The Monster Club (1981) Synopsis

A fictionalized version of author R. Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine) is approached on a London city street by a strange man (Vincent Price) who turns out to be a starving vampire named Eramus. Eramus bites the writer, and in gratitude for the small "donation", takes his (basically unharmed but bewildered) victim to the titular club, which is a covert gathering place for a multitude of supernatural creatures. In between the club's unique music and dance performances, Eramus introduces three stories about his fellow creatures of the night."The Shadmock"A young, financially struggling woman named Angela (Barbara Kellerman) takes a job at a secluded manor house owned by Raven (James Laurenson), a hybrid creature called a Shadmock, who leads a troubled and tragic existence and is notorious for his demonic whistle. As time goes by, Angela develops a friendship with the mysterious Shadmock, and he eventually proposes to her. Alarmed, Angela refuses but her controlling boyfriend George (Simon Ward) forces her to go through with it to gain the Shadmock's vast wealth. At the night of the engagement party, Angela is caught robbing the Shadmock's safe, and screams that she could never love him. Heartbroken, the Shadmock whistles and causes Angela's face to melt. Upon seeing her face, George is driven insane and locked away in an asylum."The Vampires"The timid human son of a peaceable family of vampires named Lintom Busotsky (Warren Saire) lives a miserable, lonely life where he is bullied at school and his father (Richard Johnson) spends little time with him. The son then discovers the truth - his father is a vampire who is being relentlessly, if ineptly, hunted by a team of bureaucratic vampire hunters led by Pickering (Donald Pleasence). The hunters break into the house and stake the vampire father, but the tables are turned when the father then bites Pickering before he dies, meaning that the hunter will now have to be staked by his own men. A chase ensues and Pickering is staked. After his men take Pickering's corpse away, the timid son and his also-human mother (Britt Ekland) return to the basement to find that the father has faked his death using a stake-proof vest filled with tomato ketchup."The Humgoo"An American movie director named Sam (Stuart Whitman) is scouting locations for his next film when he pays a horrifying visit to an isolated, decrepit village - Loughville, near Hillington, Norfolk, where the sinister residents refuse to let him leave. He discovers to his horror that the village is inhabited by a species of corpse-eating monsters called ghouls who unearth graves for food and clothes, and now there are no more graves to plunder in the village and the ghouls are hungry for flesh. While imprisoned by the ghouls, he meets Luna (Lesley Dunlop), the daughter of a ghoul father (Patrick Magee) and a deceased human mother, making her a Humgoo. Luna advises him to hide in the church, as ghouls cannot cross holy ground. While in the church, the director discovers the terrifying truth of Loughville; centuries before, a swarm of ghouls invaded the village, mated with the humans and made their nest there. With the aid of Luna, the director attempts to escape and almost succeeds, only for Luna to be killed by the ghouls and the director to be captured again and returned to the village by ghoul policemen.At the end of the film, Eramus cheerfully lists to the other club members all the imaginative ways that humans have of being horrible to each other, and declares that humans are the most despicable monsters of all; thus, Chetwynd-Hayes is made an honorary monster and a member of the club.

A fictionalized version of author R. Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine) is approached on a London city street by a strange man (Vincent Price) who turns out to be a starving vampire named Eramus. Eramus bites the writer, and in gratitude for the small "donation", takes his (basically unharmed but bewildered) victim to the titular club, which is a covert gathering place for a multitude of supernatural creatures. In between the club's unique music and dance performances, Eramus introduces three stories about his fellow creatures of the night."The Shadmock"A young, financially struggling woman named Angela (Barbara Kellerman) takes a job at a secluded manor house owned by Raven (James Laurenson), a hybrid creature called a Shadmock, who leads a troubled and tragic existence and is notorious for his demonic whistle. As time goes by, Angela develops a friendship with the mysterious Shadmock, and he eventually proposes to her. Alarmed, Angela refuses but her controlling boyfriend George (Simon Ward) forces her to go through with it to gain the Shadmock's vast wealth. At the night of the engagement party, Angela is caught robbing the Shadmock's safe, and screams that she could never love him. Heartbroken, the Shadmock whistles and causes Angela's face to melt. Upon seeing her face, George is driven insane and locked away in an asylum."The Vampires"The timid human son of a peaceable family of vampires named Lintom Busotsky (Warren Saire) lives a miserable, lonely life where he is bullied at school and his father (Richard Johnson) spends little time with him. The son then discovers the truth - his father is a vampire who is being relentlessly, if ineptly, hunted by a team of bureaucratic vampire hunters led by Pickering (Donald Pleasence). The hunters break into the house and stake the vampire father, but the tables are turned when the father then bites Pickering before he dies, meaning that the hunter will now have to be staked by his own men. A chase ensues and Pickering is staked. After his men take Pickering's corpse away, the timid son and his also-human mother (Britt Ekland) return to the basement to find that the father has faked his death using a stake-proof vest filled with tomato ketchup."The Humgoo"An American movie director named Sam (Stuart Whitman) is scouting locations for his next film when he pays a horrifying visit to an isolated, decrepit village - Loughville, near Hillington, Norfolk, where the sinister residents refuse to let him leave. He discovers to his horror that the village is inhabited by a species of corpse-eating monsters called ghouls who unearth graves for food and clothes, and now there are no more graves to plunder in the village and the ghouls are hungry for flesh. While imprisoned by the ghouls, he meets Luna (Lesley Dunlop), the daughter of a ghoul father (Patrick Magee) and a deceased human mother, making her a Humgoo. Luna advises him to hide in the church, as ghouls cannot cross holy ground. While in the church, the director discovers the terrifying truth of Loughville; centuries before, a swarm of ghouls invaded the village, mated with the humans and made their nest there. With the aid of Luna, the director attempts to escape and almost succeeds, only for Luna to be killed by the ghouls and the director to be captured again and returned to the village by ghoul policemen.At the end of the film, Eramus cheerfully lists to the other club members all the imaginative ways that humans have of being horrible to each other, and declares that humans are the most despicable monsters of all; thus, Chetwynd-Hayes is made an honorary monster and a member of the club.

Published Time: 2019-01-10 23:05:28