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Death Curse of Tartu
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Death Curse of Tartu (Review)

July 30, 2014By

Death Curse of Tartu

Death Curse of Tartu
1966
Written and directed by William Grefé
Death Curse of Tartu
An ancient Indian curse strikes those that trespass on Tartu’s burial land, as Tartu awakens and transforms into animals to slay all comers. This cheap 1966 horror flick looks its budget, and comes complete with a good deal of padding. But underneath is the bones of a good horror flick, and had it been more than a rush job, Death Curse of Tartu might have gained a small cult following. For now, it’s place in on the Something Weird DVD alongside Sting of Death, the two classic Floridan horror flicks united forever.

Death Curse of Tartu was shot in 7 days, made in a hurry after Joseph Fink and Juan Hildago Gato from distributors Thunderbird International acquired Sting of Death, and needed a horror film to play with it as a double feature for the drive-ins. Unable to get another, they commissioned William Grefé to just make a new film, provided the production began immediately. Grefé spent 24 hours straight writing the script, and they were filming within 10 days. The basic concept was transplanting the cursed mummy type films to the Florida Everglades, as Grefé was based in Florida at the time. Florida was a compact B-movie hub from the 50s through the 70s, giving the nice weather of California with the closer proximity to New York in an era where cross-country travel was less common.
Death Curse of Tartu
Grefé’s commentary has some funny stories, particularly when telling tales of the animal handlers he used for Death Curse of Tartu and a few others. There’s also some casual admittance that the animal handlers weren’t the nicest to some of the snakes, and a general fear of the anaconda used in Tartu that lead to the casting of snake handler Frank Weed, as he was the only one who would wrestle the snake. Grefé tells of when a tv news crew came to film the filming, and he struggled with the snake for their cameras, but the anaconda started constricting and it took four guys to get it off him. So maybe some tv news station in Florida has amazing footage in their archive, provided it hasn’t been destroyed by 50 years of hurricanes.
Death Curse of Tartu
If you remember that old MST3K short Catching Trouble where this jerk named Ross Allen spent his day capturing animals, Death Curse could form sort of a companion piece. Some of the stars are actual Floridan animal capturers like Ross, as are some of the characters. There is even a Seminole Indian character, he’s also the only one with the smarts not to go to the cursed land, not blindly following a white master for money like Old Sourpuss from Catching Trouble.
Death Curse of Tartu

Ed Tison (Fred Piñero) – Leader of the expedition into the swamp to find Indian artifacts, and to meet up with his partner Sam Gunter. Whom he only finds the body of. Leads the fight against Tartu, which is mostly futile. Like many of the actors in Tartu, he’s a Cuban refugee.
Julie Tison (Babette Sherrill) – Ed’s wife, who usually votes against his ideas. They seem to have a strained marriage, but maybe a weekend of fighting an Indian curse is just the cure they need!
Billy (Bill Marcus) – An Indian guide who refuses to go into the cursed area. So he doesn’t, but he does provide a bit of expository dialogue.
Cindy (Mayra Gómez Kemp) – Redheaded member of the teens who tag along due to their intense interest in making out— I mean, archaeology! Is a very good screamer, probably why she’s kept alive the longest of the cannon fodder characters. Marya Gómez Kemp went on to have a very successful career in Spain.
Tartu (Doug Hobart) – An Indian witch doctor who cursed his burial land, declaring he’s slaughter anyone who disturbed it. Putting his burial land in the middle of the swamp 400 years ago seemed smart, until those darn white people showed up and keep trespassing. So they got to die! Tartu can turn into an anaconda, a shark, a rattlesnake, an alligator, and even the most dangerous animal. No, not gophers, man! This makes Tartu the original Manimal! Doug Hobart also played the monster version of the Jellyfish Man in Sting of Death.

Death Curse of Tartu

Sting of Death
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Sting of Death (Review)

July 28, 2014By

Sting of Death

Sting of Death
1965
Written by Al Dempsey and William Kerwin
Directed by William Grefé

How dare you complain about the Strategic Helium Reserve!

A Jellyfish Man terrorizes Florida in Sting of Death, and in so doing becomes one of the most ridiculous movie monsters in history. Not only is there a Jellyfish Man, but Sting of Death comes complete with it’s own rocking theme song, Do the Jellyfish by Neil Sedaka!

Sting of Death is important because the monster suit is ridiculous! He’s got a big balloon for a head! The rest of the costume is a wetsuit with partial monster slime glued on, but the gloves are painfully obvious thanks to some closeups. It’s one of the most ridiculous monster suits of all time. In fact, an list of awful monster costumes that does not contain the Jellyfish Man is suspect at best.
Sting of Death
Yes, a Jellyfish Man terrorizes women. Aside from that, it’s a pretty straightforward Creature of the Black Lagoon ripoff with elements of other horror classics thrown in. It also has a surprisingly high bodycount and many characters who act like gigantic douchenozzles. Almost enough to make you cheer for the Jellyfish Man. So instead, I just cheer for everyone to die. I almost get my wish. Almost…

Sting of Death features plenty of women in bikinis who are manhandled (Jellyfish Manhandled?) and killed by the monster. The (obvious) villain is revealed to have all sorts of issues with women, but these types of films also explore the creators’ issues with women. Sometime there are so many issues that you have to put them into longboxes and sell them 6 for $1 at conventions. Let’s also just ignore how easy it was to transition into talking about comic books while discussing issues with women.

There was almost an unbelievable tragedy with regards to Sting of Death, in that the film was almost lost forever. In fact, when a print was located, it was in terrible condition and covered with mold, causing a scramble to try to find a lab that could handle all the mold and decay. Luckily for film preservation history, things turned out okay, and now that Sting of Death is in the digital world, where it will exist forever. Being spread around on tapes, DVDs, on-demand streaming, digital downloads, torrents, and all methods of media sharing.

Sting of Death is on a Something Weird double DVD along with Death Curse of Tartu. Both feature commentary by director William Grefe, and include some cool information about the filming. Grefe is well aware that he made a low budget horror film with some ridiculous effects, but that’s part of the fun. Through this we learn the bump on Jack Nagle’s head was an actual injury that had to be written into the film, but it looks totally fake, which is hilarious. Another fun feature is one of the actresses is named Blanche Devereaux, who you might recall is a character on The Golden Girls, which is set in Florida.
Sting of Death
The scene set to “Do the Jellyfish” is hilarious because of the awful dancing. Every extra is dancing to a different beat and mixing up 1960s styles. You can’t help but be entertained by this sequence. Sting of Death was released in 1965, just as Neil Sedaka’s career was careening downward (his type of music was pushed out of the charts by the arrival of the Beatles, and Sedaka would be without a label by 1966), so this was a great get to have a former number 1 artist do the movie theme to such a ridiculous piece.

Parts of Sting of Death remind one of a beach party movie, but this goodhearted fun doesn’t last as some of the snobby boys begin mercilessly mocking Egon because of his deformity. While many of the women seem fine with this, there is one or two who object to the cruelty on display. Their protestations do little to stop the abuse, and will matter little later when the killing spree begins. The bad behavior makes many of the deaths much more satisfying, but Egon ruins all attempts to make him appear justified in his rampage. The bad behavior of the monster can’t be excused by bullying, he was killing before the party began and is full of excuses. The deaths keep him from gaining the coveted tragic villain slot, instead just turning him into yet another monster. He was treated like a monster for so long, he (literally) became one.
Sting of Death

Dr. John Hoyt (Joe Morrison) – Our generi-hero, a young handsome scientist who works with Dr. Richardson and has eyes on his daughter, Karen. Like all scientists, he’s a muscular manly-man who wouldn’t be out of place on the cover of one of those Men’s Adventures magazines.
Karen Richardson (Valerie Hawkins) – Daughter of Dr. Richardson and a scientist in her own right, but not a career scientist, she only helps out. Is sort of sympathetic to Egon, but hangs around with obnoxious jerks a lot.
Egon (John Vella) – Creepy hunchbacked one-eyed assistant who has an unnatural obsession with jellyfish. And there is a Jellyfish Man on the loose. Hmm… Has a habit of sneaking up on people. At one point is taunted by obnoxious party idiots. Has a crush on Karen.
Dr. Richardson (Jack Nagle) – Famous Florida scientist who does research on marine creatures, which includes jellyfish. Is very good at convincing his daughter to bring down a ton of hot single college girls to help with the research. Why, yes, he’s single, how could you tell? Has a bump on the head.
Jellyfish Man (Doug Hobart) – He’s got to be jelly, because jam don’t shake like that! Despite the enormous amount of jellyfish parts, Jellyfish Man retains his human intelligence, and murders and sabotages his way to his plans to destroy everyone out of hate. Especially women.

Sting of Death