Honourable Mention: House on Bare Mountain

What to say about this sexploitation flick from 1962, which was directed by Lee Frost and an uncredited Wes Bishop? Well let’s start with the wholly inaccurate blurb from IMDb “The Wolfman, Dracula and Frankenstein spy on a girls' school in the mountains, where most of the girls spend their time sunbathing in the nude, nude exercises and nude art classes. The monsters finally invade the school...” The only accurate bit is the part about the nude (or mainly semi-nude) girls, as we’ll see…

It starts with Granny Good (Bob Cresse) looking like she’s behind bars and she explains how she got there (so the film is a flashback of sorts). Granny runs a girl’s school – she suggests it’s a cottage, the title says house and the establishing shots show a castle on a mountain. She was grading papers (for that read 'drinking hooch') when Mr & Mrs Bumgartner arrive as they want to enrol their daughter Prudence (Laura Eden) in the school.

Bob Cresse as Granny Good

As they chat, in comes student Honey notably wearing only knickers – this sets your theme for the whole film as the girls are often topless or we get nude bottoms also, the film does avoid full frontal nudity. Sally wants homework as she has finished the physics work, and is tasked to read the dictionary. Granny meets Prudence and then goes to get Sally (Ann Perry), her new roommate. When Granny is out of the room the Bumgartners start to search it.

Prudence and Kracow

So, skipping over the exercise routine, and the showers, and every other excuse to get a naked pair of breasts on screen… where are the monsters? Well, there is actually one. The school handyman, Kracow, is actually a werewolf (and this is confirmed when he gets his Union Rep from the Werewolves Union involved). As for the others, it all comes down to a prom (prom, or party, you decide).

Jeffrey Smithers as Dracula

So there is a party, with boys invited and in the party we get the following monster costumes Wolfman (William Engesser credited as Abe Greyhound, the Ghost Busters), Frankenstein’s Monster (Warren Ames credited as Percy Frankenstein) and Dracula (Jeffrey Smithers credited as Doris Dracula). So Dracula is just a guy, fleeting in his visitation, dressed as Dracula. He does spike the punch, with his cloak around the bowl, but then everyone spikes the punch, including Granny. In tone I guess there was an air of what we would later get in the UK with Benny Hill and I was also reminded, a smidgeon, of Orgy of the Dead. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK