DAUGHTER OF DR JEKYLL

d. Edgar G. Ulmer (1957)

As you might expect from the title, this is a silly sort of film, albeit one that seems to wilfully muddle horror mythology simply for the sake of it. It's also a film that is occasionally hard to watch, as the interiors and exteriors are so unevenly matched in terms of quality and visibility that they might as well be from completely different productions.

When a young woman turns 21, she inherits a large country estate and the truth about her lineage: she is the daughter of the notorious Dr. Henry Jekyll. Despite the fact that she was born several years before he started the experiments that would transform him into Mr. Hyde, she is frightened that his 'condition' might be hereditary, concerns that her guardian is rather poor at assuaging: 'Well, there's absolutely no proof that it is - and absolutely no proof that it isn't'. The condition in question, by the way, is Lycanthropy. Yes, sod Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll was, it seems, a werewolf. Don't worry, though, the local villagers know what to do to stop a 'blood sucking' werewolf. That's right, you bang a stake through its heart*. 

Despite being under sedation and locked in her room, every night Ms. Jekyll has feverish dreams of herself as a saturnine, feral figure, emerging from the family crypt to kill. When she wakes up she is in her own bed, but covered in blood and mud to find that, invariably, another female servant has been murdered on her way back home to the village. 

The set up of these murders is less than meticulous, and it is soon apparent that it is physically impossible for Ms. Jekyll to have committed them. All we're seemingly left with is the prospect of a Scooby Doo big reveal type ending - which, happily, doesn't quite happen, as there is one more left handed twist of the cinematic pepper pot which, along with a superbly eerie theremin score,  just about redeems the whole thing.

Staking werewolves, though? Come on.  

* As a lifelong horror enthusiast, this actually hurt my feelings.

BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER

d. Edgar G. Ulmer (1960)

A super cheap sci fi b-movie made on an abandoned air base in just ten days, Beyond The Time Barrier isn't exactly 'the most terrifying film ever made'*, but it is a tiny triumph over adversity, a testament to the ingenuity, imagination and determination of its director, Edgar G. Ulmer - and his family, who worked on the production in various roles.

When a USAF test pilot breaks the sound barrier and the time barrier in a new plane, he finds himself projected forward to the year 2024. Things are fairly grim in the future as a space plague has split mankind into two groups: murderous bald mutants, and deaf mute 'survivors' who have become sterile. The only fertile woman on the planet is wheeled out to mate with the test pilot and, as she's rather attractive, he's not too put out, although another time traveller, a bloody Russian, is about to put a mighty spoke in the works...

Ulmer started his film career as a set designer and, no matter how cheap his films are, they always have a very definite look. Here, the survivors live underground in a sort of geodesic pyramid. From the outside it's clearly a drawing but, inside, it is nicely realised, halfway between a bomb shelter and a holiday camp, made up of dozens of interlocking triangular panels. In a nice touch, Ulmer doesn't just fade the scenes in the pyramid out, but uses triangular ellipses to move from place to place. It's  a small but important point: Ulmer isn't just here to make pointless trash: he has a vision, and he manages to bring it to screen on a shoestring. Regardless of the results, I think that's quite an achievement.   

* The trailer makes quite a lot of unsubstantiated claims. 

THE MAN FROM PLANET X

d. Edgar G. Ulmer (1951) 

An interesting attempt at making a film about an alien invasion on a tiny budget and with only a few painted sets and some scale models to help set the scene, The Man From Planet X is notable for two things: it's supposed location, and the X Man himself, who is an amazing and surprising creation.

The film is supposedly set on the 'Scotch' island of Bury, a place of fog and moors and fishermen with stick on sideburns and a variety of accents. Bury will be the closest point on Earth when the newly discovered Planet X's orbit brings it close to our world for the first time. As such, some scientists and a journalist have gathered there to more closely observe the arrival of X, little realising that the mysterious sphere is populated, and that the inhabitants are mainly interested in decamping from their place to ours.

Which brings us to the X Man, the 'fantastic gnome': a small, rather feeble humanoid in a cumbersome space suit that is reminiscent of a deep sea diving outfit. The alien's face resembles crude, ancient figurative art, with stretched and elongated features, something like Humpty Dumpty's face etched onto sandstone. It's both creepy and rather sad, especially as the X Man seems permanently terrified. It takes a little spark of genius to imagine a life form that is recognisably a 'person' but also completely alien: the really clever part is that the X man appears to be made out of geological rather than biological material.       

We learn that Planet X is icing over, and will soon be unable to support life. The funny faced envoy is not unreasonable in the first instance but, once he's been beaten up and the military have been called in he gets a lot more aggressive, using a mind control ray to get the help he needs from the locals to trigger a full scale invasion.

Mankind triumphs in the end, of course. The army blow the X Man and his rocket to bits and so Planet X swings out of orbit without making contact, disappearing out into the farthest reaches of space on a trajectory of frozen doom. Hurrah, we should all be very proud of ourselves.