Money Isn't Everything, Continued...

Unlike mad scientists, pretty young bad-girls in horror movies always need quick cash, and in Werewolf In A Girl's Dormitory (1962), they're not above tossing themselves into the arms of randy old landowners to get it. (The bad-girls, that is: not the mad scientists. I have yet to see a movie where a mad scientist tosses himself into the arms of a randy old landowner. Hmmm, maybe I should work that up into a screenplay: Brokeback Frankenstein .)

Of course, when bad-girls go on the prowl, they usually have to pay the terrible price: namely, getting mauled by a werewolf, alien or other formidable brute with big teeth (and no, I'm not talking about Gary Busey).

Fright flicks often feature money-and man-hungry prostitutes who get sliced, diced, bitten, stabbed, and gobbled up. But, the definitive callgirl-horror movie of all time has to be... (drum roll, please)... everyone's favorite slut-with-somebody-else's-butt, Frankenhooker (1990). She'd be perfect for any man with a wandering eye. If he wanted to cheat on her, all he'd have to do is switch orifices, since all of her parts came from different women.

If folks are especially desperate for cash, they can easily make a deal with the Devil. He'll make sure they do well in the stock market and he'll even give them a beautiful witch-girlfriend, too. How do I know that? Why, I've watched The Devil's Hand (1962). In it, the prune-faced guy who was Commission Gordon on the old Batman TV show plays the owner of an evil doll shop, where a secret voodoo cult practices the dark arts in the reeeeally big basement. It's actually bigger than the doll shop above it. Such is the power of evil.

This movie was very enlightening. I used to think that voodoo was a religion observed by mysterious island folks in steamy Caribbean jungles. Turns out, I was wrong. It's actually observed by pudgy guys in cheap suits and middle-aged party-girls in cocktail dresses. In basements. I also learned that the Devil's name is Gomba. Who knew?

In Roger Corman's 1959 el echeapo epic, A Bucket of Blood , a nebbishy little coffee-house busboy starts making big money by covering his murder victims with clay and selling them as his artistic masterpieces. This movie makes a perfect double-feature with Corman's better-known 1960 dark comedy, The Little Shop of Horrors , in which another nebbishy goofball, Seymour, makes magnificent moolah showing off a home-grown botanical wonder -- a giant carnivorous plant named Audrey Junior. The downside is, he has to feed it cadavers on a regular basis or else it starts to wilt. He even feeds the plant a ditzy hooker. I guess giant man-eating begonias don't worry too much about social diseases.

So what have we learned today? Well, you can rake in some cash by murdering your rich spouse, sleeping around, raising monsters or worshipping the Devil... but all that's just a one-way ticket to the boneyard, baby. In the long run, you're better off just getting a job and making your money the old-fashioned way: by working for it!

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