DUNGEON OF HARROW

Well, it’s no secret that we like ‘em cheap and crazy here at Wormwood Laboratories. Our Philm Phreaks section is chock full of cinematic insanity like 1934’s “Maniac”, “Blood Freak”, “Winterbeast” and many more. But they don’t come much cheaper or crazier than “The Dungeon of Harrow”, a bargain basement descent into madness emanating from 1962 San Antonio, Texas. A trip to the grocery store here in 2023 costs more money than this celluloid dumpster fire. And yet, as is almost always the case, the very cheapness of the film gives it a strange sheen of uneasiness and a real feeling of despair.

The film is almost entirely the creation of a singular artist named Pat Boyette, who like his low budget film-making brethren Ed Wood, Coleman Francis and Andy Milligan, is an extremely interesting character. Boyette was really a jack of all trades on “Dungeon of Harrow”, not only directing it, but doing the model work and special effects (such as they are), scoring the movie (mostly with public domain music) and even doing the opening narration. He also drew the poster art for the movie, a move which presaged his later career as a successful comic book artist. He was more living proof of the truism “when you have no money, do as much as you can yourself”.

Boyette was a native of San Antonio, Texas and spent almost his entire life there. After serving in World War II, he did vocal work for radio, including a soap opera, and eventually wound up becoming a major personality at WOAI. He was one of those characters now completely missing from local broadcasting...a multi-talented everyman who served as an evening news anchor, the director of a kids show, the host of a local talk show and the creator of many local TV commercials. No doubt this wide background helped him when he put together “Dungeon of Harrow” basically on his own dime, coming up with sets, makeup, music, direction, narration and who knows what else.

Although Boyette certainly had local notoriety for his San Antonio TV work, he really made his mark as a comic book artist. Shortly after the release of “Dungeon of Harrow”, he gave up his TV work completely and became a full time artist, mostly for the threadbare Charlton Comics Company. He worked for years on many of their horror anthology titles like “Ghost Manor”,  “Ghostly Tales” and “The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves”. He also dabbled in superhero and Western comics and was the creator of the character The Peacemaker, who was recently portrayed by John Cena in an HBO Max mini-series. Boyette also did some work for DC, Marvel and Warren.

But “Dungeon of Harrow” will always remain his main cinematic claim to fame. Obviously Boyette was very influenced by the Roger Corman Poe movies of the early 60’s, almost all of which starred Vincent Price. Those cheap but stylish films always impressed people with how Corman created mood and atmosphere with a low budget. Well, in “Dungeon of Harrow”, Boyette tries to do the same with about 1/10th the budget Corman had for his films. At many points, the movie looks like a filmed stage play done by a local dinner theater company, with performances to match.

“Dungeon of Harrow” could basically be described as a cross between “Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Most Dangerous Game”, with generous helpings of torture, sadism and disfigurement thrown in. Despite the dreadful acting and overwhelming cheapness, there is a true feeling of decay and decadence to the story. And there is one truly nightmarish sequence that rises above it all to become a true classic.

After some melodramatic opening credits with a thundering score that almost blows you out of your seat, we are introduced to one Aaron Fallon, the protagonist of our tale. It’s not really fair to call him the hero, as he shows few heroic qualities over the course of the film. Fallon is portrayed by Russ Harvey, whose acting chops rivals that of a filing cabinet. One wonders how such a stiff and colorless fellow wound up with the starring role...until you see that he was also a producer of the film. That explains a few things.

Fallon is sitting in shadow in what looks like a dingy attempt at creating a castle with nothing but cardboard and styrofoam. He looks at the Fallon family crest and ruminates….”How many times have I stood before this symbol of my family’s greatness? And now this crest and I are dying together.  In another time and place, I might have brought honor and glory to the Fallon family. Instead, I shall leave a legacy of decay and unspeakable horror…”

Such gloriously Poe-like dialogue fills the picture. It is one of the chief delights of “Dungeon of Harrow” listening to the formal 19th century verbiage focused on suffering and misery. If the actors were up to the task of relating such dialogue, the movie would be on the level of the Roger Corman films it emulates. Instead, the leaden delivery of “stars” like Russ Harvey and Bill McNullty makes you shake your head and wonder what might have been.

Fallon’s memory goes back to when he was a passenger on an old style sailing ship. The year is 1870 and the vessel is being tossed about in a ferocious sea storm. Pat Boyette’s special effects in this scene are somewhere on the level of a five year old playing with toys in the bathtub. Even for the time, they are jaw-droppingly bad. The captain of the vessel, whose name we never learn, enters Fallon’s cabin and tells him he may need to prepare to evacuate. Fallon, who seems to  be a haughty and rather spoiled fellow, complains about this, but with a wrenching crunch, the ship is wrecked and run aground on the shores of a dismal looking island.

Fallon and the captain are the only survivors of the wreck. The portly captain (Lee Morgan) is a matter of fact fellow who serves Fallon some fresh caught fish. “I prefer meat,” sniffs Fallon. “Can you see if you can hunt us some game?” He’s a man accustomed to getting things his way.

The two men continue their conversation until a woman’s scream rings out. They discover the body of one of the female passengers from the ship. Instead of being drowned, it looks like she has been torn apart by wild animals. The quick shot of her body is surprisingly bloody and we’ve established that “Dungeon of Harrow” is not afraid to display a little gore.

The scene now switches to inside the ominous, opulent castle elsewhere on the island (or a model of what is supposed to be one). We meet the white-haired, aristocratic Count Lorente de Sade (no relation to the Paris de Sades, I’m sure). As played by Bill McNulty, this is the madman who rules the miserable isle and the owner of the dreaded Dungeon of Harrow. The Count’s towering black manservant Mantis (played by San Antonio Spurs player Maurice Harris, who had to be better on the court than in front of the camera) leadenly tells his master that his dogs have apparently killed a woman. The acerbic old count explodes that there are no women on the island (which we later learn is patently untrue). It’s obvious the old man fears any strangers on the island, as he tells Mantis to be on the lookout for “pirates”.

It’s obvious Count de Sade is about three pickles shy of a Whopper, but now we really see how far out of whack he is. After a glass of wine, a weird spectral figure appears and begins a conversation with the old man. This spook seems to an amiable and talkative sort and he tells de Sade that he can “do every evil thing you have ever dreamed of doing”. So this hallucinatory character apparently represents the evil in the Count’s own heart. It’s worth noting that the “alter ego” is played by Joe Alston, who for years was famous in San Antonio as the host of the local “Chiller Theater” program.

The Count continues a fevered argument with this man that isn’t there and the puppets of a snake, bat and spider are shown floating in the air. This is a bargain basement descent into madness if there ever was one.

Meanwhile, Mantis and the Count’s ferocious dogs have captured Fallon and the Captain. They are brought to the castle and tossed into the dungeon. Soon Fallon meets a cold and aristocratic young woman named Cassandra (Helen Hogan) who learns that Fallon is a man of breeding. She invites Fallon to join the Count for dinner. As for the hapless Captain, his torment is just beginning, as he is kept in the dungeon and subjected to dreadful torture by Mantis. It has to be said that actress Helen Hogan is the closest thing the movie has to an actual talent, as she handles her florid dialogue with aplomb….something that eludes the rest of the cast. She’s also quite attractive in an icy way.

The dinner is anything but pleasant, as the Count alternates between inquisitive chattiness and raging, foam-flecked lunacy. Cassandra maintains her cool demeanor and gives Fallon little help. Fallon himself displays some of the haughtiness which he’s demonstrated before.

After the awkward repast breaks up, Fallon encounters the Count in a room occupied by a dime-store sarcophagus. This is said to be the final resting place of the late Countess DeSade. Since her departure from the vale of earthly tears, Lorente has never been the same. Cassandra tells Fallon that she will reveal some of the island’s secrets, but “...the night is dark enough as it is. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

That night, in his elegant yet dingy bedroom, Fallon looks outside his window and sees a comely young woman being whipped by Mantis and the Count. He attempts to help the girl, but finds he has been locked inside his room. This decrepit mansion is full of nasty surprises.

It’s full of torture as well. We later see the Count and Mantis continuing to punish the girl in a small, cut-rate dungeon seemingly made of cardboard, like the rest of the mansion. We learn she is a servant girl called Anne who is also mute and incapable of speech. Michele Buquor, who plays Anne, is extremely easy on the eyes and quite buxom as well. At one point during her frequent bouts of torture, there’s a “nip slip” that I can guarantee is the most paused portion of the film.

Anne is not alone in the dungeon. The unfortunate captain has borne the brunt of the Count’s wrath, as the insane old coot believes him to be “a pirate”. We learn that DeSade pretty much believes everybody outside of his household is a pirate and should be put to death. The captain is mercilessly tortured, including a torch burning his face. As cheap as the film is, these torture scenes are indeed “harrowing” to watch, even though Mantis seems to perform them reluctantly.

Cassandra has her clandestine meeting with Fallon and tells him what’s really going on. The Countess De Sade is not dead...she has contracted leprosy and been confined to the deepest, darkest dungeon of the castle, where she lives in disfigured insanity, wearing a tattered wedding dress and constantly reliving her wedding night. Due to fear of the disease, the Count and the rest of his household have been forced to stay on the island. The incident pushed De Sade over the edge of sanity and into total paranoia, as he believes pirates are out to rob and kill him.

Anne later visits Fallon in his room and attempts to wordlessly seduce him, which he refuses. That took more willpower than I have, I must admit. Fallon takes a different approach...he tells her that if she helps him free the captain from bondage, then she can join them in an escape from the island.

Pretty much everything goes wrong. Amazingly, Anne breaks a two by four over the head of the towering Mantis, knocking him out. But as she frees the captain, a wrathful Count De Sade arrives and catches her in the act. Now the captain will have company on the torture rack...it is determined that Anne will suffer the dreaded “water torture”, which is pretty ineptly applied.

Fallon finally breaks through Cassandra’s wall of ice and says it’s time to kill the Count and get off the damned island. It all ends in mayhem in the dungeon, with the captain freed but ultimately killed by Mantis. Fallon is tossed into what seems to be the sarcophagus of Countess De Sade, but which actually is a hidden stairway leading to another, even more decrepit dungeon. Perhaps the sub-dungeon is the actual Dungeon of Harrow in the title...we never find out. But now, for the first time, things are going to get REALLY intense.

Russ Harvey, whose acting so far has been as powerful as a styrofoam pool noodle, now suddenly rises to this occasion of horror as Fallon finds himself in a truly nightmarish scenario. The new dungeon he finds himself locked in is so rank and decayed, it makes the torture dungeon above look like a penthouse. He senses he is not alone in this place. Soon he hears tittering female laughter that will raise the hair on the back of your neck and sees a scabbed claw of a hand reaching through a hole in a door to unlock it.

Sure enough, it is the leprous and insane Countess De Sade, dressed in a tattered wedding dress and looking like green scabs are all over her face. I have to say, director Boyette’s lighting in this scene is surreal and spot on, imitating the look that Roger Corman and Daniel Haller created on some of the Poe films. Eunice Grey, as the ghastly Countess, is one of the better actors here, and creates an aura of absolute lunacy as she swarms over the horrified Fallon, caressing him and calling him “Lorente”. “Didn’t you know it’s our wedding night?,” she croons. Harvey, as Fallon, responds with a very authentic scream of absolute horror and we are left to imagine what now happens between the two. This is the unforgettable peak of “Dungeon of Harrow”, where it rises above its threadbare nature to real terror.

We don’t really know if Fallon and the Countess “consummated” their wedding night, but we do see Cassandra has made her way to this dungeon hell. The Countess shrieks and lurches to attack what she thinks is her rival, but she recoils…Cassandra has stabbed her in the heart. Thankfully, the disfigured wretch of a woman finally expires. Cassandra has come to realize Fallon is her only way off the island. But his experience has pushed his sanity to the brink.

Nevertheless, it’s time to make a run for it. After discovering that poor Anne has expired due to the water torture, the two leave the dreadful castle at last and are at large on the island. Cassandra tells Fallon a supply ship is soon due. If they can last until then, they can get off the island. But as you might expect, the enraged Count is not going to simply let them wander about. He gathers up Mantis and the bloodthirsty dogs and goes in search of the fugitives.

Now the film takes a page out of “The Most Dangerous Game” as Fallon and Cassandra are hunted down. Alas, “Dungeon of Harrow” shows its cheap and threadbare heart again, as the chase lacks the necessary tension. It doesn’t help that the “island” looks like typical scrubland just outside of San Antonio.

It seems all the years of abuse have taken a toll on Mantis, as the giant slave seems to weaken and falter on the trail. One would hope that Maurice Harris would have more stamina on the ball court that what he shows here. At any rate, he falls to the ground and has trouble getting up. The spiteful old bastard shows his compassion by shooting the faithful manservant with a rifle. Mantis groans, “I always do what you say. Even die…” Even with the stiff acting, this is a poignant scene and it seems obvious that Mantis, who probably could have physically overpowered the Count at almost any time, was born to be a slave and nothing but.

Now on his own, the Count has his final showdown with Fallon, who jumps him by surprise and knocks the rifle out of his hands. Now begins a battle to death over possession of the rifle, as Cassandra watches. To say this fight is anticlimactic would be a gross understatement...it’s not something that the makers of “Rocky” would lose any sleep over. At last, though, Aaron Fallon, once the spoiled rich son of a once-great family, gets control of the rifle and kills the sadistic Count.

The two survivors, who have now become lovers, think that the nightmare is over for them. Within days, the supply ship does indeed arrive at the island. A rowboat is sent to greet the pair, but as the crew come ashore and see them, they recoil in horror and immediately flee. “Lepers!” gasps the lead sailor. Actually there is little disfigurement yet to be seen...but the flesh of the pair has taken on an unhealthy dark hue.

Fallon’s narration draws to a close. He and Cassandra have returned to the castle. The island is once again off limits to all, so there will be no rescue. Like the Count and his wife, Fallon and Cassandra are caught in a web of madness and disease. We see Cassandra sitting in a chair, her skin mottled, her hair wild and crazed eyes staring straight ahead. Fallon is also starting to show signs of leprosy. He takes the catatonic Cassandra down, down once more to the Dungeon of Harrow…

For all the dime-store cheapness, stiff acting and general ineptitude, “Dungeon of Harrow” is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be. Boyette and his co-writer Henry Garcia were after the morbidly tragic and Gothically overwrought atmosphere of Poe, Hawthorne and other masters of 19th century horror. The movie does have that feeling of being trapped in an inescapable nightmare and during the scene where Fallon encounters the leprous Countess, it achieves true horror. The fact is, if this movie had a substantial budget and classically trained actors, it would be unbearable on a level beyond Corman’s Poe/Price films. As it is, it remains an oddity of regional film-making.

The fruity dialogue, full of verbose mannerisms and archaic terms, is actually quite well written in the Gothic style, It’s just that the deadened delivery of Harvey, McNulty and the like drains the poetry out of it. Helen Hogan, as Cassandra, gives us some idea of what the dialogue would sound like in the hands of a talented actor.

There is a film of misery that coats “Dungeon of Harrow”, a grungy feel arrived at as much by accident as by design. This is a characteristic of much psychotronic cinema, but it takes a special mentality to understand. One such as I possess. Some would call it...madness.