Pyramid Screams

Near Luxor, a burial scene
Dumb schmucks there would dare intervene
They pry into tomb,
And cry "Va va voom!
A buxom and scary old queen!"

Surly Hack and Donald B. Benson
 


Valerie Leon as Queen Tera in Blood From the Mummy's Tomb (Seth Holt; 1971).

The Thin Dwight Crook

When the gallows is robbed in the night
And the hallowed earth's lobbed out of sight
There's one creep, lame and halt
That's to blame and at fault
It's that callow and hobbling Dwight!

David Cairns

Colin Clive and Dwight Frye excitedly eye the hanged man in Frankenstein (James Whale; 1931).

Olfactory Workers

 

Dead stagger like well-sozzled drunks 
Each rag-wearing fellow spelunks
Confined in the mine
You find you're not fine
You gag on the smell--then blow chunks.



The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling; 1966)

Rotten to the Pores

Its pace is more laggard than zippy,

Its face far too haggard and drippy.

Undead and unthinking,

Unsteady and stinking...

Disgracefully shaggy...a hippie?

 

No, it's not the Hippy Drippy Weatheredman. It's a walking corpse from The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling; 1966).

Living Death Certificate

 

In declaring them dead I was hasty
Now their bearing's unsteady, skin pasty
Though I'm chilled to the marrow
Unlike films of Romero
I'm not scared that my head will prove tasty.

Doctor Peter Tompson (Brook Williams) is threatened by The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling; 1966. Title by certifiable David Cairns.

Compost-Mortem

They're laid in the ground, but arise
Be afraid! From their mounds they surprise
Then, roused from their slumber
They drowsily lumber
Degraded, surrounded by flies.

David Cairns

Up from the grave comes The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling; 1966).

Henry and Goon

My irksome assistant's complaining
The jerk seems resistant to training
A bent-over fool
Demented and cruel
From work he's dismissed for bad-braining.

Dwight Frye, Colin Clive, and Boris Karloff or his stand-in in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

The Working Dead

Were they dead, or indifferently dozing?
These much-dreaded big stiffs, so imposing
They've strayed from their graves
And been made into slaves
Now they headily whiff, decomposing.

David Cairns

The dead rise up--right up into the nostrils. The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling; 1966)

Minimum Wage Slaves

They're common folk, working class slobs
Embalmed, but still lurking in mobs
These louts on the dole
Crawled out of a hole
Though zombified jerks, they need jobs.

The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling; 1966) is all about class and capitalism.

Working Stiffs

Once buried in graves, boxed in pine,
They make very good slaves in the mine.
Living dead, they don't shirk,
But come ready to work.
They don't scare during cave-ins, or whine.



Villagers are turned into a living dead labor force in The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling; 1966), recalling the sugarcane mill in the 1932 film White Zombie.

Out With the Old, In With the Nubile

On screen they've dispensed with restraint
Now clean gals and gents just seem quaint
Each sequence a quest
To peek girls undressed
The Breen era censors would faint!

Vampire Ingrid Pitt puts the bite on Madeline Smith in The Vampire Lovers (Roy Ward Baker; 1970), the first part of Hammer Films' so-called 'Karnstein Trilogy', gothic horror films which explicitly depict lesbian vampire themes.

Tease Play

 

This fright film is morbid and haunting
Its lightning-fueled horror most daunting
The "it" they create
Grows bitter, learns hate
Or might just be sore from the taunting.

Colin Clive and Dwight Frye face the off-camera Monster of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Leave It to Cleavage

The bosoms are heaving at Hammer
Where floozies of feverish glamor
Run around all bare-breasted
Ungowned and full-chested
Enthusing the skeevy, who clamor.

David Cairns



Ingrid Pitt and Kate O'Mara in The Vampire Lovers (Roy Ward Baker; 1970). Title left by Donald B. Benson.