This week’s retro trailer is for the 1981 film The Monster Club, a British horror-comedy anthology film directed by Roy Ward Baker, based on the works of author R. Chetwynd-Hayes.
The film stars Vincent Price as Eramus, a suave vampire, and John Carradine as Chetwynd-Hayes himself, a horror writer. After an encounter in which Eramus drinks a little of the author’s blood, he invites him to the titular “Monster Club,” a secret gathering place for supernatural creatures like vampires, werewolves, and ghouls.
The club is filled with eccentric monsters who enjoy dancing and music, but the highlight of the evening is Eramus’s storytelling. Throughout the night, he shares three eerie and unsettling tales of monsters, each with its own moral twist, involving ghouls, shapeshifters, and human-monster hybrids.
The first story, “The Shadmock,” revolves around a shy, reclusive man with deadly powers who becomes obsessed with a young woman.
The second tale, “The Vampires,” offers a unique twist on the vampire genre, following a family of vampires and their unexpected interactions with human society.
Finally, “The Ghouls” tells the disturbing story of a film director who stumbles upon a town inhabited by flesh-eating ghouls.
In between these stories, scenes of the bizarre and humorous Monster Club punctuate the film, blending campy horror with dark humor and 1980s nightclub music. While not a box office success, The Monster Club has since gained a cult following for its quirky tone, and atmospheric storytelling.
