It's a funny thing when you watch a movie repeatedly as a kid. I was in my pre-teen years when I watched "The Monster Club" on TV - Channel 11 in New York on a weekday late afternoon. I always enjoyed it and then the movie evaporated from my existence until 15 years later. I was excited to see it again and taped it off television. I watched it and found it poor in all departments, plus I felt nauseated while watching it - I can't explain the latter. Now I just saw it again the other night for the first time since the late 1990's and I didn't feel nauseated - some of it is sort of fun in a tongue-of-cheek manner. I don't know if I will ever see it again, but seeing it on "House of Svengoolie" with Gwengoolie and the other horror hosts made it tolerable.
Deep in the city of London lies "The Monster Club," a wacky place filled with monsters dancing the night away and pop bands performing on stage. John Carradine is Chetwynd-Hayes, based on the actual horror novelist who wrote the book this film is based on, and he runs into a famished vampire, Eramus (deliciously played by Vincent Price), who just barely penetrates his fangs on the old author. Eramus is apologetic and invites Chetwynd, whom he deeply admires, to the club.
By way of a drawn diagram of different monsters in existence including werewolves, vampires, ghouls, shadmocks and so on, Eramus tells of three different horror tales. One deals with a shadmock (James Laurenson), the least frightening creature you can imagine, who can whistle in such a way that it burns people and animals to a crisp (he loves birds but not cats, apparently). A con-artist (Barbara Kellerman) is disgusted by his appearance but then slowly sympathizes with him - she is supposed to catalogue his antiques but she is actually wanting to steal them. Watch out for that whistling sound! This one is likely to scare anyone who found TV's "Dark Shadows" too frightening.
The second story deals with a nobleman/vampire who is being hunted. In an ironic twist, he lives with his family, who are not vampires, and sleeps during the day in the basement, etc. Donald Pleasance is the main vampire hunter masquerading as a priest so he can lure the Count's son at school to the unholy resting place. There's also lovely Britt Ekland as the Count's wife trying to protect the family. Pure silliness that includes a rare item in vampire lore - a stake-proof vest!
Then we get the creep factor in full gear with a secluded place shrouded in fog called "Loughville" where a horror movie director (Stuart Whitman) is looking for a place with gobs of atmosphere. He sure gets it as there are ghouls wanting to eat him - they are a bit hungry after eating corpses from dug-up graves. Yuck! This is the one that nauseated me.
As a horror anthology work, there are superior ones even by director Ron Ward Baker (this was his last film). Still, this is one that would be best viewed at midnight at Chiller Theatre with an actively participating audience. And it is hard to hate a movie when the Monster Club secretary is a werewolf!
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