This Japanese monster scared the living crap out of me as a kid (late '70s, early '80s) and visions of it still do.
It was a man in a rubber suit, so the monster was bipedal and man-sized. It had a giant eye on its stomach, webbing for ears on its head and claws it used to kill the men who came after it. I can remember it on a ship running around killing people. The movie was in black and white.
I've searched in vain for this demonic apparition for years and no one knows what I'm talking about.
—bdwilcox
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Kinder-treasure senski solved it with EVIL BRAIN FROM OUTER SPACE (a.k.a. ATTACK FROM SPACE)!
Does the creature on the left look like your beastie? It's from the Starman installment, "Evil Brain from Outer Space."
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2207/2071624926_e0af088b57.jpg
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Let's go to the video, shall we?
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It's also sold as Attack From Space…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230832/
Senski, Senski, Senksi,
Thanks, Unk! Any day that starts off with a Trauma solved is always a good day!
OMG!!!!!!OMG!!!!!!!OMG!!!!!!!OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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That's it!!! That's it!!! It's been probably 30 years or so since I saw it and it still completely terrifies me. I mean, I'm totally freaking out right now after seeing it again. It's not even a good freak-out. It's more like a cathartic PTSD freak-out when one faces repressed childhood fears and traumas.
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I can't thank you enough for taking the time to look this one up. Yes, unkle lancifer, I've been searching for this guy forever, too, and every time I mentioned it people would basically tell me I was delusional.
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OK, if you guys are this good, I have a couple more challenges for you. I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but I figure since we're all here I might as well.
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When I was a kid, I obviously gravitated to Saturday horror and Sci-Fi. The odd thing was that even though I loved Godzilla and the main-stream monsters, I totally soaked in the obscure and fringe horrors served up by shows like Chiller Theatre. (Which is probably the font of most of my KinderTraumas, all by itself.)
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So here are the obscure horror movies that disturb me to this day and in all those years haven't seen a single reference to them:
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One of the genres I loved were these British compilation shows with multiple, short horror stories in them, probably from the 60's or 70's. The first involves a guy that drives into an abandoned village but then the village becomes filled with evil, hungry zombies. He finally escapes the town and, to his relief, gets picked up by a police car. But when the policemen turn around, they're zombies too and they smile with razor sharp teeth.
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Another short story from a compilation that I remember is this businessman who tells a bum to get a job. He then gets lured into a room in warehouse off the street where he's trapped and fed nothing but booze; eventually he's let out, but by that time he's become an alcoholic bum himself.
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And finally, there was a full length British horror/sci-fi movie about these (alien?) creatures that looked a bit like legless tortoises but with long, elephant-like trunks with sucker-like ends and if they touched you, you would dissolve to nothing but smoking clothes, if I remember correctly.
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Oh, man, I have searched so long for those above. Even finding one of them would help exorcise some major demons.
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Also, do you have any British short-story horror compilations like the ones above that you could recommend?
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Thanks again,
bdwilcox
You know, I've watched that Evil Brain from Outerspace clip about ten times now and it still just terrifies me. I completely forgot how utterly horrifying that chattering/squeaking was when they showed the monster from its feet up around 00:52. The three clawed fingers don't help any either. How on God's green Earth could they think this was appropriate for kids? This thing is on the same trauma level as when that damn clown in Poltergeist wrapped his arm around that kid's throat, pulled him beneath the bed and gave him that demonic clown smile. <shivers>
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-bdwilcox
Hi, bdwilcox –
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Glad to be of help! Of your three other inquiries, the first is a segment of the 1980 movie The Monster Club, and the last is the wonderful Island of Terror. The second doesn't immediately ring a bell — let me look and see what I can find.
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If you're looking for British short story collections, I would recommend the first dozen or so volumes in the Pan Book of Horror series, as well as any anthology edited by Hugh Lamb or Peter Haining. Not exclusively Brit-Horror, but certainly with a greater concentration than other collections. (Also there were some nice collections under the title Tales of Unease, but they might be harder to come by used.) Good luck searching!
Oh, man, that is just crazy you would know those off the top of your head like that. I'm starting to think you're a bot (that's a compliment, BTW)…
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I actually looked up some video on these two and catharsis has begun. Plus, no one will think I'm crazy anymore when I try to explain what I saw. Let the cleansing begin…
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Also, thanks for the info about the short story collections, but I was actually referring to movies that were compilations of short horror-stories. Kind of like a movie version of the Twilight Zone magazine from the 80's or more modern movies of this genre like "Creepshow" or the "Twilight Zone: The Movie." (I'm going to search out the books you recommended, also, as I've finished all the King and Lovecraft short stories I can find).
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But I seem to have answered my own question a little bit because when I went to IMDB, they list the makers of The Monster Club as Amicus Productions, who made of number of other horror compilation films.
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Some notables, a few of which I actually remember (though vaguely), are:
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors
The Torture Garden
The House That Dripped Blood
Tales from the Crypt
The Asylum
From Beyond the Grave
The Vault of Horror
The Skull (not a compilation but a great flick I actually remember)
Are there any other short horror story compilations in this same style you can recommend? Doesn't matter what generation or country of origin; if they're good, I'll watch them.
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As far as horror compilations go, how's this for obscure? I remember one from the 80's that I rented at Blockbuster where in one of the stories this fisherman threw out his line into a pond and waited for a bite. He looks at the dock next to him and sees an apple sitting there. He shrugs his shoulders, grabs the apple, rubs it on his shirt, and takes a bite. When he does that, his head suddenly snaps back and he lurches forward. They show him struggling against falling in the water then zoom in on his terrified face where you can also witness a fishing hook protruding from his neck. Something in the water baited him and was trying to reel him in. It was a low budget production, but it was great! Those are the gems I seek out. Nothing extravagant, definitely not mainstream, but clever, well-written and made to leave you with that uneasy feeling we all seem crave. 🙂
Thanks, again. -bdwilcox
Oh, and the more I've thought about it the more my mind tells me the short story with the businessman turned into a bum is American, not British. Hope that helps a little. -bdwilcox
https://youtu.be/C3TPU93AVvM?si=VSsPsDAFobbnDl8D I believe this is the short bdwilcox referred to.