly experienced and occasionally impressive pedigree.In director Roy Ward Baker it had the man behind cult horrors like The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires, The Vault Of Horror, Asylum - and, most famously, Quatermass And The Pit. As a screenwriter, Amicus co-founder Subotsky had also penned a number of culty items, including I, Monster and Dr Terror's House Of Horrors. Cinematographer Peter Jessop had shot the schlocky likes of Frightmare, Venom and Schizo. But most importantly, it stars a real horror triumvirate of greatness:- Vincent Price, John Carradine and Donald Pleasence - along with veterans from past Amicus films Britt Ekland and Geoffrey Bayldon (here reprising an earlier role as an asylum keeper).This may have been made in 1980, but tonight they're going to party like it's 1973. To a frightful new wave soundtrack supplied by UB40 and BA Robertson who sings "I'm just a sucker for your love." Oh yes, a strange concoction indeed. But ranged against the likes of classic Amicus anthologies such as From Beyond The Grave (another Chetwynd-Hayes miscellany) even its dubious cult status is unwarranted - although the song "Monsters Rule OK" is pleasingly jaunty, and you do get to see Vincent Price and John Carradine disco dancing.In keeping with the Amicus tradition, the film features a handful of not-very-creepy tales, plus a 'comedy' story for light relief, linked by a story-within-a-story - here played out between Price's vampire Eramus (his fangs are retractable when not in use) and horror writer Chetwynd-Hayes himself, played by Carradine. After necking his favourite author, Eramus ferries him to his members club by way of an apology, where they're subjected to forgotten new wave bands ("down at the monster club/a zombie and a ghoul can do the monster dub"), along with "every kind of monster you could ever imagine... and some far beyond the imagining of mere mortals" - which is just not true, unless you're actually incapable of imagining a one pound joke shop mask.Price also inducts him into the arcane mysteries of monster genealogy, handily illustrated on a wall-chart (scroll away at leisure): "A vampire and a werewolf would produce a werevamp, but a werewolf and a ghoul would produce a weregoo. But a vampire and a ghoul would produce a vamgoo. A weregoo and a werevamp would produce a shaddy. Now, a weregoo and a vamgoo would produce a maddy, but a werevamp and a vamgoo would produce a raddy. Now, if a shaddy were to mate with a raddy or a maddy, the result would be a mock." Once we've waded through that gibberish (and how it must have pained the eloquent and mellifluous Price to utter it) we sample the delights of a stripper who takes her performance all too literally, and are told three tales, the first and most atmospheric of which is about a 'shadmock' (the lowest on the monster food chain) who possesses a deadly whistle - the Roger Whittaker variety, not the referee's aid.In the second, a vampire dad foils a vampire killer with... "a stake-proof vest!" The final story concerns a remote village of human-munching ghouls. Having convinced the author of the inherent humanity of his kind ("there is nothing sadder than the agonised grief of a tender-hearted monster"), Price counters that the 'real' monsters are humans. And to that we must add, jaded screenwriters.