(Halloween) 31 Days, 31 Classic Horror Films (+Phaserip)

[TristramEvans]

For the month of October this year I've decide to watch one classic horror film a night. I'll probably play pretty fast and loose with the definition of "classic", but I' looking for films that are "Archetypal" and acclaimed, and ones that I haven't seen in a while or never seen.

I started with Universal's 1935 Bride of Frankenstein, a film I've not watched since my early adolescence. This is often hailed as one of the, if not the best, of the Universal Classic Monster movies. And....I don't know why, to be honest. I disliked it when I was a teen, but after year of reading the critical acclaim, and seeing it on numerous "best of" lists, I've always meant to give it another go, to see if there was something I missed; something my more mature zoetropic palette could detect. But...it's really just not a good film.

We start with a vignette about Shelly, authoress of Frankenstein, and her husband Blake hanging out with Byron, though not as part of that famous weekend in which Frankenstein was first conceived, but after it has been submitted for publication. Byron is played as a fop, Blake appears only barely cognizant, so really the standout of the scene is Shelly herself played by Elsa Lanchester, who also played the bride. I almost imagine this scene was added after the fact just to showcase her talent a bit more, because she is far and away the standout performance of the film.


As a framing device though - no, that's the wrong word, because while I expected the film to return to this scene at it's climax, no such thing happens - it's perfunctory at best, basically Byron praising the original Frankenstein tale and wondering what happens next, and so Shelly proceeds to tell him. Enter the film proper.

What we are then subjected to is basically a retread of the original story mixed with a bizarre story of Frankentein's former teacher showing up and wanting him to continue his original experiments. The teacher, the closest thing to a villain in the film, tries to entice Frankenstein with this batshit insane scene where he shows off these miniature people he created. It's amusing as just whimsical nonsense, but it's completely off in tone and is entirely random.

Unfortunately, it takes most of the rest of the film until the "plot" actually gets underway, with the screen time largely taken up by Frankenstein's original monster getting chased by villagers due to one misunderstanding after another. The pacing is horrible, and nothing seems to be driving the main plot forward, insteadthe film just stumbles along with me just waiting for the climax. Finally, the monster meets up with the teacher, and they hatch a plan (somehow - the intelligence of the monster seems to alter from one scene to the next, from "Grrrr, fire bad!" to "I'm going to blackmail my creator into making me a mate by kidnapping his fiance").So yea, finally in the late 15 minutes of the film things start to actually happen. The monster steals Frank's fiance, forcing him to work with his old teacher to create the titular bride, using animate corpses again procured by Igor (who just happens to "show up" towards the end of the film when he's needed) but a brain grown by the teacher, in an unspecified manner similar to his magic homunculi.

And the Bride is pretty cool. For the whole 3 minutes of screen time she gets, before the monster realizes she's scared of him (which I can't help but think is less to do with his appearance, like the villagers, but instead the fact that just after coming to life he's on her like jam on toast like a creepy stalker), and then get mad and....this was the part that made me mentally groan the loudest...decides to pull the big lever (never before shown or mentioned) that blows up the lab. Why does this lever exist? Like, who builds a giant tower, installs a bunch of scientific and medical equipment, and then finishes everything off by installing a lever that I can only guess is for some reason wired to several tons of dynamite hidden in the tower walls?

For some reason the monster lets Frank and his fiance go first, because, I guess there needed to be a "happy" ending? I dunno, there was nothing remotely likeable about either character. And then pulls lever, and an obvious miniature goes boom and falls apart in slow motion. The end.

My impression hasn't changed since my first viewing as a young teen - if anything, it's worse. The film is clumsily written and misses every obvious chance for anything remotely interesting.

But the odd thing that occurred to me while I was watching, constantly thinking of things I would have done differently, is the question as to why the film was never remade? There is a potentially interesting story in there, even if it totally drops the ball when presenting it.

Imagine this - the film starts with the monster escaping the villagers the first time, where he immediately encounters the teacher character. The teacher knows who and what the monster is, and takes it under his wing, beginning to educate it while he studies it. But he cannot uncover the secrets of the monster, and the monster, once able to articulate, is miserable, complaining about the loneliness of it's unique existence. So it's here, in the first act, that the teacher comes up with the plan to force Frankenstein to recreate his experiment, by creating a bride for the creature. The monster kidnaps Frankenstein's fiance, and this plays out much like in the original (just kicking off the middle of the film rather than a truncated last act).

There is this one scene in the film. Frankenstein, frustrated, demands to know that his fiance is still alive, and the teacher says he cannot see her, but he can talk to her over the phone. In the original, it's just as it sounds, he picks up the phone an talks to his fiance, who is kept in some rather risque-placed bondage by the monster somewhere nearby. I was soooo disappointed by this, because I thought the film was going in a way creepier, more disturbing direction. I don't even know why, in the context of the film, he had to communicate by phone, with the monster there, she could have just been tied to hair in the corner of the lab. But imagine this, he calls the phone, and speaks to her, an she is confused and disorientated, and just says "it's dark here, I don't know where I am, I can't see anything!" and Frankenstein just thinks they have her in some sort of cellar or something, but it's suddenly revealed that the teacher extracted the brain of the fiance, and that is in a vat, with a sort of weird-science phonograph-like contraption attached allowing it to talk - and that is the brain that the teacher gives to Frankenstein to put inside the bride!

Then, once the bride is animated, instead of just this two minute sequence where she confusedly screams while the monster paws at her, the Bride is immediately and obviously attracted to Frankenstein and wants nothing to do with the monster's attempts at affection, but clings to Frankenstein and tries to communicate with him. It's then the teacher finally reveals what brain Frankenstein put inside the Bride, driving him mad, and the Bride, ambiguously perhaps regaining some cognizance of her original self, kills the teacher. The monster, furious at the Bride's rejection and jealous of her obvious preference for their creator, attacks Frankenstein and their desperate battle leads to the lab an then the bride catching on fire. Both the monster and Frankenstein rush to try and save her, but are too late, as the fire reaches the chemicals, causing an explosion that buries her. As the inferno rages and the lab crashes down around them, Frankenstein tries to get to the exit, when a beam comes falling down toward him and he closes his eyes, holding up his arms, expecting to die....only to open them to find the monster has saved him, holding up the scaffolding with his back.

Cue a much shorter and more stilted Roy Batty-esque speech from the Monster as he gives Frankenstein the chance to escape, looking back one last time to look at his pitiful creation before it's strength gives out and the flames consume it.

The End

 

[TristramEvans]

Anyways, tonight I'm watching what I believe actually is the very best of the original Universal classic monster films - Creature from the Black Lagoon.

 

[Voros]

Bride of Frankenstein is hilarious. Pure fun.

 

[Mankcam]

If you are in the right mood for them, the original silent film gothic fantasy horrors of Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr Calgari still hold up just for the art of it

 

[Mankcam]

Not really any scares here, but these original British Hammer films are pretty good for classic gothic flavour:

Frankenstein

Dracula
(Note; This was released as 'Horror of Dracula' in the USA)

 

[Mankcam]

This is another good oldie but a damn goodie from 1968.
In crystal clear b&w, now a classic by George A. Romero, and certainly a must for Halloween:
Night Of The Living Dead
Grab the popcorn!

 

[TristramEvans]

If you are in the right mood for them, the original silent film gothic fantasy horrors of Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr Calgari still hold up just for the art of it
(Yes, those are the full film links there)

I saw both of those in the theatre during the Vancouver Film Fest about 3 years ago, though I was thinking of Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu, another I haven't seen since my teens.

 

[TristramEvans]

This is another good oldie but a damn goodie from 1968.
In crystal clear b&w, now a classic by George A. Romero, and certainly a must for Halloween:
Night Of The Living Dead
Grab the popcorn!

A classic, certainly, but definitely one I've seen too many times. I seem to recall really enjoying the 70's remake though, which I only ever saw on TV, possibly during Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs in the 90's

 

[TristramEvans]

Night #2 Creature from the Black Lagoon

The premise for Creature from the Black Lagoon would work as well to kick off any Call of Cthulhu adventure - a scientist comes across a fossil from the Devonian Era and meets up with a scientific expedition head into the Amazon and investigate, to see if any further remains of the unknown creatures can be found. No time is wasted here, film opens with the meeting of the scientists and the discussion. The fossil in question seems to depict a humanoid arm and hand, but scaled with webbed fingers and claws, not matching any known marine life.

My re-view confirmed my belief that this film holds up exceptionally well for its age. One of the few things holding it back I think is the antiquated score - I always wonder why no one has taken some of the great older films and given them a modern musical accompaniment. Someone on Youtube a while back did this with Harryhausen's Jason & The Argonauts and it was fantastic (I looked for a link, but sadly it appears to be gone from Youtube, probably due to a copyright strike).

Other things I noticed that date the film a bit - it was strange to see shirtless male leads without six packs and oiled abs. They bizarrely just looked like normal guys. The female lead is supposed to be a fellow scientist, but pends most of the film either looking concerned about the men, screaming, or having things explained to her for the audience's benefit.

And maybe the weirdest thing - the ship's captain just happens to have a big bag of Rohypnol onboard which they use to try and make the creature sleepy.

That's right - they use the date rape drug to try and defeat the Creature of the Black Lagoon.

I can only assume that the drug hadn't gotten that association yet at the time the film came out, but still,...why does the captain just happen to have a flour bag full of this stuff?

Anyhoo, that aside, I don't have many critiques of the film. The story is well written, to the point I actually noticed that none of the characters make dumb choices, something I generally just accept in horror films. Here, everything makes sense, both in their actions and the actions of the creature - except that one thing (I'll get to that in a second).

The creature fascinated me in how much it, well, actually acted like a creature. It was cautious and would run away from the humans, until they attack it, and even then, it deliberately picks them off one by one. There's some actual fear generated in the underwater scenes, maybe just because viscerally you know these are real people actually underwater, and so when the creature just grabs the leg of a guy trying to swim to the surface for air and drags him to the bottom, mauling him, it's a pretty brutal scene. In fact, for a film with no blood, the Creature's attacks all come across as suitably brutal and vicious like an animal. Just showing the reactions of the characters to the body of the first victim, and theorizing that it must have been a jaguar to have clawed him like that is really effective. The way, in general, the creature will hide and then spring on victims when they are vulnerable gives the impression of a predatory cunning.

And it helps that, IMHO, the costume design for the creature is one of the best in Horror film's history. I'd put in the top five up therewith the Xenomorph and Predator. I've seen a lot of creature costumes over the years, and from poorly articulated face masks to just rubbery-looking suits, in most cases a film is only saved by obscuring the monster in shadows as much as they can. Here, once the initial reveal of the creature underwater, we generally see the creature full-on, and at no time was I "taken out of the film" by thinking I was obviously watching a stunt man in a suit. I was incredibly impressed just seeing that the gills actually worked!

All in all, good writing and a sensible and interesting plot were helped by some very good pacing and some genuine tension, especially once the scientists make the very sensible decision to leave the lagoon and come back when they are better equipped only to find the creature has blocked their path with a makeshift barrier that they'll need to move with a winch.

But, well, there is that "one thing" I need to talk about, and that's the creature's identifying the female scientist as female and hence attempting to abduct her, presumably to propagate the species. This I never understood - why the creature would even see a human female as female at all, and why it would see her as a viable mate. I mean, it's creepy. If you think too hard about it we start going into Lovecraft territory, but I always thought it unnecessary and a little nonsensical.

However, I do know that of the failed remakes planned over the years, they definitely were planning to lean more heavily into this, from John Carpenter's attempt in the '90s to, most notably, Guillermo Del Toro's Creature from the Black Lagoon remake for Universal that was supposed to be part of their aborted Dark Universe line of reboots starting with Tom Cruise's The Mummy. This film eventually got made with the Universal classic horror connections scrubbed clean as The Shape of Water ( a movie I have not seen yet, though intend to as a big del Toro fan - just haven't gotten around to it yet, it's the kind of premise I really have to be in the right mood for).

So, yeah, don't know if it will change as the month goes on, but at the moment, Creature from the Black Lagoon retains it's position as my #1 favourite Classic Universal Monster movie. Tonight's challenger is Claude Raine's The Invisible Man.

 

[Mankcam]

I remember that Chaosium put out two non-mythos Call of Cthulhu books of B-Grade horror movie-inspired one-shot scenarios called Blood Brothers Vol 1 and 2, but I never got around to reading them. After a quick check, I found Blood Brothers on the Chaosium webpage in pdf format, so I might grab it as all sounds alot of fun for a game to run this month of Halloween
Blood Brothers

Well, you've sold me on your flick tonight in any case
If nothing better comes up, I'm gonna be taking watching The Creature From The Black Lagoon!

 

[Silent Green]

And maybe the weirdest thing - the ship's captain just happens to have a big bag of Rohypnol onboard which they use to try and make the creature sleepy.

That's right - they use the date rape drug to try and defeat the Creature of the Black Lagoon.

I can only assume that the drug hadn't gotten that association yet at the time the film came out, but still,...why does the captain just happen to have a flour bag full of this stuff?

Ro-Ro-Rohypnol!

 

[Voros]

Watching Videodrome again tonight. Debbie Harry is really good in it, too bad she didn't do more film work.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 3 The Invisible Man

This film has such a good opening. A snowstorm where a mysterious stranger shows up at the local pub of a small English village, his features completely hidden, demanding a room to rent. I've always liked horror films that take place in extreme weather, where the elements are practically a character unto itself, and the cinematography is really beautiful. It's quite nice to have a film this old restored for Blu Ray.

The passive-aggressive sarcastic politeness of the housekeeper is hilarious juxtaposed with the terse bluntness of our mysterious protagonist. Modern Hollywood often suffers from a dearth of great character actors included in films. Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers (and to an extent, Sam Raimi) seem to be two of the few modern filmmakers who still make use of them outside of the overt comedy genre.

So, unfortunately, after this really great opening, everything goes downhill pretty fast. We cut away from the events at the tavern to some rich scientist's house where they are indirectly but super-obviously talking about the stranger as this scientist whose been gone for a few days, which is causing the daughter of the rich scientist daddy to be realllllly dramatic, while scummy other scientist guy tries to move in on the daughter by talking some smack about him, science! style - "Real science isn't done behind padlocks and closed curtains!" The scene crescendos with the daughter running out of the room crying.

To it's credit, after this the film doesn't waste anymore time trying to sustain the "mystery" of what happened to the scientist (as if everyone hadn't read the title beforehand), and after he flips out on the nosy housekeeper and her husband they call the cop (just one) and he and the bar patrons bust in and the scientist removes his bandages, showing off the, uh, "state of the art" invisible effects. Being exposed as invisible seems to also come with a 180 change in personality, as the Invisible Man prances about with many cackling "Hoo hoo Hee hee"s before running....naked...through the small town (in the middle of winter) stealing hats, breaking windows, and just generally trolling folks while the actor does his best Bob Sagat as host of America' Funniest Home Videos impression.

We're now treated to another useless scene of Daddy scientist and Wannabe cuck scientist giving us pointless clues abou the mystery that's already been solved. And...well , things don't improve much from there.

This one really disappointed me. Partly because I am a huge fan of the original novel by HG Wells, which I first read after picking up at an elementary school book fair.



And partly just because I always found the concept of invisibility particularly intriguing. There's so much potential for stories there, it seems. Despite this, I've had a bad history with the Invisible Man film adaptions. This is actually one of the better ones. Growing up I was subjected to an array of pretty awful attempts to reboot the idea including The Man Who Wasnt There with Steve Guttenberg, Memoirs of an Invisible Man with Chevy Chase, The Invisible Maniac with ...nobody, The Misadventures of the Invisible Man (basically a French softcore, that is as incompetent a porn as it is a film), and Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.

The one shining light was the greatly underappreciated and sadly forgotten Sci fi series The Invisible Man that lasted two seasons before falling victim to network politics.


And recently we've gotten some high-concept re-imaginings which are, well, technically good, but feel...hollow, if you'll excuse the pun. The Invisible Man as an abusive ex might be great for some high-minded social commentary, but it loses out on any sense of fun or wonder.

Anyhow, back to Claude Raines. It's kinda faithful to the book, but Wells' story is a much more methodical, understated tale that delves heavily into the pseudoscience and then into the psychology of a man who, deprived of his existence and moral consequences, is driven insane. The Universal film is far more heavy handed, with his insanity being more of the Woody Woodpecker variety. I liked this film more the first time I saw it in my teens, probably just because of the comparison to other Invisible Man films extant at the time. It lost me completely when The Invisible Man declares that he is going to take over the world.

No idea how that's supposed to work.

Step 1: Turn Invisible
Step 2: Prank villagers
Step 3: ???
= World Domination

Overall, better than Bride, but not very good, and in no way a contender against Creature from the Black Lagoon.



Next up: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

 

[TristramEvans]

Watching Videodrome again tonight. Debbie Harry is really good in it, too bad she didn't do more film work.

That's a movie far ahead of it's time.

 

[Chaotic Wooster]

It'll always be the Hammer incarnations of Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. for me. Christopher Lee simply IS my Dracula. He's also my favourite incarnation of Frankenstein's Monster.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 4: Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein


I've never seen this one, but it's been generally critically acclaimed, and well, it's the only film besides the original Dracula that Bela Lugosi plays Dracula. He did a few pictures for Columbia that were intended as spiritual successors to Dracula, but he had to play a different vampire because they didn't have the rights, and over at Universal he played Ygor and Frankenstein's Monster in different films. It's unfortunate then that Karlof isn't playing the Monster in this film, he and Lugosi only ever teamed up for White Zombie. The Frankenstein Monster in this film bears more of resemblance to Herman Munster than anything. But Lon Chaney is back as the Wolfman at least - though in a very limited role, that largely takes place over the phone.

The "plot" is paper thin, apparently just there for Abbot and Costello to hang gags off of. I can't say much good about their comedy...Lou Costello reminds of nothing so much as a 1950's Kevin James, and Bud Abbot is the "straight man" for the most part, meaning he's just sort of there. For most of the film it's a Bert and Ernie-type situation where only Costello ever sees the monsters, who mostly just move verrrrrrrrrrrry slowly while he overreacts.

Lugosi s unfortunately rather disappointing - he really seems like he's phoning it in, in comparison to his definitive performance in Dracula. Chaney, despite his limited screen time, really steals the film as far and away the only one to really be trying hard and putting his whole heart into his performance - to the point like he seems as if a character that wandered in from another film.

I did like Dracula's animated bat transformation, really well done and much better than any of Universal's earlier efforts.

Dracula's plan in this one was even more vague than the Invisible Man's though...

Step 1. Resurrect Frankenstein's monster using an electric secret decoder ring
Step 2: Replace the Monster's brain with that of Lou Costello, making the Monster easier to control
Step 3: ???
= World Domination? (I think? They never really say what Dracula's end goal is, I'm more basing that on Larry Talbot's hysterics over him succeeding)

Was at least looking forward to seeing Dracula and the Wolfman fight, but that was pretty big disappoint too, most of it taking place offscreen, and what we did see resembled something like a lover's spat in a hotel room. It ends with the wolfman falling into the water with a rubber bat in his hands...

Appreciate the "cameo" by Vincent Price as the Invisible Man at the very end.

I'm lukewarm on this one. Overall I can't say I was extremely disappointed because I didn't have much in the way of expectations. Mostly, I just found it boring, even when I was only half paying attention while working on schoolwork.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 5: Psycho Beach Party

Palette Cleanser time! I haven't rewatched this in about ten years, but it regularly makes my list of top 100 favourite films. A 2000 comedy-horror directed by Robert Lee King, Psycho Beach Party (PBP henceforth), based on an off-Broadway play, is a pastiche of 1950s psychodramas, 1960s beach movies and 1980s slasher films.

It stars Lauren Ambrose as Florrence Forrest, a young girl who is more interested in learning to surf than in attracting boys like the other beach bunnies and is taken under the wing of "The Big Kahuna", leader of a pack of surfers who "rule the beach". Kahuna soon finds out he's bitten off more than he chew, however, when it turns out that Florence (dubbed "Chiclet" by the bemused surfers - an obvious reference to Gidget) suffers from multiple personality disorder, a revelation that coincides with a string of murders.

The humour in this one holds up for me, with sharp witty dialogue that goes at a pace with His Girl Friday and is thick with double-entendres and winks to the audience. The performances are uneven, but more forgivable with as broad as the material is, with standout performances by Elizabeth Ann Broderick as Florence's platonic ideal of a 50's mother with a dark undercurrent, and a very young Amy Adams as Chiclet's main female rival. Lauren Ambrose herself ia powerhouse, and I think it's a shame she didn't rocket to stardom between this and Six Feet Under. We also get Nicholas Brendan as "Starcat" in I think the only performance I've seen besides his turn as Xander on Buffy.

Despite being pure cheese, the story is fun, and there is a genuine mystery as to whether Chiclet is the killer. I enjoyed re-viewing this almost as much as the first time that I watched it and it still gets my highest recommendation.

 

[Voros]

Rewatched the sublimely dumb Wes Craven trainwreck Deadly Friend. A film I have fond memories of watching with one of my first girlfriends one summer.


Like an Afterschool Special Movie of the Week gone dreadfully wrong this movie starts off with some charmingly flat Spielberg-lite silly robot hijinks before suddenly turning into a darker, creepy movie-of-the-week about domestic abuse crossed with a ghostly Frankensteinish love story before tumbling into some of the most jarringly nonsensical gore you'll ever see...

So, yeah. Just read up on the film's background and it looks like Craven was shooting for a supernatural, dark love story with a Spielberg touch before the studio forced a bunch of reshoots to crank up the horror and gore.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 6: Curse of Frankenstein

Heading into the Hammer Horror films era with their first colour picture and first of their revamped classic monster features, The Curse of Frankenstein, starring the immortal pairing of Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as Frankenstein's Monster.

The story is much more focused on Victor than the monster (in comparison to the Universal classic), fleshing out his backstory and developing his character. Igor is replaced with a fellow scientist and tutor whose role seems to mostly be shocked and express outrage in huffy uppercrust British fashion. Unfortunately, for a Hammer film, there is a sad dearth of buxom beauties, but I suppose this is still only 1957, not quite the era of sexual freedom and filled-to-the-brim laced bodices the 60's would usher in.

I can't help but compare Cushing's performance to that of Jeffrey Combs in Re-Animator, even though I know that isn't at all fair of me. The tones of the two films couldn't be more different, yet I admit to at times finding myself longing for Combs's exaggerated eccentricity. It's not that Cushing isn't immaculate in the role, but I guess I just found myself longing for some wry wit when faced with such overwhelming earnestness.

Just as I'm beginning to tire of the lack of anything, well, "Frankensteiny" in the film, however, at the 38 minute mark Victor straight up murders a guy, for almost no discernable reason. From that point on, he is the clear villain of the film, discarding the tortured angst of the Universal films (or the Shelly novel) for outright malefactor. Christopher Lee, unfortunately, is wasted in the role as the Monster, which is relegated to almost insignificant status. Mindless and mute, it stumbles about and kills clumsily, but it's very clear that it is not the star of this film, more of an afterthought.

It's a well-crafted film, featuring Hammer's distinctive lush gothic visuals. It's not my favourite interpretation of the Frankenstein story, as I've always been more empathetic to the Monster than the creator, but it's a unique interpretation with a suitably dark ending.

 

[TristramEvans]

Rewatched the sublimely dumb Wes Craven trainwreck Deadly Friend. A film I have fond memories of watching with one of my first girlfriends one summer.


Like an Afterschool Special Movie of the Week gone dreadfully wrong this movie starts off with some charmingly flat Spielberg-lite silly robot hijinks before suddenly turning into a darker, creepy movie-of-the-week about domestic abuse crossed with a ghostly Frankensteinish love story before tumbling into some of the most jarringly nonsensical gore you'll ever see...

So, yeah. Just read up on the film's background and it looks like Craven was shooting for a supernatural, dark love story with a Spielberg touch before the studio forced a bunch of reshoots to crank up the horror and gore.

I saw that when I was quite young, and all I can recall about it is the scene where she crushes the old woman's head with a basketball. Kinda want to see it again, maybe it will make it into the 31 for this month

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 7: Frankenstein Created Woman

Once again filling in holes in my viewing experiences, this was the 3rd sequel to Hammer's Curse of Frankenstein. Whereas the Universal series followed the Monster, this series followed Victor Frankenstein instead (appropriate, considering his increased importance and the Monster's diminished role in the first film). I take this for the answer to Universal's Bride of Frankenstein, but beyond having a female Monster, there's no resemblance between the two.

Based on the title I expected something a bit more cheesy and exploitive, considering this is 1967, only a few years shy of Hammer's The Vampire Lovers. but the story is actually rather good, and the film establishes an interesting setting and cast right away, so that I was thoroughly engaged. We open with a rowdy criminal being led to the guillotine for unspecified crimes, who is full of spit and vinegar until he sees his young son is in attendance and begs for him to leave and not watch the proceedings. The boy retreats to the woods, but watches the grisly proceedings from behind some bushes.

We cut to years later and the young boy, Hans, is now acting as an apprentice to a scientist assisting Dr. Frankenstein (now going simply by "The Baron") in an experiment where he freezes himself for an hour just to be revived through a primitive form of defibrillators ( I like the continuation of the most of electricity in some form restoring life). The Baron reveals that his research has now fallen on the question of the soul as something external to the body, and he asks the intriguing question "I was dead for an hour but my soul remained with my body; why?"

Hans is sent to the local cafe to fetch a bottle of champagne for The Baron, whereupon we meet Hans' love interest, the daughter of the cafe owner, who is scarred and slightly paralyzed along one side of her body, played by the enchanting Susan Denberg. Hammer films gained a reputation for casting preternaturally beautiful women, and the German-Austrian Denberg is no exception. Which is not to say this is akin to the 1980's trope of casting models or playmates in films that couldn't act their way out of a paper bag. Denberg gives a powerhouse performance, in fact, I'd say she rivals Cushing himself in this one. The way she adopts completely different demeanors is up there with Christopher Reeves as Superman/Clark Kent, and her emotional scenes are completely believable.

Speaking of Cushing, I really love how in this film it's basically like Frankestein only by happenstance is tangentially connected to the Shakespearean plot these villagers find themselves in and the majority of the movie he's just annoyed with everyone for disturbing his work. Where he was playing a full-on villain in Curse of Frankenstein, here he's just this exasperated scientist who doesn't give a crap about everyone's drama. The court scene is especially hilarious, where he clearly just doesn't want to be there.

In other words, that wry wit and dark humour that I was missing in Curse this film delivers in spades. My favourite line:

Police officer: "And you expect us to believe this nonsense sir? Do you take us for fools?"
Frankenstein "Yes!"

Also some good superscience this time around, a lot of cathodes, and steam, and things that go "ping". And I admit to missing a time when tuning forks played such a huge role in scientific experiments...

I went into more detail on the plot, but then decided to cut it out as I figure there's a decent chance not many people have seen this one, and you really should. It takes the Frankenstein concept in new directions with more metaphysical questions about the nature of the soul, and features a solid plot that could have stood on it's own even without the Frankenstein element. Overall, incredibly entertaining, and despite it's age, holds up even better than Creature from the Black Lagoon. So far, besides Psycho Beach Party, this is the best film I've seen in this set. Highest recommendation.

 

[Ralph Dula]

My re-view confirmed my belief that this film holds up exceptionally well for its age. One of the few things holding it back I think is the antiquated score - I always wonder why no one has taken some of the great older films and given them a modern musical accompaniment. Someone on Youtube a while back did this with Harryhausen's Jason & The Argonauts and it was fantastic (I looked for a link, but sadly it appears to be gone from Youtube, probably due to a copyright strike).

Copyright enforcement is exactly why you don’t see this sort of thing. In 1999/2000 a company decided to sell “clean” versions of movies, with severe editing to violence or music they found offensive; I saw part of their version of The Matrix, and it was hilariously bad. But they did all this without any permission whatsoever, and the wrath of all the legal departments of the studios they ripped off cane down on them like a ton of bricks. I imagine a crack legal team is prowling the internet at all times, waiting to strike. I base that on someone advertising something similar on Facebook a f

I can only assume that the drug hadn't gotten that association yet at the time the film came out, but still,...why does the captain just happen to have a flour bag full of this stuff?

i know a guy who worked in a lab that had nothing to do with biological sciences in the late 90s, and he said the stuff would just show up in supply orders, then sit there unused. I’m picturing it as the “We don’t need it, but it’s on sale” of the pharmaceutical world

But, well, there is that "one thing" I need to talk about, and that's the creature's identifying the female scientist as female and hence attempting to abduct her, presumably to propagate the species. This I never understood - why the creature would even see a human female as female at all, and why it would see her as a viable mate.

i have a NSFL story, one stretching over several years and later backed up by another witness, that makes this seem perfectly normal.

 

[TristramEvans]

Copyright enforcement is exactly why you don’t see this sort of thing.

Yeah, I'm not talking about a third party doing it, I mean the copyright holders themselves should release rescored versions

 

[Voros]

Day 7: Frankenstein Created Woman

Once again filling in holes in my viewing experiences, this was the 3rd sequel to Hammer's Curse of Frankenstein. Whereas the Universal series followed the Monster, this series followed Victor Frankenstein instead (appropriate, considering his increased importance and the Monster's diminished role in the first film). I take this for the answer to Universal's Bride of Frankenstein, but beyond having a female Monster, there's no resemblance between the two.

Based on the title I expected something a bit more cheesy and exploitive, considering this is 1967, only a few years shy of Hammer's The Vampire Lovers. but the story is actually rather good, and the film establishes an interesting setting and cast right away, so that I was thoroughly engaged. We open with a rowdy criminal being led to the guillotine for unspecified crimes, who is full of spit and vinegar until he sees his young son is in attendance and begs for him to leave and not watch the proceedings. The boy retreats to the woods, but watches the grisly proceedings from behind some bushes.

We cut to years later and the young boy, Hans, is now acting as an apprentice to a scientist assisting Dr. Frankenstein (now going simply by "The Baron") in an experiment where he freezes himself for an hour just to be revived through a primitive form of defibrillators ( I like the continuation of the most of electricity in some form restoring life). The Baron reveals that his research has now fallen on the question of the soul as something external to the body, and he asks the intriguing question "I was dead for an hour but my soul remained with my body; why?"

Hans is sent to the local cafe to fetch a bottle of champagne for The Baron, whereupon we meet Hans' love interest, the daughter of the cafe owner, who is scarred and slightly paralyzed along one side of her body, played by the enchanting Susan Denberg. Hammer films gained a reputation for casting preternaturally beautiful women, and the German-Austrian Denberg is no exception. Which is not to say this is akin to the 1980's trope of casting models or playmates in films that couldn't act their way out of a paper bag. Denberg gives a powerhouse performance, in fact, I'd say she rivals Cushing himself in this one. The way she adopts completely different demeanors is up there with Christopher Reeves as Superman/Clark Kent, and her emotional scenes are completely believable.

Speaking of Cushing, I really love how in this film it's basically like Frankestein only by happenstance is tangentially connected to the Shakespearean plot these villagers find themselves in and the majority of the movie he's just annoyed with everyone for disturbing his work. Where he was playing a full-on villain in Curse of Frankenstein, here he's just this exasperated scientist who doesn't give a crap about everyone's drama. The court scene is especially hilarious, where he clearly just doesn't want to be there.

In other words, that wry wit and dark humour that I was missing in Curse this film delivers in spades. My favourite line:

Police officer: "And you expect us to believe this nonsense sir? Do you take us for fools?"
Frankenstein "Yes!"

Also some good superscience this time around, a lot of cathodes, and steam, and things that go "ping". And I admit to missing a time when tuning forks played such a huge role in scientific experiments...

I went into more detail on the plot, but then decided to cut it out as I figure there's a decent chance not many people have seen this one, and you really should. It takes the Frankenstein concept in new directions with more metaphysical questions about the nature of the soul, and features a solid plot that could have stood on it's own even without the Frankenstein element. Overall, incredibly entertaining, and despite it's age, holds up even better than Creature from the Black Lagoon. So far, besides Psycho Beach Party, this is the best film I've seen in this set. Highest recommendation.


View attachment 36527

My second favourite Hammer Frankenstein, only topped by Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed.

 

[Voros]

Watched Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers last night.

A rare example of a remake being as good, perhaps even better, than the original. Kaufman's careful control of mise-en-scene, soundtrack and lighting expertly builds a growing but subtle sense of unease and paranoia.

It also captures the muted melancholy and slightly blank look of West Coast style in the late 70s/early 80s in a way that chimes nicely with its themes.



The cast is impeccable with a charismatic but underplayed Sutherland, a charming Goldblum in an early and prominent role for him, the lovely and vulnerable Bette Adams and Veronica Cartwright (of Alien) in a small but central and memorable performance.

The stand-out though is Nimoy in the rare non-Trek role where he gets to show far more of his range and charm and a understated creepiness.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 8: Night of the Demon

A loose adaption of M.R. James's classic short story "Casting the Runes" from 1957, I first saw the US version of this film "Curse of the Demon", which was cut down by around ten minutes to run as a double feature in cinemas, maybe 24 years ago. An I loved it. But then, kinda forgot about it.

The one thing I distinctly recall hearing about the film is that the director intended the titular demon to never be directly seen, it's existence left ambiguous, but once the producer saw the creature design by Peter Glazier (who would go on to be the art director for 1984), he decide to insert shots of it into the film at the beginning and end of the movie, against strong objections from the director, cast, and writer.

Normally I am 100% against this sort of blatant tampering from studio execs. From seemingly minor alterations like replacing the original score of Ridley Scott's Legend with Tangerine Dream britpop, to the complete butchering of Miyazaki's Nausica into "Warriors of the Wind" based on what the distributers thought would appeal to a Western Audience, the list of films ruined by clueless businessmen thinking they know better than artists is so large, it's long since become a Hollywood cliche, and the guild even created the (now retired) Alan Smithee pseudonym as a last ditch recourse of otherwise powerless directors.

But when it comes to Night of the Demon, I can't honestly say that I'm not a all upset by the producer's interference, because that Demon looks awesome, and it lends some excitement to a film that would otherwise barely be a horror film.

Which isn't to say the film's story isn't good, in fact it's kinda great. It honestly reminds me of nothing so much as one of the better episodes of the X-Files, or a clever Call of Cthulhu adventure. It doesn't follow the MR James story faithfully but it captures the essence of it well enough, and the sort of "game of tag cursing" is actually a pretty effective tension builder and a concept I'm surprised more horror films haven't copied (closest I can think of would be The Ring, but that doesn't have the immediacy of secretly passing slips of paper back and forth like a runic hot potato).

I also can very much see the film the director wanted, which is more about how a cult leader uses the power of belief to manipulate his rivals into killing themselves, one guy so freaked out to think he is going to end up holding the runes and fall prey to the demon he straight up defenestrates himself ("Blackleaf, noooooo...."). I think it's equally a good premise for the film, and another good psychological horror flick could easily be made following that premise.

The only thing that kinda made me groan was trying to tie Stonehenge into the proceedings, which is nothing to do with Norse Futhark. But it's a minor quibble, I guess.

Overall, I was really impressed with how the film held my attention, the demon aside, and I'd say this one shoots above Frankenstein Made Woman on my list. Very glad that my region free blu-ray player allowed me to grab the UK release of this classic, which, while not given the full restoration treatment (even as a cult classic it's still rather obscure), is still of very good picture quality and holds up well. Even the score is quite good for it's age and not as distractingly dated as that in the Universal monster films.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 9: The Seventh Victim

A 1943 horror film noir directed by Mark Robson, The Seventh Victim has been on my "to watch" list for years, and this seemed like a good time.

So, first off, the cinematography in this film I can only describe as "lush"...it is film noir in the very literal sense of the word, and the chiascuro compositions are almost like a Mignola painting brought to life, but used so expertly to generate tension and play upon the fear of the unknown, that I was surprised to find the film gave me actual chills. Maybe the oldest film to have ever accomplished this - I am a pretty hardened horror veteran.

There's a scene early in the film where two characters, the very young student who came to the city to try and find out what happened to her sister, and the grizzled older PI she hired to help her stand in front of a hallway in a building they snuck into at night. The hallways is a gaping abyss, and at the end a door they know they need to enter. The both stare in silence at the door, and no words are necessary to express the terror surrounding them and the reluctance both have to enter that abyss and see what lies beyond. There's no score here and no sounds but the faint movements of the city from outside. And the scene is as powerful as anything Hitchcock ever put to film.




I don't really want to say much of anything else about this film. I rarely see it discussed so I imagine there's a good chance many have not seen it. You could go to Wikipedia and ruin the plot for yourself, but I really, highly recommend going in blind.



The film's twists and turns are shocking, especially considering this is from 1943, the ending a gutpunch that I'm honestly not certain how it got past the censors of the time. To say this is a dark film is an understatement - this verges on Clive Barker territory.

Also, an astoundingly good use of Moonlight Sonata.

No Phaserip stats this time, as it would require spoilers. As for where it sits on the list? Top. Inches out Psycho Beach Party.

 

[Voros]

Seventh Victim is considered the greatest Lewton along with Cat People of course.

 

[TristramEvans]

I found Cat People a little schlocky for my tastes

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 10: The Spiral Staircase

A 1946 horror film by Robert Siodmak, director of the classic Hemingway Noir film The Killers. the Spiral Staircase is more of a gothic psychological thriller. A string of murders in a small New England town suggests a serial killer is targeting women with disabilities (tried not to think of Psycho Beach Party, but this may very well have been an influence).

Square-jawed Dr Parry (who has all the charisma of a financial calculator) suspects that his attractive young patient Helen, who has been mute since a childhood trauma, might be the next victim, which means of course she is, as we see her stalked by a shadowy figure. This is another film I can't really talk about without SPOILERS, but in this case I'm going to go ahead, because I don't think they matter to the enjoyment of the film. This is a film built on cliches - – thunder storms, creaking doors, flickering candles, dark corridors, square-jawed heroes, inept policemen, red herrings, unlikely plot developments, and a psychopathic murderer. No fan of the genre is going to find anything shocking or surprising here, simply a traditional tale told with craft and skill.

I was reminded, while watching, of a film I saw when I was quite young, called, I think "Wait Until Dark", where a blind woman is targeted by a murderer who think she is a witness to a crime she couldn't have seen. Of course, in that case her disability plays a major role in the suspense rather than simply being a plot convenience.

Inside the mansion, as a storm rages outside, we are introduced to the head of the household Professor Warren, and also his bedridden stepmother, his stepbrother Stephen, and the small team of servants. Smirking stepbrother Stephen has recently returned from Europe, and has already seduced Bridget, the professor’s secretary (to the Professor’s irritation). When the police question him about his whereabouts at the time of the latest murder, he lies.

Dr Parry visits the house to warn Helen of the danger again, and to offer to take her to Boston to see someone who might be able to cure her condition. The invalid mother also seems convinced that Helen is in danger, and this is confirmed when a servant remarks that a window has been found open.

Bridget and Stephen quarrel, and Bridget decides to go to Boston with Helen. When she goes down to the cellar to get her suitcase though, she is attacked and strangled. Helen finds her body, and a few seconds later, Stephen appears. Suspecting him to be the killer, Helen locks him in the cellar, only for the real killer to reveal themselves...

Chances are, by this point in the film, if not well before, you've already figured out the killer. As I said, I don't think there's any reason to worry about spoilers, the film works as a mystery about as well as Sesame Street's "There's a Monster at the End of this Book". But the cinematography is gorgeous. It's comfort food, but comfort food prepared by a gourmet chef.

Which is not to say there's nothing unique about the film - the stalker's first view of the protagonist, with her mouth removed like that scene from the Matrix indicating how he sees her disability, is masterful. Dr Parry seems like the obvious Hero of the piece, but ends up being kinda useless - instead it is the little old woman who saves the day. I also laughed my ass off at the scene where the mute girl goes to call the police before remembering she can't talk. I have to believe that was intentional humour, and it was on a level with the film Clue.

The real star of The Spiral Staircase, though, is the old mansion. It looks fantastic – you can see the red velvet even in black and white.

So, yeah, not the best I've seen this Halloween, but not the worst, and well worth a viewing.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 11: City of the Dead

"How picturesque can you get? Right beside the graveyard!"

1960's City of the Dead, "starring" Christopher Lee (meaning he's in about 10 minutes of the film), Valentine Dyll (the Voice of "Deep Thought" in HHGttG), and enough fog machines to give Ridley Scott an orgasm, was released in the US under the much more subtle title "Horror Hotel".

And "subtle" is not a word that belongs anywhere near this schlockfest. I mentioned the Fog machine? This film is looking to give Frank Darabond's The Mist a run for its money. The characters seem like they just stepped out of a Scooby Doo audition. Our protagonist jumps into the plot like she just saw a sign saying "Crystal Lake" and declared "that sounds like a great place to take off all my clothes and go for a swim on a nice night like tonight".

Which isn't to say this film doesn't have a campy charm in all of its excess. For all it's cobweb lined stairs (despite seeing regular use), ominous deep-voiced preachers standing in the shadowed doorways of dilapidated churches exclaiming in their best Vincent Price impressions "This town is cuuuuuurrrrsed", and "hey I'm totally not a witch" Morticia-Addams looking hotel proprietors, this is a film that knows what it s and doesn't waste any time just being that.

The plot is simple and classic - we open 300 years ago with a group of Puritans burning a witch who curses their town, swiftly cutting to a modern day university where Professor Dracula is giving a lecture on the history of witchcraft in New England. Young, blonde protagonist girl is all like "gee willikers, this witchcraft stuff sure is interesting!", to wit Christpher Lee tells her if she wants to know more she should use her time off on Spring Break to drive out to the town of Whitewood, which she promptly does, by herself, just in time for the coven's annual sacrifice to Lucifer. Yadayadayada girl gets dragged into underground temple and sacrificed.

Cut to square jawed men in suits, one of whom is the brother of the victim, who decide they need to Do Stuff because girl is missing! Dr Dracula and other blonde girl stopping by long enough just to give a bit more exposition, including a rumour that certain nights in Whitewood the dead come to life! (There's a lot going on in that town!). The ending is absolutely hilarious - should not be missed.

So, overall, not the greatest film, but it was just chock full of Halloween spirit, to the point I'd almost be tempted to watch it again next year, and possibly make it a holiday tradition. The kind of movie that, when mixed with alcohol and a group of friends, could provide a pretty fun experience.

 

[Voros]

Watched the Hammer Blood from the Mummy's Tomb on Plex, which is actually an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Jewel of the Seven Stars and isn't really a Mummy film at all although the ending has a nice little twist to it that references the classic Mummy look.



Like a lot of 70s Hammer this is quite fun if a bit sedate and lacking most of the nudity and gore that spice-up most other Hammers from the era, except for a brief flash of bum, a severed hand and some relatively tame throat slashing.

Valerie Leon (of the Carry On... films and few Bond films) in the lead role is absolutely stunning and a delivers a solid performance, something she was rarely given the chance to do in her other films.

 

[TristramEvans]

Damn, I keep have to removing films from my list, lol

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 12: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

Time for another palette cleanser. I have a special history with Lost Skeleton. I went to see the original premiere in Portland with the director and cast who did an FAQ after the film, at the small independent theatre Cinema 21 (where I would also meet Bruce Campbell for the second time in my life as part of his promotion tour for Bubba Ho-Tep). I fell in love with it from the first trailer.

A tribute to 50's B-movies, The Lost Skeleton features hilariously horrible acting, gloriously ridiculous dialogue, and corny "effects". And every moment of it is pure joy. Rather than try and explain the plot (which is meaningless) I'll just invite you to watch one scene:


Featuring aliens, a fearsome space mutant, a "woman" created from combined forest critters, a mysterious new substance "Atmospherium", a rogue evil scientist, a park ranger, and the titular undead Skeleton bent on world domination, I still laugh uncontrollably when watching to this day. The film manages to capture all the absurdity of a typical MST3K victim, while played earnestly enough that even though we know the director is winking to the audience, it never loses that feeling of authenticity and genuine fondness for the source material.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 13: The Blood on Satan's Claw

As one of the three foundational works of the Folk Horror movement (together with 1968''s Witchfinder General and 1973's The Wicker Man), this 1971 film directed by Piers Haggard has seen a renewed popularity in recent years, along with a critical re-evaluation.

And I am going to go against that critical re-evaluation and it's new reputation by saying that sadly, this is not a very good film.

The are elements of it that are wonderful, certainly. Beautiful cinematography, a score that's aged well, a feeling of authenticity so strong that at times makes it seem like one is watching an actual film from the era depicted, rivalling The Witch in that regard. But the story itself is meandering and unfocused, and the ending - the ending is so, so bad. And I can't not talk about that, so, spoiler warning, I guess.

According to wikipedia "The screenplay for the film was originally written by Robert Wynne-Simmons as an anthology of horror stories set in a small village, and had the working title of Satan's Skin. After director Haggard was hired for the project, he and Wynne-Simmons reworked the screenplay into a singular cohesive narrative." And when I read that it made a tone of sense, because the film does seem like a series of unrelated vignettes with only the flimsiest rationale holding them together. I really wish I could have seen that original anthology film, because I think it might have been brilliant, and may have been the classic that this film's reputation grants it but it fails to live up to.

The story, as it were, involves a field worker in 17th century England, uncovering the corpse of a creature that is not quite human and not quite animal. This sets of a series of events that seem to have two semi-interrelated manifestations - people begin growing patches of thick, goat-like hair on parts of them, and the children in the town start forming a Pagan cult. Interspersed a bunch of things sorta happen, stories that tend to start confusingly and peter out with no real resolution.

For example, one particular bedroom in one house appears to be haunted in some way, with early in the film a girl staying in there going mad because - well, we never find out why, but as she's being led off to bedlam the next morning, she smiles wickedly and reveals she has a demonic claw for a had suggesting, maybe she got possessed or replaced by a demonic doppleganger? I dunno, we never hear from her again. But later in the fil her ex fiance tries to sleep in that same bedroom, ends up having a weird fight with a creature under the floorboards, and then is attacked by a hairy demonic clawed hand in the bed, but when defends himself by cutting off the creature's hand, it's revealed he just cut off his own hand. It's assumed the creature haunting this room is the same demonic creature uncovered at the beginning of the film and worshipped by the Hippie cult at the end of the film, but why this particular room is never explained, and after those two incidents, the film forgets about the room entirely.

Speaking of the cult, that is supposed to be the glue holding together the narrative of the film, and mainly focuses on one older girl in town who becomes the charismatic leader of the other children in town, getting them to worship Satan, to the consternation of their Sunday school teacher. He seems initially poised to have a much bigger role, as the force of Christian goodness versus the demonic influence on the children, which comes to a head when the main girl stops by the church late at night, and tries to seduce him. He - a little too reluctantly to my mind, considering this is ostensibly supposed to be a child (I dunno how old the actress actually was, but she does pass for like 16) - resists and rebukes her, at which point she accuses him of raping her and whips up the townfolk against him, and...well, that doesn't go anywhere either. In the very next scene someone runs in and tells all these guys who just tied up the priest that the girl is a witch, and they just untie him and run off and the movie forgets about him too.

By now you can kinda get what watching this film is like - a bunch of setups for potentially interesting stories that the movie just seems to lose interest in as it crawls towards a slapped-on ending.

So, yeah, lets talk about the ending. The cultists have a ceremony to bring the demon creature from the beginning of the film back to life, and because there's not enough plot for the time needed to make this a full-length film, everybody does everything in verrrrrry slow motion. The Demon ends up being a guy in a robe with a $2 rubber halloween mask - seriously, it looks worse than the makeup effects in Troll 2. Then the head evil girl notices a mob of villagers has shown up and she - runs into one of their pitchforks, suiciding angrily for some reason. Then the leader of the townsfolk takes out a zweihander sword in very slow motion and ever so slowly pushes it into the demon. The end. Like really. That was the film's finale.

I wanted to like this film. I love the folk horror genre, and Wicker Man is one of my favourite horror films of all time. But it is just, well, not good enough. And that's a shame, because while watching it, I loved the setting, and the costuming, and the mood, and the acting, that I thought "I wish they could do a television series like this, just a historical piece about the daily lives of these folks in this very authentic 17th century village." Because even without the supernatural or horror elements, I'd watch that.

Oh yeah, there's also an incredibly uncomfortable young adolescent girl rape scene. So, that happens.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day XIV: The Wicker Man

One of the things I really lament in life is that I was never able to see The Wicker Man blind. I had the ending spoiled for me very early on from a library book that was some sort of encyclopedia of fantasy, science fiction, and horror films. It would be a few years after that I would finally find a copy to rent at a video store.

I can't say that knowing the ending ruins the film, but I never got to experience the shock of that final revelation that everything was crescending towards. However, I guess it's to the credit of the film that despite that, the ending retains it's power and impact. In fact, I think that scene encapsulates the very essence of Folk Horror, which is predicated on the conflict between the modern world (represented by Christianity & rationalism) and the chaos of mankind's past (represented by paganism and magick).

Fangoria once called The Wicker Man, "the Citizen Kane of Horror Films" and it's an epithet that I wouldn't argue with. But even upon reviewing it again for the umpteenth time (I lost count in my 20s), I'm struck by how much, in tone and composition, for the majority of it's runtime it plays like a fish-out-of-water comedy. Our POV character is a stodgy, conservative, policeman from the city, stuck on an island with a bunch of down-to-earth villagers that seem, at worste, like hippies, and they regard his seriousness and self importance with benign bemusement. Even Christopher Lee sheds his usual imposing demeanour to play Lord Sumersisle as a warm and congenial patriarch, his slicked-back hair replaced with an unkept main of blonde hair like a halo that radiates from his perpetual smile. He even ends the film in drag.

In this way the film is able to discards all conventions of "genre" and even slips into becoming a musical at one point.

This is why, even watching it so many times, the ending is still a gutpunch. Everything in the film is telling you that the resolution of the story is just going to be the uptight city person letting go of his prejudices and pretensions and joining in the communal joy of the festival. That there is only an amusing mischief behind the mystery that led him into this situation.

Watching it again I couldn't help but compare it to the recent much-over-rated (in my opinion) and greatly inferior Midsommer, which is all but a remake. But Midsommer never transcends it's genre. It shows it's hand early. It begins with death, and never lets you forget that violent death is a theme. We have our appointed victims transgressing a taboo and acting like insensitive louts, al cues to the audience of their deserved fate. And the villagers are kept alien and emotionally distanced from the audience, there is no warmth or playfulness that causes the viewer to let down their guard at any point.

Midsommer is blunt, and clumsy, and cliched, everything The Wickerman is not. The Wickerman remains unique in the annals of horror films.

 

[Voros]

Watched Hammer's The Horror of Frankenstein last night. The only Hammer Frankenstein I hadn't seen yet (it is available to rent legit via YT).

Long dismissed by the Hammer faithful for reasons that made me suspect I would like it: Ralph Bates (who is excellent in Dr. Jekyl and Sister Hyde) replaces Cushing as Dr. Frankenstein; he's an unabashed horndog; the script is full of overt black humour; the ending is an ironic anti-climax.


While obviously I love Cushing as Frankenstein I think Bates is quite good, funny and as big of a bastard as Cushing in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. I thought this was a lot of fun and another cool 70s tangent for Hammer.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 15: The Conqueror Worm

The third in the trilogy of films that established the Folk Horror genre, The Conqueror Worm was released as The Witchfinder General in the UK in 1968. Directed by Michael Reeves and starring Vincent Price, AIP pictures retitled the film for it's North American release "The Conqueror Worm" (based on the poem by Edgar Allen Poe) in an attempt to associate it with their earlier successful adaptions of Poe's stories with Price. A new prologue and endcap to the film was added featuring Price reading the eponymous poem, though ultimately the story has nothing to do with the poem or any of Poe's works, instead based on a novel by Ronald Bassett.

The film is a fictionalized version of the story of one of history's greatest villains, Matthew Hopkins, a lawyer in the 7th century who took advantage of the chaos and lawlessness of the English Civil War to declare himself "Witchfinder General" of England and prey on small towns who accepted his authority without question. More people were condemned and murdered by Hopkins alone for the crime of witchcraft than in the prior 100 years.

Witch hunts are a ripe subject for horror films, though I always find it ironic that the majority of films in the genre that tackle the subject chose to go the route of making the witches "real" and validating the fears of the supernatural, undercutting and subverting the real life horror of these events. Honestly, a mob of humans acting irrationally and manipulated by an opportunist into committing atrocities against innocents is something I find far more horrifying and disturbing than any old crone or hippie cult making deals with Satan.

The Conqueror Worm casts Hopkins, played as a deliciously amoral scoundrel by Vincent Price, as the main villain of the piece, though his cronies are often the ones to perpetuate the gratuitous cruelty, many of them clearly only using Hopkins as the excuse they need.

Parts of the first half of the film almost devolve in to "torture porn", as bleak and brutal as any entry in the Saw franchise, as Hopkins targets the priest of a small village and his family. The only survivor of the attack and subsequent tortures is the priest's adopted daughter, raped by the Witchfinder. She is the fiance of a soldier in the commonwealth army, and when the soldie r returns to the village on leave to find what's happened, he swears an oath to God to take his vengeance. In this way, we almost have the structure of a rape-revenge film, but with the victim herself de-protagonized.

Or rather, it would be, if after finding one of Hopkins' cronies and getting into a clumsy barfight in which he gets away, the soldier rejoins his regiment, gets a slap on the wrist for abandoning his duties, and decides temporarily his job as a soldier is more important than the film's plot. This is where we really run into pacing issues.

Ultimately, the pacing issues, and lack of focus (for reasons that have nothing to do with any attempt at historical accuracy), is what holds this film back. It lacks the beautiful cinematography of The Blood on Satan's Claw, and the genre transcending horror of the Wickerman, and honestly feels rather lackluster and unremarkable, despite it's status in the Folk Horror community.

A contemporary review in the UK called the film "the most persistently sadistic and morally rotten film I have seen. It was a degrading experience by which I mean it made me feel dirty." I laughed at this, considering this was only 3 years from Last House on the Left and 5 years from the release of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in the face of which this film seems like a Disney Sunday TV Movie. I honestly hesitate to even call this a horror film. In structure, tone, and score it plays out more like an action-adventure. Less Captain Chronos and more Rob Roy. Besides the gratuitous torture scenes the only thing pushing this film into horror is the disturbing ending, whereupon our hero, Marshall, grabs an axe and repeatedly strikes Hopkins. His soldiers enter the room and are horrified to see what their friend has done. One of them puts the mutilated but still living Hopkins out of his misery by shooting him dead. Marshall's mind snaps and he shouts over and over again, "You took him from me! You took him from me!" while his wife, also apparently on the brink of insanity, screams uncontrollably over and over again even as the credits roll.

As for Folk Horror, - well, I honestly don't believe this film belongs in that genre. Despite the subject of witchcraft, this isn't a film about the juxtaposition of the Christian and Pagan world - it's just the Christian world and all the shittyness that can entail.

But I'd say this film is worth watching just for Vincent Price's performance a usual. His Hopkins is a cunning, roguish, fop who is as entertaining to watch scheme as it is to see him get his ahistorical comeuppance.



Not that due to MidTerms, I'm well behind on these write-ups. My final exam is next Wednesday, after which I'll try to get caught up.

 

[TristramEvans]

Day 16: Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

So...best title so far, by a wide mile. This was ranked #7 on RottenTomato's List of 100 Best Horror Fovies of the1970's, coming after Alien, Jaws, Halloween, Don't Look Now, Young Frankenstein, and Carrie. So...high expectations. And what I found was....sleaze. Dear lord, this film is just sleaze and more sleaze, wrapped in a sleaze taco, with sleaze sauce on top. Even for a Giallo, it's over the top. 10 minutes in we already have two rapes, the most racist speech ever given at a party north of the Dixie line, and a teenage hippie girl performing an impromptu striptease on top of a dining room table.

Directed by Sergio Martino and released in 1972, the film is verrrry looooosely based on Edgar Allen Poe's tale "The Cat". It feature a rich badly dubbed Italian Man with a badly-dubbed Italian wife who I'm just going to call "cheekbones" (if you see the film you'll know why), and, for some reason in the 1970's, a teenage black serving girl (read: slave). He has a giant Oedipal complex, with his mother being a famous Baroness and actress, living on as a giant oil painting that the son gives speeches about. His favourite pastime is inviting groups of hippies to his large manor, where he humiliates his wife in front of them for their amusement, while they get high and sing really awful hippie songs.

The next day the husband, (who looks like a cross between James Caan and the father from the Brady Bunch , so I'm going to call him.."Caandy") meets up with a young girl at a bookstore who climbs ladders in very short dresses, because that's the type of movie she's in. The two plan to meet up that evening after she gets off work. So that evening she wait for him at - an abandoned steelworking factory., as you do. But someone in a mask shows up and cuts her throat, causing a lot of bright red paint to pour out.

Meanwhile, Caandy's black cat, Satan, is annoying cheekbones. And we constantly cut back to the painting of Caandy's mother, whenever a scene transition is called for.

The badly dubbed police show up to question Caandy about the murder. They have great lines like "Murder has a habit of involving lots of people for no reason"

Did I mention this film has an 100% fresh rating on rottentomatos.com?

That night, the black slave (who has been referred to as a "negress" by no less that five people in the film by this point) sneaks downstairs and finds an old ballroom gown of the posthumous mother's that she really likes, so of course, she takes off all her clothes and caresses it, before putting it on and fondling her boobs while looking at herself in the mirror.

Clothes shopping trips with her must be something else.

Anyways she's just about to start masturbating, but the lightning spooks her, and she for no apparent reason runs around a bunch being frightened until she runs into someone's hand who holds her neck and kills her with the same curved knife that killed bookstore slut. Some B-rolll footage of the black cat is interspersed.

The wife finds the body and Caanday decides to cover up the murder and shove the body in his winecellar, because bringing the cops back would just raise suspicions against him. Because everyone in the film acts like rational humans.

Along those line, assuming Caandy isn't the murderer, because that would be way too obvious, you'd think that the fact that your house slave got brutally murdered in your house, near your bedroom, the night after your mistress gets murdered while waiting for you (at the steel factory) would be somewhat...I dunno, alarming?

Doesn't phase this couple one bit. I guess the wife is just not shocked by anything after the constant rapes, and the husband is..um, Italian?

Then Caandy and his wife go to the train station, where a blonde girl in leotards and black underwear exits the train ass-first.



If "The Male Gaze" was a directing style, I think this film would be taught in school. I've seen pornos that were less blatant. Anyway, apparently Blondie McAssalot is not who our, uh, protagonists? are meeting, so she's mostly just introduced because we need more victims. In fact, whoever they were supposed to meet, doesn't show up, so they just go back home. In other words, you could have cut that entire scene from the film and it would have made no difference whatsoever.

Anyway, another victim shows up and is apparently a "friend" of the couple? It's not really explained, she just shows up in a car, and starts talking, while the camera shows us her goods.

There's a strange guy with white hair watching the three of them as they leave. I say strange because he's like a late twenties extremely well-tanned Italian man with pure white hair. Imagine Andy Warhol if he was attractive and better groomed.


What follows is a bunch of incredibly awkward scenes of Caandy trying to seduce this young girl who he clearly knew as a child, blatantly in front of his wife. She turns him down, and then goes and seduces the wife instead. This lesbian sex scene lasted so long I actually had to start fast-fowarding.

The killer, meanwhile, goes and kills Blondie McAssalot from the train station.

And then, I guess they needed to fill some time to get this film up to feature length, because we spend the next little while, for no discernible reason, watching footage of a dirtbike race.

Then the girl, "friend" of the couple, meets a boy in the town, follows him to a barn, strips, and they do the horizontal limbo.

(sigh)

At this point I really am sick of the film and I just start fast-forwarding.

Cheekbones finally gets really pissed off at the black cat and used some scissors to gouge out the eyes of a puppet that kinda looks like it.

Caandy finally succeeds in seducing the girl.

Caandy beats up his wife a few times, whether because of what she did to the cat or...just because, I couldn't be bothered to pay enough attention to find out.

Cheekbones is obviously going crazy, starts seeing the cat around, but it always disappears when she chases it into the next room. Finally she snaps and kills Caandy with the scissors. Girl comes in and is like "finally, been waiting for you to do that", and the two of them dispose of the body.

Girl goes on a motorcycle ride with one of the boys from the village, and then they crash because the camera shakes a lot, and both die. Strange white-haired guy shows up and sets both the bodies on fire. For some reason.

Then the twist ending - the strange white haired guy was working for the wife the whole time and he was the killer, at her behest (so why did he kill Blondie McAssalot then?).

Then she pushes him off a cliff.

(sigh)

This move was bad. Not just grimy and exploitive and misogynistic, but also tedious. I'd put it on a level with Manos Hands of Fate, except at least there I have good memoires of MST3K. I guess I should have known something was up with a film I'd never heard of being rated so highly on an internet list of the decade's best films, but I've never been a big fan of the 1970's, as a decade, so I figured this was maybe an obscure gem I'd somehow missed, despite being a lifelong horror devotee.

Just to be clear, this film was rated ABOVE The Wicker Man, Suspiria, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Martin, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Duel, Picnic at Coffin Rock, and Eraserhead. Whoever made that list deserves to be repeatedly slapped like a drunk Italian wife.

I'd say there's no reason to ever watch this film unless you've somehow exhausted every option on pornhub and want some really uncomfortable sex scenes.

I'm honestly a little annoyed I wasted the time to watch it, and it's not getting a Phaserip write-up, because it doesn't deserve one.

My next Halloween film is going to be a bit more conservative.

 

[Séadna]

Oh God that was a funny read. Blondie McAssalot and the dirt bike race!