Review – The Monster Club

Fans of the old English horror anthology pieces from the 60s and 70s can watch the sub-genre take one of its last breaths in this odd outing from 1980. In the bracket, John Carradine plays author R. Chetwynd-Hayes, the author upon whose works the vignettes are based. After a not-so-subtly-gay interlude with vampire Vincent Price, our two new-found friends retire to a nightclub for monsters (or at least actors in monster masks that look like they might have been ordered from the back pages of Fangoria). There Price spins his tales, punctuated by bizarre musical performances by the likes of UB40 (not to mention a strip tease with a surprise ending). The stories themselves are a mixed bag. The second one was a little too silly for my taste. The first and third were more effective (particularly the ghoul drawings in number three), but both were damaged a bit by the inclusion of dorky monster names (a “shadmock” in the first and a “hum-goo” in the third). Then in the end Price gets to make a heavy-handed but nonetheless thought-provoking speech about the relationship between horror stories and horror in real life. I can’t say if viewers who aren’t into this kind of thing will get much out of it, but genre fans should probably put this on their to-view lists. Mildly amusing