![]() ![]() Return each night driven relentlessly by the spell of a terrible curse” Spirit that in life fed on evil and now in death returns to feed upon the living. Why… spirits come back from the dead to guard their ancestral home against intruders. That is both the title and the substance of our story. ![]() Harmless you say…Well, you’ll see that he has good cause for alarm. And our young friend was alarmed by a flock of pigeons. Creatures that lurk, camouflaged in the undergrowth waiting patiently for an unsuspecting victim. “The swamp is alive, crawling with creatures of death. A cautionary deep string flourish leads the way, as he looks around, standing in a swirl of mist. We break for Boris’ prologue.īy an old gnarled tree, Boris Karloff steps out to greet us. The setting bares the remnants of a Robert Aldrich film like Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte ’62. There’s a sense that the house is diseased with a family secret, much like one of my other favorite episodes Parasite Mansion. The wonderful B&W and shadows of pale and steely gray cinematography by Lionel Lindon ( Alfred Hitchcock Presents ’55, The Manchurian Candidate ’62, Dead Heat on a Merry- Go- Round ’66 ) Like many great Southern Gothic tales, this one is surrounded by the presence of something lurking behind the silent deteriorating walls. The two young men decide they’re tired and should take refuge in the old house for the night. Once Tim catches up after hearing his brother’s bloodcurdling screams, Johnny tells him that the pigeons seemed like they were trying to kill him! “That ‘s just it it was like they were attacking me” They begin to converge on Johnny, coming right at his face, like a scene out of Hitchcock’s adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s The Birds which wasn’t released until two years later in 1963. There is an eerie cackling, unearthly wails, and the pervasively hellish fluttering of their wings. The place seems plagued by these mysterious, demonic pigeons. He discovers the desolate antebellum plantation, The Blassenville Mansion dying from decay. As he pushes aside the dangling mossy vines, he stumbles upon dozens of pigeons that begin cooing madly. Johnny wanders off starting to reach deeper into the context of the landscape. While Johnny goes off to find a pole that they can use to dislodge the tire from the mud that’s when a strange wailing starts, like that of a distressed alley cat in heat. Johnny defends himself for having been chided about his shortcut, “Okay okay so it’s not the new york thruway you’ve got to admit that this is the way it truly is” The boys get out of the car and Tim played by the very wholesome-looking Brandon De Wilde says “Welcome to the fabled south, land of Crinoline, Magnolias, lovely ladies, and swamps” The opening scene is embellished with the willow’s mossy tendrils, swaying, drifting, and blowing as if by an unseen lazy wind. ![]() Now they remain stranded under a wonderfully bewitching weeping willow, a classic prop for a southern Gothic tale, in the swamp lands of the Louisiana countryside. The story takes place one fateful night when two New York brothers Johnny and Tim Branner, driving over a rickety wooden bridge (shot in obvious day for night), suddenly hit a muddy ditch and begin spinning their tires to no avail. The camera frames the characters within the tired structure itself, cobweb-laced door frames, dark staircases that hold their ascent, and black box rooms with scattered dusty relics. The Blassenville house is a place of fear and desolation. And fabulous art direction by George Patrickand set design by Julia Heron who also worked on The Incredible Doktor Markesan ( Spartacus ’60) and John McCarthy Jr. With original music by Jerry Goldsmith and Mort Stevens which is perfectly haunting for this Southern Gothic tale. Starring Brandon De Wilde as Timothy Branner, Crahan Denton as Sheriff Buckner, Ken Renardas Jacob Blount, David Whorf and Johnny Branner, and Ottola Nesmith as Eula Lee Blassenville. Howard (Author of Conan the Barbarian), in 1938, which he based on old legends that his grandmother had told him in West Texas.This also seems to coincide with similar themes of Voodoo by Zora Neale HurstonAuthor Folklorist/Anthropologist during the time of the Harlem Renaissance who wrote the non-fiction exploration of Haitian/Caribbean rituals in Tell My Horse in 1937, just a year earlier. ( One Step Beyond 60s tv series, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark ’73) Pigeons From Hell was another story taken out of Weird Tales Magazine from a story by Robert E. Adapted for the screen by John Kneubuhl ( The Screaming Skull ’58, Two on a Guillotine ’65 both have a similar eerie Gothic sensibility) and directed by John Newland. ![]()
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