Oct '18
1.
Rewatched Nosferatu (1922) last night. I really wasn't keen the first time I saw it, fault of circumstance it turns out because this time I was very taken with it. The first great Dracula film, albeit an unlicensed knock off with young estate agent Hutter and his wife Ellen, Professor Bulwer, Knock instead of Renfield, and of course, the sinister Count Orlock. The second half differs, but much is familiar before, so much so that the film was ordered destroyed for its infringement. All good now though. And on the whole this is more successful than the more official Lugosi film.
The key is that director FW Murnau knows just how to make horror work in the silent format. Make sure of your central spook, strip down characters and plot, embrace the unnatural and let the images flow. Nosferatu has one of the greatest central spooks of all time in Count Orlock, Max Schreck with claws and verminous visage, human turned beast, weird predator of the night but oddly pathetic too. Much of the time screen Draculas have been more human, charismatic, even handsome, but not here. Count Orlock is a human beast and the film emphasises spiders, flies, rats and others to put him at their centre, a noble of fell nature. And from his first appearance the film is captivating, its simplest means strike powerful chords, its rare effects work the same. Forest, river, castle, coffins, ship, death, come through like childhood fancies of old books by torchlight. The varied colour tints are a huge help. It doesn't matter that the plot is simple, the acting variable. It has the substance of thought forgotten dream and never lets up to the end. Even resolved as if waking
For me this isn't quite up to The Cabinet of Dr Caligari in the silent horror stakes. But still, basically essential.
2.
Watched Shadow of the Vampire the other night. Director F Elias Merhige, of the infamous art-sploiter Begotten, and writer Steven Katz's imagining of the making of Nosferatu (1922), with Max Schreck, the monstrous Count Orlock, a real vampire, with urges that director FW Murnau can but ill control. I have a lot of time for films about film-making, even this kind of clever-clever meta-fiction (that can oft irritate), because at base I find tensions between artifice and reality fascinating. My preference is for nightmare brain melters like Inland Empire or The Manipulator, but I can slip pretty happily into a more straightforward sophisticated entertainment, and Shadow of the Vampire, smart, funny and deftly creepy, with an enduring point, really fits the bill.
The point is simple and familiar but always bears restating. A matter of the artist, imperious, unfeeling, bound only to their Muse, and of their players, wryly curious, sometimes even worried, but ultimately just getting to work. It's a living, no matter the uncomfortable details. And a monster bound only to itself, but needing artist and player alike to live and grow and be far more than they imagined. John Malkovich is very fine as Murnau, radiating vision and talent, breaking into aloof, uncomprehending irritation, breaking still further as events descend. Eddie Izzard does a good job as star Gustav, who played protagonist Hutter, a straight role, suspicious but not too suspicious, while the legendary Udo Kier has affecting torn authority as producer Albin, realising things are going very wrong but in too deep. Best though is Willem Dafoe as Schreck, justly Oscar nominated. He quite disappears into the role, bringing wisdom and pathos and a real sense of the otherworldly to his ancient lonely fiend, he has some funny moments to be sure but is most compellingly sinister.
The general course of the film follows Nosferatu in order, giving it solid structure and good pace. Old time technicalities contrast interestingly with modern advances and more traditional drama and humour effectively grounds the weirder aspects. The humour is very present almost throughout, only the ending turning to pure horror, but is well judged. This is always more than a trifle, always committed. I perhaps could have gone with a little more spectacle, but it's a minor complaint.
By and large, well recommended.
3.
Watched Britsploitation quickie The Last Night (1983) the other night. 70's nasty plot, 80's slasher rags, all over short of an hour, it should be love...
Historically Britain wasn't a great place for independent genre cinema. I'm sure vision wasn't in short supply, but equipment, finance, distribution, general faith and support, not so much. Fortunately nothing held Portsmouth multiple threat Michael J Murphy back. Director from 1967 to his passing in 2015, also writer, producer and cinematographer where needed, working hard for the love of it despite setbacks and never achieving much recognition outside of a certain age and temperament of Brit. The Last Night is actually one of his slightly better known, having had an actual legitimate external DVD release, and I'm glad to say that, by the relative terms of such things, it deserves it up to a point.
The plot sees a regional theatre company performing the last night of their play Murder in the Dark. Their efforts haven't been much appreciated heretofore, but now friends and family have filled the house. Unfortunately maniacs Mike and Gary have recently escaped incarceration, and guess where they decide to stay the night? A good time will be had by all!
This is almost quite ace. Murder in the Dark is an amusing invention, enthusiastic but witless, comically overblown, pretty accurate to low level amateur drama, and the performance runs throughout. The real action gets going in good time and is well paced, with a bit of fun gore and a slight but enjoyable nasty, sleazy edge. There's a certain relatable sense of acting relationships and frustrations, and a good score, brooding synths, plinks, plonks, shivers and simple but effective repetitive melodies. Unfortunately neither staging, editing nor performances are up to making the best of the material, with Mike and Gary particularly notable as just not menacing villains. Sure, they seem like vicious dicks, but the sort you'd laugh at, run from, poke or slap. So there isn't much in the way of tension or shocks or scares, there isn't even much unintentional humour or intriguing weirdness and the end, a little over 51 minutes, comes in good time.
Still, I'm perfectly glad I watched this and will surely be watching more from Michael J Murphy, especially since almost all of his rare output has been posted on Youtube, seemingly by his production company in his memory. An interesting little corner of schlock history, recommended for the real enthusiasts.
4.
Watched Brit supernatural horror Judas Ghost (2013) the other night. My time for this sort of thing grows less and less with time, indies perhaps seen once or twice at festivals then forgotten, cycled endlessly unloved between charity shops and market stalls. But I was mildly drawn by the set up, and actually, though by no means great, I had quite a good time.
The story apparently comes from the Ghost Finders series, by "New York Times best-selling author Simon R. Green". I had never heard of them or him before. More usefully, it's a William Hope Hodgson update, specifically his Carnacki - The Ghost Finder tales. In Judas Ghost, a team of professional ghost hunters, or Ghost Finders, of the Carnacki Institute, set up to make a training film for new recruits in a village hall that has in recent times been routinely haunted. Of course something unusual seems afoot early on, but the team don't leave until they're really in danger, and they must fight not only for their lives but their very souls. Pretty generic stuff of course, but I'm the kind of sucker who can't resist things Hope Hodgson and I have a bit of a soft spot for outright dangerous or evil supernatural forces.
At first this isn't too promising. The characters are stock, brash, sarcastic main man Jerry, quiet Mark, scaredy-cat techno-whizz Ian and attractive lady psychic Anna. The dialogue is cheesy, the village hall is an uninspiring place and the low budget doesn't seem to be leading to much ingenuity. But then the dark forces move in, and suddenly it all comes together. The performances are on point, the characters come through sympathetic and engaging with convincing chemistry. Martin Delaney is liveliest as Jerry, at first a little annoying but rapidly likeable with his sheer confident professionalism and will to survive. And Alexander Perkins also stands out as Ian, something like the audience's voice of reason, funny and sad. Simon Merrels and Lucy Cudden have a lot less to do as Mark and Anna but ably support. The scares are understandably low key but often fun, plenty of inanimate object misbehaviour but also sparse use of surprisingly effective CGI (I particularly liked the climactic effect). There's some fair tension and a nice sense of impending doom.
Unfortunately this is all a bit too predictable and lacking in backstory or weirdness to make up for the lack of spectacle. Especially given Hope Hodgson's original material, whose highlights included a terrifying cosmic hog and the Unknown Last Line of the Shaamaa Ritual. It never offers much in the way of insight or real drama and only builds in fits and starts, with a bit of redundancy. So it isn't the small gem it might have been. But as these things generally go it is pretty reasonable all the same. When it's on, its quite charmingly on. Ok on a slow weekday evening for indie fans.
5.
Watched lame Britsploiter Awaiting (2015) the other night. A backwoods tale, you know the kind of thing, city slicker (here a soon to be engaged lawyer named Jake) suffers the hospitality of mad, sad and savage rural folk (psycho recluse Morris and his pretty daughter Lauren), some chasing, some bad taste nastiness, hopefully some weirdness. Awaiting know's what it's doing, but alas it soon becomes apparent that it doesn't have a great deal else. Well, to be fair, it does have a better than the material deserves performance from Tony Curran as Morris. Awkward, volatile, vicious, with undercurrents of deep sickness and strange, twisted tenderness too, he does most of the heavy lifting and makes the film much more watchable than it might have been. The other main plus of the film is an amusingly over the top turn to the climax. But then there's the rest of it. This kind of thing is rarely very original or enlightening but with a bit of wit and imagination or insight it can be pretty good fun and even a little interesting. Awaiting is a joyless, blandly assembled trudge, ticking its way through the cliches of the genre (this is one of the most basic, formulaic films I've seen in some time) with a grim tone that highlights how absurd it all is and not in a good way. Poor decisions, little apparent thought at most levels, nothing fresh and nothing shocking, just a bit dispiriting. It's basically technically competent, there's a bit of grisly gore and various aspects that are pretty nasty in their own rights, by default as it were. I wouldn't want the makers to just give up and go home. But, yeah, not recommended.
6.
Rewatched Fred Olen Ray classic Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988). I've not seen a great deal of Olen Ray films, most sound too effortfully goofy, not gutsy or weird enough for my tastes. But Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers is pretty awesome. A bit of a Ronseal, the story of wisecracking Hollywood private dick Jack Chandler, looking for a runaway girl and finding a chainsaw worshipping cult. The approach is comic, the nudity plentiful and oft combined with cheap and cheerful splatter. Linnea Quigley plays runaway Samantha, Michelle Bauer is a high cultist, and Gunnar Hansen their mysterious leader. Jay Richardson hold it all together with his narration and quips as Jack.
Surprisingly, this isn't anywhere as sleazy or tasteless as one might imagine. There are one or two awkward lines or moments, but for the most part this is just fun, with an appealing free and easy unsophisticated wit, a sense that the chainsaw hookers are really empowered and not villains as such, and that everyone is just having a good time, even the ones that get turned in to meaty chunks. Helps that at just around 71 minutes, with credits, it's perfectly paced. I could have gone for a bit more varied gore, but then again, that's not particularly the point here. Generally, well recommended.
7.
Watched The Returned (2013) the other night. A zombie horror drama in which the zombies are not the real horror, but one which takes on this notion with unusual brains and heart. The set up : there is a zombie virus, it broke out once and killed a hundred million or more, it broke out again and was controlled. If treated swiftly, the virus can be controlled in the infected, or Returned, by daily doses of serum. With the serum the Returned live more or less normal lives. Without it, they become the flesh eating fiends of old. But other than a few fanatics, there is uneasy balance. When supplies of the serum run low, matters descend in frightening fashion. Protagonist Kate, a doctor specialising in the Returned, has been pilfering and stockpiling serum for some time, her beloved husband Alex is one of them. But seeing the way the winds are blowing, they flee. Things will not be so easy though...
I tire easily of the kind of zombie films which purport to strip away the veneer of humanity, they often strike me as cheap, simplistic, sophomoric in their cynicism. In The Returned the balance, the nearness to the old world gives the human horrors plausibility. Total safety, order, seems within reach, tangible, tantalising, something real to fight for. And there isn't just fanatic violence, but mocking bigotry of young with their own worries, people, like Kate, doing bad things out of love, people just scared, ambivalent, trying to make sense of things. All human, relatable, treated with seriousness and sensitivity.
Of course all this wouldn't count for much if the central drama didn't work. Emily Hampshire and Kris Holden-Reid as Kate and Alex do fine work, strained more and more, events taking their toll, but underneath in deep running, easy love. An attractive pair but ordinary and effortlessly likeable, one can see the way things may go and really hope they won't. There's some predictability to things, but the good kind, based in considered order. I did think that the horror elements were a little too underplayed, they could have given the drama more bite, the general course of events (with parallels to reality as well as genre tropes) more impact. But overall things still work. There's certainly suspense, blood, some jolts. Traditionalists or fast zombie excitement enthusiasts should stay away, but I would recommend this. Probably if the genre in general hasn't been enthusing you too much recently but you still want to see something newer.
8.
Also watched Blood Tracks (1985), a cheerfully mindless, enjoyably bloodthirsty and even mildly interesting body count shocker that alas has not had much love even from the people that usually would, as up until just a few years ago it was a real pain to find uncut and by the time it got an intact (at least as possible) DVD release and posting on the director's Youtube channel they had all seen it and been well put off already. A Swedish take on popular US schlock, from director Mats Helge (previously of the idiotic sub-Cannon but still really fun actioner The Ninja Mission) and Britsploitation veteran Derek Ford. Instead of the straight slasher one might expect of the time, a kind of Hills Have Eyes riff, with cheese rock band Solid Gold (played by real cheese rock band Easy Action) taking to the mountains to make a video for their new tune Blood Tracks and disturbing a family of murderous brutes living in an abandoned factory. With deadly consequences of course.
In the opening, a woman kills her abusive husband and takes off with her lover and young children. They seem to have gotten along ok until the 80's, and discovery. I was kind of sympathetic, I think people who ignore big signs like KEEP OUT THIS STRUCTURE HAS BEEN CONDEMNED are really asking for trouble. When your life is of total isolation and endless cold and hardship, when your very existence is threatened, severe measures are sure understandable? Of course they do stretch things a little in a couple of more outre moments of nastiness. Wouldn't be much of an 80's horror if they didn't. But still...
The band, crew and groupies are basic victim fodder. None of them have especially interesting character nor relationships, and this hold the film back from being too compelling even though it moves quick and the situation is classic stuff, especially once avalanches have trapped everyone. I only really cared about the stalking and slaying (though there is a fair amount of fun nudity too), which isn't ideal. But it is good stalking and slaying and it is plentiful. The factory seems to be a quite real place and Mats Helge makes a dark, decrepit maze of it, cold and treacherous, an unloved, forgotten relic for unloved, forgotten people. Good use is made of nooks and crannies and walkways, and the violence is sudden and vicious, starting with your basic neck breaking and nasty falls but getting a good bit redder as things go on. The effects are cheap but they work, with the same sort of slightly bonkers fun of the gore towards the end of The Ninja Mission. Everything builds, or rather crumbles, what with all the killing towards a curiously sad end. And cheese rock over the credits of course.
I can't call this a "good" film, certainly, it's crude, dumb and will stretch the patience of anyone other than trash fans. But for trash fans I would definitely recommend the uncut version. If nothing else, it really deserves a fairer hearing than it's had.
Rewatched Nosferatu (1922) last night. I really wasn't keen the first time I saw it, fault of circumstance it turns out because this time I was very taken with it. The first great Dracula film, albeit an unlicensed knock off with young estate agent Hutter and his wife Ellen, Professor Bulwer, Knock instead of Renfield, and of course, the sinister Count Orlock. The second half differs, but much is familiar before, so much so that the film was ordered destroyed for its infringement. All good now though. And on the whole this is more successful than the more official Lugosi film.
The key is that director FW Murnau knows just how to make horror work in the silent format. Make sure of your central spook, strip down characters and plot, embrace the unnatural and let the images flow. Nosferatu has one of the greatest central spooks of all time in Count Orlock, Max Schreck with claws and verminous visage, human turned beast, weird predator of the night but oddly pathetic too. Much of the time screen Draculas have been more human, charismatic, even handsome, but not here. Count Orlock is a human beast and the film emphasises spiders, flies, rats and others to put him at their centre, a noble of fell nature. And from his first appearance the film is captivating, its simplest means strike powerful chords, its rare effects work the same. Forest, river, castle, coffins, ship, death, come through like childhood fancies of old books by torchlight. The varied colour tints are a huge help. It doesn't matter that the plot is simple, the acting variable. It has the substance of thought forgotten dream and never lets up to the end. Even resolved as if waking
For me this isn't quite up to The Cabinet of Dr Caligari in the silent horror stakes. But still, basically essential.
2.
Watched Shadow of the Vampire the other night. Director F Elias Merhige, of the infamous art-sploiter Begotten, and writer Steven Katz's imagining of the making of Nosferatu (1922), with Max Schreck, the monstrous Count Orlock, a real vampire, with urges that director FW Murnau can but ill control. I have a lot of time for films about film-making, even this kind of clever-clever meta-fiction (that can oft irritate), because at base I find tensions between artifice and reality fascinating. My preference is for nightmare brain melters like Inland Empire or The Manipulator, but I can slip pretty happily into a more straightforward sophisticated entertainment, and Shadow of the Vampire, smart, funny and deftly creepy, with an enduring point, really fits the bill.
The point is simple and familiar but always bears restating. A matter of the artist, imperious, unfeeling, bound only to their Muse, and of their players, wryly curious, sometimes even worried, but ultimately just getting to work. It's a living, no matter the uncomfortable details. And a monster bound only to itself, but needing artist and player alike to live and grow and be far more than they imagined. John Malkovich is very fine as Murnau, radiating vision and talent, breaking into aloof, uncomprehending irritation, breaking still further as events descend. Eddie Izzard does a good job as star Gustav, who played protagonist Hutter, a straight role, suspicious but not too suspicious, while the legendary Udo Kier has affecting torn authority as producer Albin, realising things are going very wrong but in too deep. Best though is Willem Dafoe as Schreck, justly Oscar nominated. He quite disappears into the role, bringing wisdom and pathos and a real sense of the otherworldly to his ancient lonely fiend, he has some funny moments to be sure but is most compellingly sinister.
The general course of the film follows Nosferatu in order, giving it solid structure and good pace. Old time technicalities contrast interestingly with modern advances and more traditional drama and humour effectively grounds the weirder aspects. The humour is very present almost throughout, only the ending turning to pure horror, but is well judged. This is always more than a trifle, always committed. I perhaps could have gone with a little more spectacle, but it's a minor complaint.
By and large, well recommended.
3.
Watched Britsploitation quickie The Last Night (1983) the other night. 70's nasty plot, 80's slasher rags, all over short of an hour, it should be love...
Historically Britain wasn't a great place for independent genre cinema. I'm sure vision wasn't in short supply, but equipment, finance, distribution, general faith and support, not so much. Fortunately nothing held Portsmouth multiple threat Michael J Murphy back. Director from 1967 to his passing in 2015, also writer, producer and cinematographer where needed, working hard for the love of it despite setbacks and never achieving much recognition outside of a certain age and temperament of Brit. The Last Night is actually one of his slightly better known, having had an actual legitimate external DVD release, and I'm glad to say that, by the relative terms of such things, it deserves it up to a point.
The plot sees a regional theatre company performing the last night of their play Murder in the Dark. Their efforts haven't been much appreciated heretofore, but now friends and family have filled the house. Unfortunately maniacs Mike and Gary have recently escaped incarceration, and guess where they decide to stay the night? A good time will be had by all!
This is almost quite ace. Murder in the Dark is an amusing invention, enthusiastic but witless, comically overblown, pretty accurate to low level amateur drama, and the performance runs throughout. The real action gets going in good time and is well paced, with a bit of fun gore and a slight but enjoyable nasty, sleazy edge. There's a certain relatable sense of acting relationships and frustrations, and a good score, brooding synths, plinks, plonks, shivers and simple but effective repetitive melodies. Unfortunately neither staging, editing nor performances are up to making the best of the material, with Mike and Gary particularly notable as just not menacing villains. Sure, they seem like vicious dicks, but the sort you'd laugh at, run from, poke or slap. So there isn't much in the way of tension or shocks or scares, there isn't even much unintentional humour or intriguing weirdness and the end, a little over 51 minutes, comes in good time.
Still, I'm perfectly glad I watched this and will surely be watching more from Michael J Murphy, especially since almost all of his rare output has been posted on Youtube, seemingly by his production company in his memory. An interesting little corner of schlock history, recommended for the real enthusiasts.
4.
Watched Brit supernatural horror Judas Ghost (2013) the other night. My time for this sort of thing grows less and less with time, indies perhaps seen once or twice at festivals then forgotten, cycled endlessly unloved between charity shops and market stalls. But I was mildly drawn by the set up, and actually, though by no means great, I had quite a good time.
The story apparently comes from the Ghost Finders series, by "New York Times best-selling author Simon R. Green". I had never heard of them or him before. More usefully, it's a William Hope Hodgson update, specifically his Carnacki - The Ghost Finder tales. In Judas Ghost, a team of professional ghost hunters, or Ghost Finders, of the Carnacki Institute, set up to make a training film for new recruits in a village hall that has in recent times been routinely haunted. Of course something unusual seems afoot early on, but the team don't leave until they're really in danger, and they must fight not only for their lives but their very souls. Pretty generic stuff of course, but I'm the kind of sucker who can't resist things Hope Hodgson and I have a bit of a soft spot for outright dangerous or evil supernatural forces.
At first this isn't too promising. The characters are stock, brash, sarcastic main man Jerry, quiet Mark, scaredy-cat techno-whizz Ian and attractive lady psychic Anna. The dialogue is cheesy, the village hall is an uninspiring place and the low budget doesn't seem to be leading to much ingenuity. But then the dark forces move in, and suddenly it all comes together. The performances are on point, the characters come through sympathetic and engaging with convincing chemistry. Martin Delaney is liveliest as Jerry, at first a little annoying but rapidly likeable with his sheer confident professionalism and will to survive. And Alexander Perkins also stands out as Ian, something like the audience's voice of reason, funny and sad. Simon Merrels and Lucy Cudden have a lot less to do as Mark and Anna but ably support. The scares are understandably low key but often fun, plenty of inanimate object misbehaviour but also sparse use of surprisingly effective CGI (I particularly liked the climactic effect). There's some fair tension and a nice sense of impending doom.
Unfortunately this is all a bit too predictable and lacking in backstory or weirdness to make up for the lack of spectacle. Especially given Hope Hodgson's original material, whose highlights included a terrifying cosmic hog and the Unknown Last Line of the Shaamaa Ritual. It never offers much in the way of insight or real drama and only builds in fits and starts, with a bit of redundancy. So it isn't the small gem it might have been. But as these things generally go it is pretty reasonable all the same. When it's on, its quite charmingly on. Ok on a slow weekday evening for indie fans.
5.
Watched lame Britsploiter Awaiting (2015) the other night. A backwoods tale, you know the kind of thing, city slicker (here a soon to be engaged lawyer named Jake) suffers the hospitality of mad, sad and savage rural folk (psycho recluse Morris and his pretty daughter Lauren), some chasing, some bad taste nastiness, hopefully some weirdness. Awaiting know's what it's doing, but alas it soon becomes apparent that it doesn't have a great deal else. Well, to be fair, it does have a better than the material deserves performance from Tony Curran as Morris. Awkward, volatile, vicious, with undercurrents of deep sickness and strange, twisted tenderness too, he does most of the heavy lifting and makes the film much more watchable than it might have been. The other main plus of the film is an amusingly over the top turn to the climax. But then there's the rest of it. This kind of thing is rarely very original or enlightening but with a bit of wit and imagination or insight it can be pretty good fun and even a little interesting. Awaiting is a joyless, blandly assembled trudge, ticking its way through the cliches of the genre (this is one of the most basic, formulaic films I've seen in some time) with a grim tone that highlights how absurd it all is and not in a good way. Poor decisions, little apparent thought at most levels, nothing fresh and nothing shocking, just a bit dispiriting. It's basically technically competent, there's a bit of grisly gore and various aspects that are pretty nasty in their own rights, by default as it were. I wouldn't want the makers to just give up and go home. But, yeah, not recommended.
6.
Rewatched Fred Olen Ray classic Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988). I've not seen a great deal of Olen Ray films, most sound too effortfully goofy, not gutsy or weird enough for my tastes. But Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers is pretty awesome. A bit of a Ronseal, the story of wisecracking Hollywood private dick Jack Chandler, looking for a runaway girl and finding a chainsaw worshipping cult. The approach is comic, the nudity plentiful and oft combined with cheap and cheerful splatter. Linnea Quigley plays runaway Samantha, Michelle Bauer is a high cultist, and Gunnar Hansen their mysterious leader. Jay Richardson hold it all together with his narration and quips as Jack.
Surprisingly, this isn't anywhere as sleazy or tasteless as one might imagine. There are one or two awkward lines or moments, but for the most part this is just fun, with an appealing free and easy unsophisticated wit, a sense that the chainsaw hookers are really empowered and not villains as such, and that everyone is just having a good time, even the ones that get turned in to meaty chunks. Helps that at just around 71 minutes, with credits, it's perfectly paced. I could have gone for a bit more varied gore, but then again, that's not particularly the point here. Generally, well recommended.
7.
Watched The Returned (2013) the other night. A zombie horror drama in which the zombies are not the real horror, but one which takes on this notion with unusual brains and heart. The set up : there is a zombie virus, it broke out once and killed a hundred million or more, it broke out again and was controlled. If treated swiftly, the virus can be controlled in the infected, or Returned, by daily doses of serum. With the serum the Returned live more or less normal lives. Without it, they become the flesh eating fiends of old. But other than a few fanatics, there is uneasy balance. When supplies of the serum run low, matters descend in frightening fashion. Protagonist Kate, a doctor specialising in the Returned, has been pilfering and stockpiling serum for some time, her beloved husband Alex is one of them. But seeing the way the winds are blowing, they flee. Things will not be so easy though...
I tire easily of the kind of zombie films which purport to strip away the veneer of humanity, they often strike me as cheap, simplistic, sophomoric in their cynicism. In The Returned the balance, the nearness to the old world gives the human horrors plausibility. Total safety, order, seems within reach, tangible, tantalising, something real to fight for. And there isn't just fanatic violence, but mocking bigotry of young with their own worries, people, like Kate, doing bad things out of love, people just scared, ambivalent, trying to make sense of things. All human, relatable, treated with seriousness and sensitivity.
Of course all this wouldn't count for much if the central drama didn't work. Emily Hampshire and Kris Holden-Reid as Kate and Alex do fine work, strained more and more, events taking their toll, but underneath in deep running, easy love. An attractive pair but ordinary and effortlessly likeable, one can see the way things may go and really hope they won't. There's some predictability to things, but the good kind, based in considered order. I did think that the horror elements were a little too underplayed, they could have given the drama more bite, the general course of events (with parallels to reality as well as genre tropes) more impact. But overall things still work. There's certainly suspense, blood, some jolts. Traditionalists or fast zombie excitement enthusiasts should stay away, but I would recommend this. Probably if the genre in general hasn't been enthusing you too much recently but you still want to see something newer.
8.
Also watched Blood Tracks (1985), a cheerfully mindless, enjoyably bloodthirsty and even mildly interesting body count shocker that alas has not had much love even from the people that usually would, as up until just a few years ago it was a real pain to find uncut and by the time it got an intact (at least as possible) DVD release and posting on the director's Youtube channel they had all seen it and been well put off already. A Swedish take on popular US schlock, from director Mats Helge (previously of the idiotic sub-Cannon but still really fun actioner The Ninja Mission) and Britsploitation veteran Derek Ford. Instead of the straight slasher one might expect of the time, a kind of Hills Have Eyes riff, with cheese rock band Solid Gold (played by real cheese rock band Easy Action) taking to the mountains to make a video for their new tune Blood Tracks and disturbing a family of murderous brutes living in an abandoned factory. With deadly consequences of course.
In the opening, a woman kills her abusive husband and takes off with her lover and young children. They seem to have gotten along ok until the 80's, and discovery. I was kind of sympathetic, I think people who ignore big signs like KEEP OUT THIS STRUCTURE HAS BEEN CONDEMNED are really asking for trouble. When your life is of total isolation and endless cold and hardship, when your very existence is threatened, severe measures are sure understandable? Of course they do stretch things a little in a couple of more outre moments of nastiness. Wouldn't be much of an 80's horror if they didn't. But still...
The band, crew and groupies are basic victim fodder. None of them have especially interesting character nor relationships, and this hold the film back from being too compelling even though it moves quick and the situation is classic stuff, especially once avalanches have trapped everyone. I only really cared about the stalking and slaying (though there is a fair amount of fun nudity too), which isn't ideal. But it is good stalking and slaying and it is plentiful. The factory seems to be a quite real place and Mats Helge makes a dark, decrepit maze of it, cold and treacherous, an unloved, forgotten relic for unloved, forgotten people. Good use is made of nooks and crannies and walkways, and the violence is sudden and vicious, starting with your basic neck breaking and nasty falls but getting a good bit redder as things go on. The effects are cheap but they work, with the same sort of slightly bonkers fun of the gore towards the end of The Ninja Mission. Everything builds, or rather crumbles, what with all the killing towards a curiously sad end. And cheese rock over the credits of course.
I can't call this a "good" film, certainly, it's crude, dumb and will stretch the patience of anyone other than trash fans. But for trash fans I would definitely recommend the uncut version. If nothing else, it really deserves a fairer hearing than it's had.
Watched Fiend (1980), the second feature from Baltimore legend Don Dohler, trading the sci-fi fun of The Alien Factor for sinister suspense and supernatural strangling. An unearthly being, red-orange insectoid glow goes to ground in a cemetery, animating a mouldering corpse, which promptly restores itself to health through strangling a young lady, left alone there by her boyfriend. Not sure why they went to a cemetery to make out, they don't look like goth kids, but there we are. Cut to a few months later and our walking corpse is now Mr. Longfellow, head of Longfellow's Music Academy, living in the suburbs, teaching music and regularly strangling people to stay alive. His neighbour Gary Kender is increasingly suspicious though, and something has to be done...
Dohler regular Don Leifert carries this one as Mr Longfellow. Supercilious, awkward and irritable, frankly downright weird and making little to no effort to disguise it, essentially great fun, but also a little shivery when he gets down to business. Fair few few killings in this, bloodless, not always on screen but usually abrupt, jolting, with that bad feeling of a thing that knows humanity and cares only for its own end. Killings, and insistent synths, drones and simple lines, composed in three sleepless days and ringing of nervous drive, form the horror backbone of Fiend, ever eerily atmospheric, shot through with tension. Otherwise it's as ordinary as it gets, in the best possible way. Everything about this feels real, real slow passing of time, real streets, real backwoods, real people. Not verite acting, but real people acting, unaffected, giving it a go, no one seems like they're angling for their big break, they're just doing a job, or a favour for their friend Don. It's pretty charming, and actually, Richard Nelson and Elaine White as Gary Kender and wife Marsha, have pretty natural, easy and appealing chemistry.And of course, all the ordinariness sets off the horror all the better.
This definitely could have been tighter, and it's inescapably a micro budget regional outing made by amateurs. Far better than the average comparable effort made nowadays but worlds away from even, say, cult 1970's fare. But if micro budget regionals are your jam, then definitely go for it.
10.
Watched Don Dohler's wild gem Blood Massacre (1988). Sleaze and gore was not his preference, though his earlier Nightbeast had some grue he was more into an old fashioned, almost innocent style. But he knew to give people what they wanted, and so Blood Massacre is in a Last House on the Left/Texas Chainsaw Massacre vein, only with his own brand of off the cuff artistry and off the wall plotting. Fast, bloody, bonkers, and when it really gets down to business, surprisingly effective on its terms.
The usually gentle George Stover plays snarling sleazy thug and Vietnam vet Charlie Rizzo, who begins the film by being kicked out of a bar and then murdering two people. He then hooks up with his slightly more with it thug buddies and they go rob a video store. This leaves another innocent dead, and then they head off, loose their gas and wind up holing up in a farmhouse with a family held hostage. And that's when things really go awry...
The first half of this is pretty standard business. Bad language and worse attitudes, some awkwardly staged and styled violence (though I smiled at the unexpected strobe lighting and wind machine in one scene), a little blood. Perfectly watchable, but after the initial jolt neither accomplished nor abrasive enough to make too much of an impression. Things take a good turn when our thugs get to the farmhouse though, and meet the Parker family. Hog farmers, gentle, well to do, dignified and contemptuous. Dohler regulars Richard Ruxton and Annie Frith play the heads of the family with old fashioned easy likeability, one time actress Grace Stahl is seductive daughter Chrissy. They come across exactly like people who might have some pretty sweet tricks up their sleeve, and indeed they do. Chrissy and Rizzo have an unexpectedly bloody encounter, and soon after that everything kicks off. And more or less the entire second half of Blood Massacre is an absolute blast, bloody, frenzied, freaky, with a couple of very fun twists, wacky yet entirely apt. I felt, watching it all, as I rarely do these days, like I used to when I first got in to watching weird old school shock horror and exploitation, enthralled, dazzled, in a state of utter goggling entertainment.
This doesn't exactly have wide appeal. Regional horror and trash fiends really. But if you are, you really should check this one out post haste. It's pretty awesome.
11.
Watched Michael J Murphy's bizarro Super 8 meta-slasher Bloodstream (1985). When young up and coming young director Alastair Bailey is fired from his big break, Bloodstream, by sleazeball VHS distributor William King, he retires to his flat to watch stacks of videotapes and lick his wounds. But he gets word from helpful secretary Nikki that King has just stolen his work and is planning to sell it without him. Revenge, with the cloak and mask from Bloodstream, is in order!
Michael J Murphy had been screwed around by sleazy industry types himself, and Bloodstream, cast with his more or less regular troupe and bulked out with clips from his unfinished or unreleased other work, is a statement of defiance. Alastair Bailey appears no great artist or just revenger though, his Bloodstream and what we see of his other work seems about at a lower-mid tier Troma release level, and he becomes a vicious killer, even torching a dog, fortunately off screen. All points collapse, and really Bloodstream just comes across as mad, morbid fun, with some welcome flavouring of doom in its merging fiction and reality. The film clips include face tearing, exorcism, witch burning, post apocalyptic biker fighting and more, and the real killing, with Alastair lighting and filming as he goes, has stabbing, sawing and crushing. Some of the real stuff is pretty well staged and edited too, surreal tinged, simply, tensely scored, with a surprisingly effective nastiness. The pace is fast, the ending satisfying. Patrick Olliver doesn't make for an especially compelling lead but somehow I believed him, and his relationship with Nikki is interesting. Mark Wells gets to be an amusing dick as King, various screamers scream. I somehow can't get quite as enthusiastic about this as I would like, but I was still charmed. Recommended.
12.
Watched Jess Franco's proto-slasher sleaze-a-thon Exorcism (1974). The man himself plays defrocked priest turned writer of sadomasochistic stories for a dirty mag Mathis Vogel, who becomes convinced that editor Franval and his band of libertines are performing black masses for real, so sets about "exorcising" them. It should not surprise that this is a mortal process. I was put a little in mind of the psychotronic, cod Freudian serial or spree killer films of the US around the same time. Exorcism is much more Franco though. There are at least four different distinct versions of this, ranging from the heavily edited Demoniac to the hardcore Sexorcism (apparently Franco performs in person!), Exorcism (the Synapse release from a few years back) is the restored "horror" version, Franco's original vision. Something of a meeting point between his more straightforwardly sleazy crowd-pleasers and his more eccentric, personal (still sleazy) fare, and if I'm honest, not up to the best of either.
Sure, it's got moves. Begins with a staged Black Mass/lesbian bondage session and keeps up that level of taste and class. The cast includes Monica Swinn and the amazing Lina Romay, and they all give it some gusto. Abundant nudity and a bit of blood of course. Franco makes a good psycho villain, delusional, vicious and ultimately pathetic, some of his attacks achieve a quite good creepy intensity. The underlying point is worthwhile too. Franco was damned by Catholic powers that be in Europe at the time, frequently censored, unable to work as he wished. Really though, he was no kind of dangerous monster but a lover of good times and beautiful people, a free spirit with a camera. His interest in horror and bad taste was chiefly as an outlet, a safe way to explore fringe desires, an imaginative exercise. Exorcism makes quite clear where he thought the real evil lay, I think he was on to something and I think it still stands. It's telling that some of the most satisfying nastiness in this one is "staged".
Unfortunately, having made its point early on and lacking much in the way of real plot intrigue or character drama, Exorcism kind of just runs out its interest. Most of the black masses and murders are much of a muchness, and though I have a great deal of time for nudity and blood I do really prefer more imagination to their configurations. Disappointing lack of weirdness too, and Franco's trademark quirks, technical aspects are basic and there isn't much of his visual fluidity, his communication straight from the eyes. This is ultimately average stuff once the initial impact wears off. Worth it for the fans but not one to get too excited about.
13.
Watched jolly fun and even grisly vintage creature feature The Flesh Eaters (1964). Rugged pilot Grant Murdoch braves bad weather for extra pay, getting boozy diva Laura Winters and her agreeable PA Jan to a film shoot. Of course they have to make a landing on a deserted island that turns out to actually be home to a shifty German scientist, Professor Bartel. And of course the surrounding waters turn out to be full of teeny tiny deadly flesh eating critters. Doesn't it just always go down this way...?
This one is largely remembered as an early "gore" film, but that's really only for people that don't like old creature features much. While this develops along predictable lines the execution is unusually skilled, among the best of such things, even. For starters the characters are good. Grant is neither the smartest or the wittiest guy, and he doesn't do anything that spectacular, he's just a man with some skills and a will to do the right thing. Laura may be a lush and not that likeable but she has a relatable insecurity and pitiable self awareness about her. Professor Bartel is pretty evil, but has some smarts to him and a creepy Nazi related motivation. Jan is more of a nice young lady than anything too deep, but she offsets the others well and is genuinely appealing, while irritation is brought by jabbering shipwrecked beatnik Omar, but at least he gets what for. Rita Morley as Laura and Martin Kosleck as Professor Bartel do best, but the whole cast put in solid work.
While longer than many films of its ilk, The Flesh Eaters is fat free and focused, always driving from A to B. An opening that might have inspired Jaws to a full on big monster reveal and cheerfully ridiculous solution. Slick, stark cinematography gives affairs a cool allure, and the editing (by adult cinema legend to be Radley Metzger) is tight on the drama and the action, making for plenty of punch. At last the gore, and effects in general are pretty fine. Being in black and white helps of course, but honestly it would be decent, even fine work among similar films today. Even a bit gooey and nasty, with one particular painful standout.
I don't really have anything bad to say about this, although so far on it can't help but be pretty quaint. Some elements will surely be divisive, and it's basically only really recommended to creature feature and early gore fans anyway, but still. Well recommended.
14.
Watched Luigi Cozzi's goofy and loveable Three Mothers meta-sequel Demons 6 : De Profundis. Otherwise known as The Black Cat. It's not related to Lamberto Bava's Demons films of 1985 and '6. Or any of the later films, unrelated to each other or the previous, that are sometimes known as Demons 3, 4 and 5. I think these numberings may even account for more than three films, but one must just accept these things. The Black Cat is a marginally more appropriate title as the main character begins the film performing in a film of that name, and a black cat does pop up on a few occasions through the film. Also, black cats can either be witches familiars or witches themselves, and the film is essentially about a witch. Edgar Allan Poe's story appears only as a quote in some dialogue though. It's been a while but I'm pretty sure it didn't have a faceless knife wielding killer. Really, the film should just have been called The Third Mother. But I kinda like these quirks. I like to imagine the films themselves leaking into reality.
Anyway, whatever you call it, this is a follow on from Suspiria and Inferno, dealing this time with the Mother of Tears, here named Levana. Daria Nicolodi actually wrote a script draft not long after Inferno, but it ended up shelved until a few years later when she offered it to her friend Luigi Cozzi. He wasn't so keen on making a direct sequel though, so changed things up and she took her name off the project. Understandable perhaps, but the result really is pretty sweet. Steady 80's Eurotrash stars Florence Guerin and Urbano Barberini play Anne and Marc Ravenna, she a beautiful actress, he an acclaimed horror film-maker. His latest work, in which she will star as soon as she finishes on The Black Cat and they raise the funding, will be on the long dead but ever powerful witch Levana. Anne is soon struck by strange and terrifying dreams, and waking experiences, and comes to be most afraid of the project. But is she just mad, or is something much more going on...
... Of course there's something much more going on. Levana is too gnarly a creation, warty, clawed, cursing, green slime vomiting murderous fiend, to just be a fake out. Surprisingly though, Cozzi keeps up an element of surprise throughout as to just what exactly the whole story is. He does it the right way too, with things not quite adding up early on and various hints and tricks throughout. He also keeps the scares coming at a good pace, and the wacky coloured lighting, and though things wobble a little, often mid to low rent (with the goriest scene spoiled a little by an incompetent grasp of anatomy), they're all delivered with a lot of vim, and they build nicely throughout. No patchiness, no "wait to the end", all fun. The end is a sort of triple climax, eventually rivalling 1979 brain melter The Visitor, with lightning bolts, the undead and more, and is a bit silly even by my standards, but also kinda delightful.
All in all I thought this was pretty awesome. Sure, Cozzi is no Argento, he has nothing like his genius for camera-work, his use of colour feels much more self conscious and his assorted shenanigans are mostly cribbed from other sources. But he has an ambition of his own and a real knack for blasting through, delivering the goods as much as he can. Directly referencing Argento and having the Suspiria theme sound a couple of times were mistakes. I would have liked the film to be less straightforward, to really shift and blur levels of art, madness and the supernatural, and in terms of the overall notion of the Three Mothers, the ending is a bit George Lucas. But overall, as a big fan of Suspiria and Inferno I thought it mostly fitting in its way, and as a big fan of the wackier end of Italian genre cinema in general I had a blast. Recommended.
15.
Watched Lamberto Bava's The Mask of Satan (1989), a follow up/update of his dad's 1960 classic of the same name. Also known as Demons 5 : The Devil's Veil, but I wouldn't worry about that. Also it's an alternate Three Mothers movie in my own head canon, but I especially wouldn't worry about that. I'm just eternally salty about Argento's Mother of Tears. Anyway, some jerk-ass skiers run into a crevasse, one breaking her leg. They find a lady in a block of ice with a spiked mask over her face, and of course one of them takes it off and starts goofing around with it. Cue avalanche and impalement on a ski. But the survivors make it through to desolate church and surrounding town, only inhabitant a blind priest. And broke leg is miraculously healed. Then people start acting weird. Pretty soon, de facto hero Davide and Sabina (broke leg's actual name), his girlfriend realise it's a fight not just for survival, but their very souls...
Pretty interesting this, for me. Though a TV production the art direction and sets are top notch, they have a transporting sense of eerie fantasy to them of a kind I've rarely felt in a long time and a lot of genre cinema watching. Not flashy, just snowy, spacy, indefinably arcane. A haunted grandeur, and Bava captures it all with reverence. The actual action isn't quite as inspiring, basically possession runs rampant, behaviour bounces between jerk-ass, mean spirited, evil and just plain weird, and after a while it does feel a little redundant. But it all has an effective downbeat and off kilter vibe and the central thread of Davide and Sabina in love is touching. Bava deploys some impressive fluid camera-work at times to show us the evil force at work, and there are sparing but decent Sergio Stivaletti effects. The main gore scene is memorable pretty mean and shown in apt ritual style. Only an autopilot Simon Boswell score lets things down, I've pretty much forgotten it already.
This is pretty much late 80's Italian horror fiends only stuff, and even they might be left wanting more, but honestly, it did the trick for me. Not Spider Labyrinth or Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 calibre, say, but if you've seen those and other big hitters already, recommended.
16.
A slightly unexpected pleasure of this month has been Halloween (2018). Whoever would have thought that Michael Myers, and by extension the "classic" slasher was still viable in this day and age? Well, with this dual sequel and reboot, or squeeboot, sensitive indie turned stoner comedy writer/director David Gordon Green and co writers Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley pull it off simply. Turns out it just needed a steady hand and old fashioned actual film-making ability. It may not be a great film, but it's pretty much everything it needs to be.
The previous sequels are retconned away, Michael is in captivity 40 years after the events of the first film, and Laurie is a badass but damaged survivalist, bound by her need for a final confrontation. Her daughter Karen just wants things to be normal and forget that Michael ever came home, and her daughter Allyson, an honour student, is normal, and just wants to know her grandma better. Well, Michael is up for transfer to another facility, and does the inevitable on a lonely stretch of road. Laurie, Karen, Allyson and Deputy Sheriff Frank Hawkins are in for quite a Halloween!
Despite the retconning, this is essentially a Halloween 4 approach with Halloween H20 trappings. Just a couple of small detours, the only notable concession to the present day a couple of podcasters, basically straightforward and old fashioned. No post-modern toss, humour within the genre's classic parameters. Measured but effortless build up and a proper exciting show down. The actors give it their all, Jamie Lee Curtis being of course the highlight, totally natural as Laurie, but Judy Greer also fine as fraught but good hearted Karen, Andi Matichak perfectly agreeable as Allyson, Will Patton a good old fashioned lawman. Nick Castle even returns (somewhat) as Michael! Only off notes are struck by the character of Dr. Sartain, Haluk Bilginer's Donald Pleasance aping would be ok in another film but here it feels just a little bit laboured. John Carpenter returns to scoring duties, with some pleasing variations on the classic theme. An ample bodycount with a fair amount of bloodshed, sometimes brutal but rarely gratuitous (and then only in a good way), and a satisfying build up to the more spectacular. Some well sketched sympathetic victims too. All in all, as generic slashers go, this is pretty right on. No surprises, nothing too smart, it just does the job. Well recommended to genre fans.