Old man Pete Jensen performs one of those Satanic ceremonies that are all the rage with the ladies in the Bridge Club… or apparently with crazy ol’ coots who spend their days living off the grid, performing Black Masses, and absolutely pissing off a sizable portion of the population of Furnace Flats down New Mexico way.
Anyway, Pete dies and before you can say “Faustian Deal” his young nephew Nick Richards (Ed Nelson) blows into town and takes up residence in Pete’s rustic shit shack… where he almost immediately meets and gets the hornies for Nell Lucas (Jean Allison), the daughter of the town’s doctor, Doc Lucas (Edgar Buchanan).
Although smitten with the lass, Nick is cock-blocked by her beau, auto-mechanic David Simpson (Richard Crane), so he does what any sane, rational individual would do… he performs a magic ritual which causes David’s German Shepard to go completely insane and brutally maim him.
Get this, Nick also commits other magic animal-based attacks on anyone that can either help David, or those that become an inconvenience to him, and it doesn’t take long for the local lawman, Sheriff Tom Fuller (Spencer Carlisle) to figure out two plus two doesn’t equal four (more like 666) around here!
Director Charles R. Rondeau (working from a screenplay by Stanley Clements and Laura Jean Mathews) fills 1961’s The Devil’s Partner with an ancient tome’s worth of atmosphere, folk horror vibes, solid cinematography (courtesy of Edward Cronjager), and solid performances… I mean the actors are more responsible for that, but in the interest of brevity, and all…
What isn’t involved however is a centaur, even though the promo art for this flick would have you believe you’d be slapping your eerie eyeballs on one (and one with a hair pulling fetish no less)… but the overall spooky folk horror aesthetic of the piece won’t have you missing it much…
Speaking of “missing” things, Film Masters provides both a theatrical 1.85.1 aspect ratio version of the film, as well as a TV version in 1.33.1 (and yes, the running time for both versions is identical).
As for special features, we get an audio commentary by Larry Strothe, James Gonis, Shawn Sheriden and Matt Weinhold from the Monster Party podcast that provides plenty of information on the film’s production along with a fan’s eye analysis of the picture.
Also included are the third installment in the Hollywood Insiders: The Filmgroup Story documentary, a featurette containing Producer Roger Corman (Death Race 2000, Humanoids From the Deep, among many, many more) musing on his Filmgroup distribution/production company, and a re-cut version of the film’s trailer.
This brings us to Disc Two of this release which contains the feature Creature From the Haunted Sea, also from 1961…
After a charming animated opening (set mostly to the whimsical AF score of Fred Katz, A Bucket of Blood… another Corman production with a near-identical score… because it was) we get down to the meat n’ potatoes of this creature feature which includes a far out yarn involving a deported American gangster-type named Renzo Capetto (Antony Carbone), who hatches a scheme to make a load of dough off the back of a counter-revolution being planned down Cuba-way.
Among the members of the gang are sex-pot moll Mary-Belle Monahan (Betsy Jones-Moreland), Sparks Moran (Robert Towne); an undercover agent that has infiltrated the gang, facial tick sufferer Happy Jack (Robert Bean), and simpleton/master animal-call impressionist (?!!) Pete Peterson Jr. (Beach Dickerson… with a hearty shout-out to the stock sound effects library Uncle Roger and the gang had access to).
Anyway, the loyalists hop on Renzo’s ship with a hefty withdraw from Cuba’s National Treasury and walk right into the gangster’s unbelievably ridiculous plan of faking a sea creature attack to rid the vessel of the loyalists so the loot can be his!
Only hitch in the plan is that a real sea monster hunts the depths which makes retrieving the cash dicey for all involved once it gets sunk along with Renzo’s boat just off-shore of a tropical island.
The third in a thematic horror-comedy trilogy (with the other entries being the aforementioned A Bucket of Blood from 1959, and 1960’s killer plant caper, The Little Shop of Horrors), Creature From the Haunted Sea (directed by Corman himself with a script provided by his frequent screenwriter Charles B. Griffith) never takes itself seriously and is filled with jokey narration, a jaw-dropping bizarre title creature, a cast of incredibly game performers, and of course an absolute ass-load (or more appropriately ear-load) of animal sound effects that run the gamut of funny to annoying depending on your tolerance for such audio antics!
As for special features to accompany the film, the main event is an audio commentary provided by film historian Tom Weaver (along with interviews with Corman, production manager Kinta Zertuche, and re-enactments courtesy of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra’s Larry Blamire) which provides a wealth of information on the troubled (mostly due to Corman’s notorious penny-pinching) production in both an entertaining and often hilarious manner!
Also included are a duo of trailers (original and a modern re-cut version), and a look at the restoration process Film Masters utilized for this release.
Additionally this release contains a booklet with new writing about the films provided by Weaver and author Mark McGee.
The Devil’s Partner/Creature From The Haunted Sea double feature is fun B-movie madness featuring two off-kilter tales filled with magic, monsters, and madcap nonsense (the best kind as you know)!
