The Grim Cellar

1943, US, Directed by Mark Robson

Black & White, Running Time: 71 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Warner, Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Dolby Digital Mono

Val Lewton’s 40s genre productions have become much more renowned thanks to Warner putting together their fabulous DVD collection of his work about three years ago. But long before that his pictures for RKO studios were considered quite special, formulating as they did quite chilling little tales of the morbid without resorting to overt manifestations of the supernatural. This was always a pleasing contrast to the output of Universal and helped to push forward the idea that the genre didn’t really need inhuman monsters to succeed critically and commercially. In fact their conception was partly the result of the failure of the mighty Orson Welles productions so we could say we have Citizen Kane to thank, as if its legacy hasn’t snowballed enough. The Seventh Victim begins with young college student Mary being called up to be informed that her Manhattan-based sister is no longer paying her tuition fees. In fact nobody can seem to get in touch with Jacqueline so Mary packs up and heads off to the great city of NY to find out what’s happened to her older sibling. First stopping off at the restaurant once owned by Jacqueline Mary finds out she was seen at a local boarding house and goes off to enquire. There it seems the missing woman has hired a room - seemingly not to stay in, rather it’s there as some sort of haven for a potential suicide that forces Mary to realise her sister‘s situation is much more sinister than the innocent youngster‘s mind would like to have contemplated. She comes into contact with the man who loves Jacqueline and with the help of a private investigator (who is soon murdered for his curiosity) they delve deeper into a plot that leads to a satanic cult that has drawn Jacqueline into their macabre world.

A very noir-esque atmosphere is established once Mary arrives at the city: shadowy streets, darkly lit corridors, harsh contrasts (cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca was clearly an expert technician and artist) - it’s an ideal world to conceal the goings-on of a group of devil-worshipping people. In fact the cult reminds me of the sinister neighbours that later turned up in Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, and are quite a creepy bunch considering this was the forties. Mary (Kim Hunter’s feature debut, amazingly the same woman who went on to play Zira in the first three Ape movies) is lovely and innocent, making her treacherous journey a tad more engaging as she stumbles into a threatening city that could almost consume her, though it seems as though something is watching over her shoulder as more harm comes to those around her than Mary herself. An interesting moral seems to have been wound into the narrative that makes itself apparent by the end, and one which possibly reflected the way Val Lewton pondered upon his own existence (a cardiac illness was making itself known at the time, this eventually leading to a premature demise): humans may at some point, or with eventual inevitability, come to question whether they wish to continue living and both angles are represented by two characters. Jacqueline herself (resembling Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction) evidently possesses a fixation with her own death, perhaps fantasizing about suicide itself until it becomes an ongoing obsession, whilst crossing her path is a woman who is terminally ill but would prefer to avoid death - one person is living but wants to die, the other is dying but wants to live. Indeed the opening statement of the film (about running to death but death meeting one just as fast) suggests to me that the story is ultimately an exploration of man’s relationship with death, something which underpins all of horror in some ways. This gives what once began as B movie material (in fact, just a title really) a certain degree of greater depth than what might have been anticipated by the funding studio (the last thing they wanted was conceptual depth after Orson Welles had drained them of cash). Along the way we come across a number of smartly thought-out sequences; Mary and the PI standing at the end of a dark corridor, both afraid to advance before she persuades him to effectively walk to his doom, Mary’s subway ride where three ‘drunks’ stumble on to the train only for the hat to fall from the one being carried revealing him to be the very PI that was murdered earlier - his body obviously in the process of being disposed of, and not least the shower scene that surely must have influenced Hitchcock years later, such is its similarity to Psycho’s most famous murder sequence. The Seventh Victim is a movie than can be appreciated by both fans of the macabre and noir alike.

Warner’s transfer is exemplary given the movie’s period of creation, and it comes accompanied with a highly informative 53 minute documentary on producer Val Lewton. Perhaps some of the interviewees (the likes of William Friedkin, Joe Dante, etc.) go a little overboard in their praise, as is often the case with back-slapping Americans, but appreciation for Lewton will certainly flourish as a result of viewing this comprehensive piece. There’s also a feature commentary from historian Steve Haberman that is sometimes a little quickly spoken though this also means that there’s a large amount of information and considered opinions divulged. He discusses an omitted subplot concerning Tom Conway’s character as well as the critical and commercial response to the film following initial release, among many other things. One thing Haberman drew my eye to during listening was the point when Mary is offered the bad news by the school’s headmistress - watch her silent assistant who is staring at Mary throughout the dialogue, it’s a pretty creepy image as she continuously looks Mary up and down in far too suggestive a manner. The disc can be picked up as part of the superb boxed set that comes with Lewton’s other RKO genre productions - note, a later release of this also includes a Martin Scorsese documentary as an additional bonus.

1962, UK, Directed by Sidney Hayers

Black & White, Running Time: 84 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Optimum, Video: Anamorphic 1.78:1, Audio: Dolby Digital Mono

A couple of years after returning from an academic expedition to Jamaica Norman and Tansy Taylor seem to be doing fairly well in life, with a nice village home and a well regarded teaching position at the school for Norman with promises of promotion. He’s a little surprised when, after an evening playing cards with a posse of local (pseudo-)friends, he finds that his wife has kept back a memento from their trip - a large spider in some sort of containing device. She brushes the discovery off but with his curiosity piqued he goes searching around the house the following day and uncovers all manner of strange paraphernalia, from skulls to small charms. Upon confronting Tansy when she returns home she admits to him that she’s been practising witchcraft, something which he initially finds difficult to digest, firstly because Tansy has always seemed too rational and ‘intelligent’ from his point of view to become involved in anything remotely superstitious, and secondly because he himself cannot accept that there’s anything truthful or worthwhile in pursuing the so-called black arts. He consequently burns everything in her presence to put an end to her obsession and move on, but from the minute he does things begin going wrong in his life - a female student at school accuses him of sexual interference, he’s nearly knocked down by a truck, another student threatens him with a gun, he’s involved in a car crash, etc. The contrast between what life was like during his wife’s illicit practice of black magic and how things turn out after the burning of her tools is perhaps too staggering to be coincidental, but Norman will take some convincing such is his narrow-minded attitude and limited understanding of unconventional possibilities.

Night of the Eagle (or Burn, Witch, Burn to quote its US title, actually a line from the film) makes the most of apparently limited resources, being a primarily dialogue driven assessment of one couple’s deteriorating social and mental status after they have become almost irreversibly embroiled in witchcraft. In fact Tansy seems at first to have established a comfortable control over their lives until Norman becomes aware of her tampering with what he considers to be meaningless spells, and it’s only after he has interfered with her activities by burning whatever she’s been using that control is lost. Of course she never had a long-term grasp over the supernatural anyway as there are other people in the plot who have less savoury intentions that involve similar means. What unfolds is a story coherently believable due to consistently well written and executed dialogue, unveiling situations of mounting drama between the marital couple or between Norman and the other characters that mill around the school. Supernatural manifestations are kept to a relative minimum and when they do occur it’s suggested that the mind has played a part in most of the incidences, i.e. affirming to Norman in particular that what’s happening is not the result of witchcraft but rather the superficially convenient interpretation of naturally occurring events as something under the control of humans. Of course it’s the perfect plot device to turn around the comfortably formulated scientific comprehensions of a non-believer and the film wouldn’t have worked so well had it been any other way, and lead man Peter Wyngarde does a fine job of portraying the stubborn professor. Whilst much of the film is firmly rooted in the social situations brought about by the mystical premise it still finds room for a touch of the gothic too with a pretty nifty graveyard sequence, plus there are a couple of genuinely chilling moments along the story’s route, for example when Norman realises that his wife may be possessed and the clue that brings about this realisation. On a technical level Night of the Eagle is close to remarkable in a number of ways, not least as far as the beautiful black and white photography is concerned. The ‘eagle’ effect that gives the title its justification is also competently achieved for the period, and edited acutely too (shots are limited to brief glimpses, perhaps a tool to limit the possibility of spotting flaws with the special effect or possibly to enhance its nervous impact on the audience). A sombre, well regarded, and professionally constructed entry in 60s British horror.

Optimum’s disc is worth picking up for the movie and transfer only, considering there’s nothing else in way of bonus material to recommend it, perhaps aside from the possibility that it‘s not at the time of writing available anywhere else on DVD I believe. Aspect ratio is marginally off at 1.78:1 but what’s inside the frame is extremely attractive; well balanced contrast, high level of detail, pretty solid blacks, etc. If you’re not concerned about extras though (and the absence is a shame) the disc is well priced and still worthy of a position on your shelf right in between Night of the Demon and Night of the Living Dead.

1932, Germany/France, Directed by Carl Dreyer

Black & White, Running Time: 73 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Criterion, Video: Pillarboxed 1.19:1, Audio: Dolby Digital Mono

For a few years my acknowledgement of Vampyr as a possible classic grew through reading various articles, though the film itself evaded me until a trip to Holland where I stumbled across an art house cinema projecting the movie for a late’ish showing. The dialogue, or what little of it there is, was in German (it was also shot in French and English in 1931 as alternate takes) and it was subtitled for the screening in Dutch (obviously) but it was just a blessing to finally see something I’d only previously read about, perusing the strange stills that accompanied such texts and formulating an idea in my mind regarding what the film might be like. You can’t imagine what Vampyr is like until you actually see it, and I’ve since found my lack of comprehension over the actual plot was only marginally due to my limited understanding of German - the narrative structure is surreal and deliberately disjointed to say the least and even viewing it with English subtitles keeps you guessing about what’s really going on in the film. The story introduces Allan Gray, a man who’s become obsessed with his studies in and fears of the occult as he wanders across the country. Coming across an isolated inn he takes a room for the night but is immediately struck by the uncanny nature of the location, something which unnerves him to the point of disturbed slumber. Around this point onwards we’re not quite sure what is real and what’s not as Gray receives a visitation in the night by a man who predicts doom for himself and an unnamed woman, probably his daughter given the events later on. Gray follows disembodied shadows to a house where lives the physical manifestation of the man who gave him the prophetic message and Gray learns of cursed creatures that rise from graves to take blood from living bodies: vampyres (to quote the book from which he reads). After the prophesised death of the old man one of his daughters is found in the woodland with holes in her neck, though still living but now damned and fully aware of it - Gray is being sucked into the very nightmarish world of his ongoing obsession with the supernatural.

It’s tempting to systematically go though a scene-by-scene description of Vampyr, such is the visually poetic and alluringly indistinct nature of the images that flash before our eyes. Things occur in an apparently logical order that refuses to make 100% sense, thus it reminds me of David Lynch’s work in some respects - if he’d been making films in the thirties they might have looked and felt like this. We’re drawn into the same nightmare, or one similar, to Gray’s and it’s precisely whether it’s a nightmare or not that keeps us in a land of uncertainty. Perhaps what we witness is only in the mind of Gray, or at least the personal responses to the surroundings produced by it, or maybe we’re even in the mind of the daughter who seems to be needing someone to rescue her from a family that’s crumbling at the feet of the devilish curse, or it could be a glimpse into some ethereal dimension that prevents conventional rationalisation. That’s the beauty of Vampyr: ambiguity, mystique, otherworldliness, an uncomfortable sense of foreboding dread. The compositions are quite unusual, not just for this era but for any: often characters are captured merely in the corner of the frame, the rest being used by background information that wouldn’t normally be deemed relevant enough to offer so much space to. The wallpapers attract much more camera attention than we might expect and you can’t help but think there’s something there we should be noticing. Maybe these compositional techniques are there to throw the viewer off guard, maybe they’re there to redirect the eye to other things, or perhaps Dreyer simply had a distinctive eye for visuals. Another aspect that sincerely contributes to this film’s creeping effect is the sound design, comprising of music which sounds like it was played in some dark, damp underground chamber, constructing a perturbing environment which is simultaneously alien to the viewer and familiar in the sense that we’ve probably experienced something similar to the sinister progression of nearly incoherent occurrences in our own nightmares on occasions. There are quite a few reviews of this movie online now but I’ve tried not to read too much of them (aside from responses to the new transfers prior to buying) because it’s too easy to either unconsciously or otherwise adopt the opinions of others, particularly if they’re well founded and perceptive, and once of the primary attractions with Vampyr - as well as other films of this kind - is the food provided for subjective response and interpretation. The film functions supremely as both an unusual cinematic technical achievement that begs to be deconstructed shot by shot for analysis, and as the mysterious world of shadows that sucks you into its ethereal fog to be succumbed by terror and disorientation. In comparison to what studios like Universal, Paramount and RKO were doing with the genre at the time Vampyr is completely unique, inspired and creatively astute, therefore it must be considered simply the best horror movie to crawl out of the first couple of decades following cinema’s transition to talkies.

Image put the film out on DVD in the US after a restoration took place in the late nineties - the picture was blurred and indistinct but it was the best way to see it in the home for a few years. After a long wait Criterion and Eureka (US and UK respectively) have both put supremely commendable efforts into unleashing a new definitive version of Vampyr upon us lucky movie collectors, but there are differences between them. On the plus side for Criterion there is a marginally sharper image (and I do mean marginally - I was looking hard for differences between screen captures and they’re barely noticeable), they’ve produced optional new intertitles in English matching the font and style of the original German cards, though the latter is still present with English subtitles if one so wishes. There’s also a 35 minute spoken essay that’s well put together with contextually relevant stills and clips making it more of a documentary and certainly more interesting that what we’d get elsewhere, i.e. pages of text as one extra and a stills section as another. Finally the packaging simply kicks Eureka’s butt it has to be said, with a fold-out digipack containing the discs and a booklet of essays as well as a 220 page book featuring the printed screenplay alongside the Carmilla story that partly influenced Dreyer in writing the film (it was actually based on different elements of a book featuring several short stories). The Eureka, however, has an additional commentary featuring director Guillermo del Toro, a second audio track containing unrestored sound (e.g. hiss, crackles, everything that signifies an old film - something for purists and not entirely unwelcome) though the ‘clean’ soundtrack is still present. Common to both sets is a superb commentary by film historian Tony Rayns, something which I really enjoyed listening to and again I did so after I’d written most of this review so that I wasn’t too influenced by his opinions. His perspective is informed, articulately expressed, and an indispensable companion despite moments of unavoidable speculation. On both sets too is a half hour documentary rescued from the sixties where Dreyer discusses all of his films (his last movie was Gertrud in 1964 - he wasn’t a prolific man following Vampyr); Dreyer is revealed to be a man very intense about his art. People used to modern DVD featurettes may find this surprisingly academic in tone. Neither set has a consistently stellar image on the main feature it must be noted, this being due to original negatives no longer existing and elements that have worn badly over the years, however, efforts to present the movie as well as possible have clearly been made - just be aware the picture quality is rough, though this doesn‘t necessarily detract from uncanny material such as this. To summarise, both companies have put a great deal of work into these sets and while Criterion has a slight edge on the picture, Eureka wins out with bonus audio options, whereas extras have some variations where the superior is difficult to choose. Criterion easily wins out on packaging so the choice is ours, either way this could well be the most important release of a vintage horror film for home viewing we’ve ever seen.

1987, Italy, Directed by Michele Soavi

Colour, Running Time: 90 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Blue Underground, Video: Anamorphic 1.85:1, Audio: Dolby Digital EX

Originating from a background where he was surrounded by creativity it’s perhaps no accident that Soavi wound up in constructing images himself of some kind - early on as a painter but after developing an interest in cinema he moved on to acting and, later still, assistant directing. It was for many of cinema’s veterans that he learnt most of his behind-the-camera skills, people like Dario Argento, Aristide Massaccesi, Lamberto Bava, and even Terry Gilliam. His own directorial debut came together, therefore, quite late in his career. Owning it on Avatar’s video cassette for a few years I once thought Stagefright (sometimes known as Aquarius or Deliria) was a fairly average slasher, but at the time I was a lot less informed and less educated in the darker genres than I am nowadays. Viewing it now is a different matter. It outlines a simple scenario but one that’s nonetheless powerful in many respects: a theatre director who’s obsessed with extracting the best performances from his actors is selfish in the extreme, displaying little or no concern for the welfare of the people if the production is suffering. Alicia, one of his leading ladies, damages her leg in rehearsal and she heads out the back door to seek some medical advice at the first place she and her friend come across - a psychiatric hospital. While obtaining a personal touch from one of the doctors there the two girls don’t realise that one of the inmates has overcome a guard in his escape, only to hitch an unexpected lift back to the theatre with them. Going back to the car in the storm Alicia’s friend is butchered by the lunatic before he apparently disappears. The body is found (pickaxe nicely implanted through her gaping mouth) and the police show up to investigate and subsequently keep watch. Spotting an opportunity for some media attention the director decides to rename the killer in his play after the lunatic who’s responsible for the real-life murder, and persuading his actors that it will be beneficial to their career he gets one of the girls to lock the door and hide the key. Of course the killer hasn’t disappeared but rather hidden himself inside the place and the only person who knows where the key is quickly becomes the second victim: now they’re all trapped in there and the killer has free pickings of the bunch while a rain storm rages on outside.

The premise itself is exciting - a group of people locked in an inescapable building with a stealthy and insane murderer, and it’s largely on that that the success of the film rests. The opening of the film made up my main memory from the video days and it’s surely one of the corniest openings in cinema history and not a good advertisement for what’s to come or what Soavi is really capable of. Having been cut in the UK (by the original distributor I believe) the film in its uncensored form is also much more violent than I was previously aware of, some of the attacks almost inducing a wince in more mature viewers. The movie doesn’t follow all of the conventions of giallo but there’s enough there to consider classifying the film as such, although we don’t delve too much into the history of the killer or why his mind is so irreversibly twisted, the explanation of which usually comprises a giallo’s final act. It might be more accurate to describe the result as a slasher movie, though the two sub-genres have always been close cousins in reality anyway - one a more psychodynamic, stylistic precursor to the other. Soavi does go unnecessarily overboard during the film’s final ten minutes or so, including a pretty silly final shot, otherwise aside from that and the embarrassing opening there’s a lot of material here that would highlight Soavi as the new talent to watch in Italian splatter at the time. He later compounded this auspicious promise with The Church, The Sect, and Dellamorte Dellamore, but would subsequently all but recede from the eyes of the fans. Utilising his acting abilities briefly, he also makes an appearance as one of the police officers in Stagefright; Soavi was a recognisable face in Italian genre movies. The score itself really picks up the pace of some of the chase sequences, however Demons fans might notice a remarkable similarity to the second instalment of Lamberto’s franchise - that’s because composer Simon Boswell was the primary driving force behind both soundtracks. The Stagefright score is not a direct rip-off from Demons 2 but the style is unmistakably the work of the same man. Boswell has since proved himself to be a highly prolific and talented artist, later enhancing many films through his music compositions, for example Shallow Grave and Dust Devil. John Morghen fans will be pleased to know he appears in Stagefright as an amusing stereotype gay - plus he’s brutally murdered yet again, as in just about any of his genre appearances - City of the Living Dead’s drill through the brain anyone? For a thrill trip through homicidal violence and cat/mouse chase sequences this film should provide a good evening’s worth of mayhem.

In the UK the first home video release came from Avatar and was superseded ten years or so afterwards by an uncut tape from Redemption. I believe Vipco may have got their dirty hands on distribution rights some time later too. Released on DVD by Anchor Bay in the US several years ago this Blue Underground is basically a direct port of the disc, offering a very average picture that lacks real depth and detail. Colours are a little wayward and overall the presentation could and should have been improved for this (admittedly cheap) re-release, so I’m a little disappointed by BU’s laziness. The Dolby EX track has some bite but keeps most of the activity down the front - there’s less to complain about here than with the image although I‘d really like to hear an Italian language track at some point, if possible. There was an EC disc (presented open-matte with a theatrical matte viewing option available) released just prior to the first AB outing - it’s probably very difficult to get a hold of nowadays anyway so the BU is currently the easiest disc to get hold of.

1979, Italy, Directed by Lucio Fulci

Colour, Running Time: 92 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Media Blasters, Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

Better known under the morbidly good title of Zombie Flesh Eaters here in the UK, Fulci’s most commercial outing was originally considered as an unofficial sequel to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (entitled Zombi in Europe) following a worldwide financial return that would have highlighted Lira signs in the eyes of any self-respecting Italian producer (in this case Fabrizio De Angelis along with Ugo Tucci) - I’ve read that Zombi 2 has since made anything in the region of thirty million dollars. Rather than following on from Romero’s revered film, however, this story lays the foundations for the dead returning to life, initiating the apocalyptic setting that would take full grip in Romero’s movie. Briefly, a boat turns up floating unmanned around Manhattan island attracting the attention of local authorities. After an officer is attacked by a rather putrescent-looking man on board it is closed off and news reporter Peter West becomes interested, eventually crossing paths with Ann, the daughter of a scientist who has links with the vessel. Peter and Ann hire a couple of holidaymakers with a boat and head off to the island of Matul (spelling varies depending on source) to track down her father and find out what the hell’s happening. What they won’t realise until they get there is that the old man is experimenting to find out why voodoo can make dead men walk, and the island is infested with the living dead - relentless putrescent corpses that seem to have a hunger for human meat.

Whilst this could have been simply a derivative attempt to make a few quid on the back of someone else’s ideas it morphed into something a whole lot more. The writers decided to weave in the reasons for the reawakening of cadavers, something which Romero persistently avoided, and in choosing voodoo as the cause actually took this particular sub-genre back to its mythological or historical roots. This really is a completely different monster to Romero’s outings - the settings jump from New York (I actually recognised one particular location from my own visit there) to the Caribbean, the undead creatures have an appearance that’s comparatively horrific (amazing make-up job), and the atmosphere as a whole is something fairly unique to Fulci’s genre output. The pacing is thoroughly well executed (although some people have disagreed with that point), beginning quite slowly and accumulating events of a increasingly sadistic nature as it builds towards an incredibly tense climax where the remaining heroes are trapped in a church that’s surrounded by homicidal rotting corpses. While the heroes initially volunteer their presence in this adventure, almost like taking their canoes for a row in calmer waters, they gradually find themselves being whisked uncontrollably along towards an inevitable fate. As suggested the creature attacks are brutally violent and never before has the gore, courtesy of master Giannetto de Rossi, looked more repulsive than it does on this remastered disc. It caused quite a stir here in England when the BBFC removed a portion of the nastier footage for its X certified cinema release, only for the film to find itself placed on the banned list when the video came along (Vipco famously released its ‘Strong Uncut Version’ just prior to the ban and the tape became a real collector’s item for a long time). It may not shock crowds accustomed to the likes of Hostel but it’s no doubt visceral material - Fulci and de Rossi pulled no punches. The undead monsters here are very slow movers but they seem none the less potent for it, attacking in increasing numbers to a point where survivors are virtually overwhelmed with nowhere left to run. Mood is fleshed out by Fabio Frizzi’s cool score too, a man who graced many an Italian genre film including several other Fulci projects. Ian McCulloch and Tisa Farrow (Mia’s sister of course) seem to be having a good time here while the film’s success launched Fulci into genre notoriety, especially as he went on to direct a number of other great nasties for De Angelis like House By The Cemetery, New York Ripper and indeed The Beyond.

Zombi 2 has an intricate history on home video. Following Vipco’s eventually barred attempt to permit the masses access to the uncut beauty it remained unavailable for years in Britain until a couple of heavily censored editions appeared on VHS. After several good Laserdisc releases around the world a sliced DVD materialised from Stonevision but it was Anchor Bay in the US who released an uncut DVD (under the title Zombie) which seemed like a blessing ten years ago but now looks contextually messy. It was then announced that Media Blasters were putting out the definitive version of the movie on disc (under their Shriek Show banner) and following a long wrangle with Blue Underground eventually a deal was reached where they both released the film - MB with a second disc of extras and BU without, but both with effectively the same transfer. And what a transfer! Grain has been minimised, colours are bold (possibly too bold - I found turning down the colour setting a couple of notches gave a more natural appearance), detail is very good, and contrast excellent. We were spoiled for sound options: both Italian and English versions in original mono, stereo, and 5.1 choices for each language. I think in this case the English track works better due to the location and the fact that a couple of principal English-speaking actors dub their own voices. The 5.1 tracks aren’t too artificial as they keep much of the audio localised across the front three speakers, hence they’re relatively respectful to their source (there’s only so much you can do with these old soundtracks anyway). On the MB set there’s a 98 minute documentary that warrants some commendation for its creators, having tracked down just about any living entity who had been involved with the project. The movie itself was just a job to many of the participants and that comes across here, but the documentary effort has to be acknowledged. There’s also a commentary track (Ian McCullouch) ported over from the old Anchor Bay disc, plus some trailers and other bits. Simply, if you want the extras go for the Shriek Show, if you don’t then go for the Blue Underground (note that the SS retains the original Italian title). I’ve read that the latter is progressive while the former is not but I noticed no incidents of combing whatsoever even watching it on a 75” screen so nothing to worry about. Packaged in a lovingly designed cover and slipcase this DVD set was a godsend and the crowning achievement in the Media Blasters cannon.

2002, US, Directed by Robert Harmon

Colour, Running Time: 86 minutes

DVD, Region 2, EIV, Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

This is one of those films that gets ‘Wes Craven’ slapped above the title in a desperate bid to sell something that would probably otherwise go unnoticed. It’s not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion because I do tend to feel he’s been somewhat overrated in the post-Scream years despite having directed a few minor classics in the couple of decades preceding that. Plus he tends to pretty much sell the use of his name to projects that have the most tenuous links to himself and it’s hardly a commendable commercial strategy - a quick perusal of the credits would suggest no creative input whatever from the veteran. Anyway, They would not appear to be a well liked movie and I think I can understand why. For starters the plot is very basic: after a prologue where a child whose scared of the dark really does get himself sucked under the bed by some unseen presence we jump forward a few years where three twenty somethings, the central character being psychology graduate Julia, come together in the wake of a friend’s suicide and realise that they, as children, all suffered from what’s known as night terrors (an acknowledged disorder often most common in children whereby those afflicted sustain extreme emotional reactions during REM). Julia’s personal problems snowball as she believes that the dark conceals inhuman beings that are waiting to pounce on her, a symptom of remarkable similarity to that recorded by her dead friend and something that the other two claim to be experiencing also. A visit to an old psychiatrist outlines the possibility that it’s the result of post-traumatic stress but the frightful attacks that increase with frequency become awfully difficult to refute.

The plot is basic as I say - shit in the dark out to get people. There is a little background that the many writers have attempted to establish in some of the dialogue iterated by characters but it may appear contrived in some sense, and derivative. Hence appreciation would be minimised simply as a result of this. Also it seems that some viewers have had a problem with the fact that there’s very little real or scientific explanation for what’s causing these creatures to crawl from their alternate dimension, if indeed that’s what’s actually happening. By the conclusion we know little of what they actually are, hence the title I suppose. This is fundamentally what I like about it - there is ambiguity here. Whilst it would seem that there are creatures in existence out to drag these people back to hell for unknown reasons, it’s possible that they’re just paranoid and completely delusional. This duality is corroborated in my opinion by the two endings shot for the film - I won’t reveal too much about them or which one is used but one suggests a fantastical conclusion where the creatures and their domain do actually exist, the other infers that they’re concoctions of Julia’s badly wired brain. Many viewers don’t like things to turn out unexplained and that’s one of the main problems for them with They. Another problem might be the generic nature of the film as a whole - it’s hardly groundbreaking and does have a tendency to adhere to well established rules of shock film-making of the modern era. Despite this I have a pretty good time with this movie - the primarily young cast generally keep things down to Earth and are obviously for the most part quite talented. Fresh from My Little Eye Laura Regan (Julia) is sort of like a cute cross between Brigitte Fonda and Mia Farrow, and carries most of the film herself. The director himself of course had one previous claim to fame in the cult madman flick The Hitcher (the original) and competently keeps things moving along at a good pace while jolting the audience at various points to make sure their nerves are suitably jangled by the end. Whether the film will stand up over the years I’m uncertain but I’ve seen it three times now and though it’s possible to become slightly cynical about certain aspects of the production I’ve still found myself gripped with unease - a job pretty well done.

With the movie not quite shaking the foundations of the planet They comes along on a basic DVD both here and in the US. Aside from an average scope transfer (which has a lot to deal with - the locations are consistently low-lit) and a powerful surround track (an near essential component of the tension) there is a trailer and the rather good alternate ending - no explanation for the choice eventually used is provided, however. An under-specified disc is not a major problem in a world where many extras are merely promotional tools and in this case it can be picked up at a nice price. It is therefore a low risk for a potentially thrilling time - if you don’t like it you can always put it in the charity bag and scare some old granny’s tits off.

2004, Belgium, Directed by Fabrice Du Welz

Colour, Running Time: 88 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Tartan, Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: DTS

Having acquired something of a positive reputation following its rounds on the film festival circuit I thought it might be a good idea to belatedly check out The Ordeal (AKA Calvaire in its native land, actually a reference to the crucifixion). Whilst the plot on the surface may appear to be conventional, the end result couldn‘t be much further from it: singer/performer Marc Stevens finishes up a Christmas gig before leaving behind his legion of geriatric female fans to head off in his tour van to do another show miles away. He becomes hopelessly lost on the heavily fogged woodland roads and ends up breaking down in the middle of nowhere, rain pouring and darkness descending. A man appears at the van window, allegedly looking for his dog, but Marc persuades him to guide him to an inn that was advertised on one of the trees a few minutes previously. All seems amicable when Marc arrives at the inn, with a room prepared for the night, meals, and offers to help fix his truck. Things start becoming a little strange when the innkeeper, after towing back and investigating the van’s fault, says that it will take a couple of days to repair and begins asking Marc to sing for him at dinner. After Marc finds the rear doors to his van ripped open one morning and pornographic photographs of one of his fans missing (hidden in the innkeeper’s room) he realises something is wrong. After a confrontation the innkeeper begins smashing up the van with a sledgehammer before also hitting Marc unconscious, and thus on awakening begins a period of unimaginable torment for the singer that he may never escape from.

It’s not that often where I feel I’m the recipient of such a cinematic dropkick these days, especially with the abundance of torture stuff that masquerades as mainstream horror these days, but The Ordeal was precisely an ordeal, something which I became uncomfortable watching and actually couldn’t wait for the punishment to finish, plus it persists in remaining on the mind afterwards. Whilst it is slow and atmospherically built up early on, once we get to the point where we realise things are going to go horrifically wrong for Marc so begins our discontent also. Pretty much every character in this story is screwed up beyond belief (witness the moment Marc comes across a group of villagers ‘making love’ to some pigs), and to add to the force of delivery these people as realistically portrayed as one can imagine (presumably most viewers have never spent a week inside an asylum) - I don’t want to live in a world where this kind of human being is a possibility, but I probably do. Marc’s tribulations stem from the fact that everybody - everybody - in the cast wants him for one reason or another, whether the motive is innocent desire or homicidal madness. In this, and this is something that only really occurred to me retrospectively, there is an acknowledgeable element of black humour that threads certain aspects of this film, but it’s not something you’re likely to find yourself smiling about, unless you want to appear hip to your mates. As already suggested, there is the reminder of many of the torture films that have ‘graced’ our screens over recent years but bear in mind this was produced in 2004, the same year as Saw, so an accusation of jumping on bandwagons would be unfounded. Plus this film is far more disturbing than most of those in Saw’s wake, and without overt emphasis on gore either. The dinner table humiliation was, however, way too close to a similar sequence in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Laurent Lucas’s performance as Marc Stevens is too authentic, as with most of the insane cast that support him, and it was great to see Brigitte Lahaie still working (and not looking at all bad for her age) - of course she was the star of many a French porno film in her prime, including a number of Jean Rollin genre excursions (Fascination for example). The air of realism is also maintained by a couple of other factors: there is minimal use of film scoring, plus the image is very drab, colourless, and close to ugly. At first I thought it might just be the result of a mundane transfer but the film’s content ultimately makes one aware that the cinematography was almost certainly a creative decision. Whether this film can be recommended is down to viewer discretion really - it’s not something that is actually enjoyable, indeed I was bludgeoned somewhat by the experience and afterwards had to watch a couple of Looney Tunes cartoons so I didn’t go to bed having perverse nightmares. But it does a profound job of administering impact to its audience by use of superior film-making, downright nasty and remorseless intentions, plus a dose of imagination that would make it stand out from the crowd if it were not for the fact that it is foreign, and therefore having an inherently limited English-speaking audience.

As mentioned above the video is drab and not especially nice to look at, something I deeply suspect is part of the natural style of this movie. Detail in darker areas is subdued by grain, colours are muted, brightness diminished. This is accompanied by very able Dolby Digital and DTS French language soundtracks - little use of music to speak of but excellent standards of audio with sound effects and dialogue. On of the disc also is the 1999 short by the director called Quand On Est Amoureux C’est Merveilleux, the film that got him noticed. Despite the fact that I couldn’t wait for The Ordeal to be over I have to acknowledge that that’s because the director did a very good job, and I therefore await his next project, Vinyan, with a certain level of trepidation.

1980, Italy, Directed by Dario Argento

Colour, Running Time: 106 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Anchor Bay, Video: Anamorphic 1.85:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

Not many people liked Inferno when it first appeared, or for a few years after that if I recall, and that seemed to be the first signs of a trend’s beginning for the director, something that would become an integral part of audience reaction to each work throughout the later 80s and 90s onwards. It took years for this film to become appreciated, not just on a larger scale but for myself personally also. Inferno’s inherently nonsensical nature can put many people off and understandably so given the cinematic conventions which people have generally become comfortably accustomed to. Of course there was always the possibility that the film was just a complete turd and its artistic pretensions were exactly that: pretensions. As the story opens there seems to be something sinister going on simultaneously in Rome and New York where the discovery of an ambiguous text authored by a medieval alchemist links in with a number of increasingly inexplicable supernatural occurrences, usually resulting in the death of someone who has become involuntarily involved in the awakening of forces beyond understanding.

To delve into the specifics of the ‘plot’ for the purpose of establishing a synopsis designed to entice viewers seems to be a futile exercise and therefore shall remain as brief as what I’ve outlined above. The delineated plot to the uninitiated might ramble and seemingly lead nowhere, ultimately failing to arouse people to what’s really going on in this film. The main characters are introduced into the story with no real background on their lives and wayward motives preventing us understanding them or the world that they inhabit. An example of the dysfunctional logic appears here: a man takes a bag of cats out to the lake to drown them (don’t ask why), at which point there is an eclipse occurring. He’s attacked by hundreds of rats and amidst the screams the cook of a nearby hotdog stand comes running over, to his aid you might believe. But then the anonymous cook brings up his meat cleaver and butchers the man to death before walking calmly away. There are lots of nice touches that construct the supernatural domain around us, as when a girl discovers an indistinct cloaked alchemist working away beneath the library - as he notices that she’s carrying a book of great significance (The Three Mothers) we catch a very brief glimpse of his hand, something that’s not human, possibly demonic. This subtlety is lost at the film’s conclusion to an extent, however. My favourite sequence falls very early in the film when Rose, after having read that a key lies in an old cellar, is enticed enough to go investigating underground. She comes across a subterranean pool but has to jump in after dropping something valuable in the water, only to find a flooded room with corpses floating within. The whole showpiece is incredibly atmospheric and spooky, and is the first real event that draws you into Inferno’s uncanny dimension. The film is technically a sequel to Suspiria but follows none of the characters (although Alida Valli - Ms Tanner in the 1977 film - makes a reappearance albeit as a different character). It is related only through the core concept of these three mothers we hear so much about, though there are some similarities in visual style with heavy cinematographic emphasis on artificially sourced primary colours such as red and blue. Whereas Goblin provided the infamous score for Suspiria fans of ELP may be surprised to know that Keith Emerson provided the score for Inferno and, whilst it’s not as emphatically insane as the former movie, it does underscore the dark world that Argento has developed here. There are occasions where the music is merely average, but sometimes it rises way beyond that - the film’s final act is driven by one stunning choral-rock track that remains one of my personal favourite musical arrangements among movies. Suspiria was notably easier to follow as far as the narrative was concerned so fan disappointment may originally have emanated from that fact, but Inferno supplies its own mysterious vision of a rising Hell that’s quite unique in cinema and this is where repeat viewings really help - I’ve seen it around seven times personally and find that it still presents a puzzle that I like to attempt deconstruction of whilst simultaneously revelling in the dripping atmosphere of the unknown. Inferno is a nightmare incarnate, a seemingly illogical meandering into an apocalyptic universe. Argento did here what few others might have been equipped for: he brought to audiences a nonsensical film that is inexplicably enjoyable.

It’s worth pointing out that there is a small amount of animal cruelty in Inferno, and this gave the BBFC cause for concern here in the UK during its original 20th Century Fox (distributors at the time) cinema and video releases - notably a cat devouring a mouse that’s clearly still alive. It’s certainly nothing on the scale of what we find in Italian cannibal films but some sensitive viewers may find it a little disconcerting. Cats are also thrown at one of the actors at one point too (reminding me of Tippi Hedren’s assault in The Birds) though I’m not sure if it’s the cats or the human that received the nastier treatment here. The easiest uncut version to go for currently is the disc from Blue Underground, though this is simply a port of the old Anchor Bay disc (the latter providing the source for this review) and features a widescreen transfer that looked amazing when it originally came out but now only passes as reasonable, being very soft and perhaps overly chromatic. It could do with a complete remaster but along with a limited but satisfying 5.1 track (with standard matrixed surround option available) this is still a great way to see Inferno. However Fox themselves also released a disc in Italy a while ago that is sharper (therefore grainier) and less saturated giving a very different appearance to the movie itself - it’s amazing how different a film can look between DVDs. The Fox disc also contains an inferior Italian track in mono (English is there too though only as a matrixed surround option) and these factors make it quite collectable. Either way, for the cinematic equivalent of a vivid and sadistic but ultimately pleasurable nightmare check out Argento’s Inferno.

Universal were almost responsible for initiating the first real horror boom at the beginning of the thirties with the infamous movies already elsewhere discussed at Grim Cellar. Perhaps the arrival of sound had a direct impact on the effectiveness of films to embellish a disturbing emotional manipulation of audience responses, and new possibilities were perceived. In their search for new ideas they turned to Egyptian history/mythology and to assist brought in their established master of terror at the time, Boris Karloff. The Mummy (1932) briefly recounted an age more than three millennia prior to the discovery of an ancient scroll, where priest Im-Ho-Tep is consumed by love and mourning to a point where he commits sacrilege by exercising a hex to raise his woman from the dead. For his sins he is forced to suffer one of the most tortuous deaths imaginable - burial alive. In the early part of the twentieth century his tomb is opened and the bandaged corpse discovered, but a foolishly optimistic young archaeologist reads aloud the ancient scroll, releasing a curse that revives the mummified priest. The young explorer goes insane and the priest departs into the night. Later on a strangely benevolent Egyptian - the priest without his bandages - appears on the scene and helps the explorers locate another tomb, something which leads to his realisation that one of the women, Helen, is actually the reincarnation of the lover that he died for centuries ago. His objective is to reunite their souls but the girl whose body is inhabited by the princess’s soul must die to allow this.

For younger viewers more familiar with the Stephen Sommers/Brendan Fraser action adventure yarns the original Universal film may be considered something of a whopping great bandaged borefest. It is quite slow and very old fashioned in terms of cinema, while gore didn’t really exist in this era and scares were of the atmospheric variety (i.e. there wasn’t a 100 decibel soundtrack jab designed to make you leap involuntarily every time something frightening was supposed to happen). It crafts a story that mixes the tragedy of impractical love with mythology and history, and the highlighting of cultural issues preventing two people from being together is just as relevant today. After establishing himself as a classic cinematographer on many German silents Karl Freund was rushed into directing, ultimately proving himself here to be methodical and considered, sometimes imaginative at the helm. There are inspired moments, such as Karloff’s foreboding narrative recollection of his former life, and the glowing eyes of course, though these do become a tad overused by the conclusion. There’s also the inclusion of a beautiful clip of a wolf in medium shot howling against the moon - probably stock footage but a phenomenon to witness nonetheless. Zita Johann is an alluringly naïve Helen, wearing amazingly low-cut dresses but not quite having the upper body physique for raincoat viewers (like me) to salivate over. The Motion Picture Production Code became a serious entity in 1934, something established in the USA to essentially force film-makers to abide by a series of rules that precluded sexual references, imagery, etc. Therefore films made prior to this often contained elements that were slightly more risqué than their post-1934 counterparts, and the wardrobe of Johann I believe was a product of this. The undisputed star of Universal’s early make-up era, Jack Pierce, provided groundbreaking processes for the mummy itself/himself. Both bandaged and ‘unclothed’, Karloff’s make-up is stupendous even to this day. One final surprise for those who only have vague recollections of these films is the mummy itself - in his stereotype form he is barely used here: we see he awaken at the film’s beginning, we see his feet stagger from the room, and that’s it. Afterwards Karloff returns only as the Egyptian Ardath Bey, an old but very human-looking man. The Mummy achieves its goal well enough and, while not quite a classic film, it possesses its fair share of eeriness combined with good storytelling.

It took the studio some time to follow up this moderately successful outing but it was inevitable at some point. The Mummy’s Hand (1940) recreated the history set up in the earlier movie. Taking elements of the filmed flashback featuring Boris Karloff (who’s not participating in this one or any of the subsequent sequels in the conventional sense) we learn that Kharis was condemned to the same mummification and death for similar reasons. Some time around the thirties or forties a couple of losers have their final chance at making a buck in Cairo before having to head back to the USA bankrupt. They learn of a hidden tomb which is sure to be filled with concealed treasure and persuade an erratic magician to lend them $2000 to fund an expedition. Along with some workers and the magician’s feisty young daughter they head out to uncover the tomb, but get more than they expected when the desecration of the Kharis resting place brings about his resurrection, something that’s welcomed by a local priest who enslaves Kharis to perform homicidal bidding.

It’s immediately obvious in the first sequel that the tone is lightened somewhat, mostly through the implementation of two wannabe comedians in the principal roles. Whilst their tomfoolery is generally incompetent, their comic timing being inadequate to some extent, the story and dialogue manage to keep your attention while you’re perfectly aware of what the film is building up to. It takes some time to get there too, with about half the film passing before some action appears on the horizon, however I think this contributes towards the formulation of a reasonable helping of atmosphere. This is where we see the mummy in all his traditional horror glory for the first time - a staggering, bandaged corpse intent on avenging the curse that has brought about his reanimated misery. His eyes appear to be blacked out by a possible manipulation of the negative (an effect not completed for the trailer itself) and his presence, courtesy of highly prolific actor Tom Tyler, is ominous - Pierce once again graced the creature with his skills. The flashback is quite a strange phenomenon: clearly they’ve used footage from the first film as they retell the story and Karloff is right there in many shots, but for close-ups it switches to new footage of Tyler, creating an oddly jarring effect. It could be said, consequently, that Karloff is actually present in this film, though his participation is nonexistent. While the budget for …Hand was approximately half that of its predecessor some of the production design may seem pretty outstanding, though that’s simply a result of economical set regurgitation - some of them were actually built for James Whale’s adventure story Green Hell. Finally, the sole female of note this time is Peggy Moran and whilst not quite as revealingly dressed as Zita Johann she is visually appealing and her initially dominating approach is unwittingly sexy. The Mummy’s Hand, directed by quickie specialist Christy Cabanne, is no doubt inferior in many respects to the original film, but it is entertaining and the pace is perceptively executed.

The story of …Hand is recounted at the beginning of The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) where the two guys responsible for the expedition that kicked everything off have returned to the USA and grown older. Still holding a grudge, however, the wizard who knows when it comes to mummified corpses (George Zucco) sends his servant across to the land of the free with the body of Kharis to reap vengeance on those who’ve caused all the trouble. The servant sets up as a graveyard caretaker while sending the mummy out to kill off the two clowns and anyone genetically associated with them, one by one.

This one really is a quickie: not only does it only run for an hour but the first ten minutes of that are taken up with a recap of the previous story, via flashbacks and the narration of Dick Foran’s returning character Steve Banning. Universal also managed to bring in Lon Chaney Junior (no doubt a consequence of his success in The Wolf Man) this time to play the monster, something he would do in the following two films also. They also managed to annoy the star in the process by dropping the ‘Jr.’ from the actor’s screen credit, something which favourably distinguished him from his famous father in his eyes. Chaney does a good job but there’s little real challenge with this creature, while the make-up, though not as proficient as the first movie, is suitably putrescent. Some of the stunt work is quite rough on the actors, particularly when it comes to fire. Several people are dangerously close to the flames at the end and one actor (who visibly falls against his torch) was reportedly burnt during filming. Neil Varnick’s story is quite feeble and lacking a certain amount of imagination, resorting to Universal’s obligatory mob of angry villagers for the film’s climax - quite strange because they’re carrying burning torches and clubs despite the time period somewhere around the middle of the twentieth century by my calculations based on the men’s ages, etc. The early sightings of the creature bring about a number of amusing situations when he manages to avoid being seen in almost every instance with the exception of his shadow, consequently this giving rise to several reports of ‘a shadow’ in the area! Imagine West Midlands police responding to reports like that… The entertainment factor here is diminished compared to the preceding chapters but the flick does retain a certain charm in its madness.

Some time after the events of …Tomb a group of hip students are learning history in The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) when the teacher decides to tell them about the mysterious mummy attacks that once allegedly took place in their very town. Whilst it all seems a little difficult to digest they don’t realise that the mummy inexplicably survived (indeed, it just wanders out of the forest near the beginning) and is soon on the move when the college professor experiments with the leaves that grant it strength and life - he is drawn to the leaves instinctively but kills the professor in the process. The servant (John Carradine) of Andoheb (George Zucco again) has been sent on a mission to track down the body of Kharis’s ancient lover, which has been shipped to a museum in the USA, but realises when the body crumbles that her spirit has reawakened in the shell of one of the young student girls. The servant decides that she must be ‘reacquired’ by Kharis. I’m sure they were making this stuff up as they went along at this point!

By about half way through …Ghost I’d pretty much resigned it to being a worthless pile of camel waste. Carradine’s acting is serious to the point of being about as active as a plank of wood, the mummy make-up seems to have been substantially cheapened (though Pierce was still involved, perhaps rushed), the story pedestrian and generally uninspiring. There are even clumsy errors such as Chaney’s useless arm suddenly becoming functional when he needs to carry an unconscious woman. However the damn film almost won me over by its conclusion: why? Because of that bloody dog! This thing outshines Lassie when it comes to intelligence. It’s only one of those small Jack Russell type of canines but, boy, is it smarter than the humans in this film. It actually responds to their statements and even goes to fetch the mob of angry villagers when the two heroes are in trouble - I couldn’t help by laugh. Also, the denouement of the story is quite grim compared to virtually all other Universal monster bashes, and the outcome surprised me. It’s not a good film by any stretch but the dog provided a few smiles (though whether those were intentional is another matter) and the climax is the most effective of the whole series.

Shot around the same time The Mummy’s Curse (1944) took Universal’s tendency towards temporal distortion one step further, with some pub-dwelling gypsy-types retelling some of the last movie’s events as being about twenty five years prior. Adding that up with the bodily aging of some of the previous characters, etc., this should place the time around the 1980s by my calculations, however it seems more like the turn of the twentieth century at the beginning before strangely shifting to 1940s America. I don’t suppose chronological logic was at the front of the minds of Universal’s writers… Anyway, there are plans to completely renovate the marsh near Mapleton, where the events of previous films took place, but a couple of museum archaeological buffs turn up wanting to dig out the mummy and his bride Princess Ananka (after having been left there at the end of …Ghost) to return them to the museum. Some of the locals are concerned that this interfering with the mummy’s current resting place will arouse the curse again, fears which aren’t without good cause it seems. After dredging half the swamp they soon find an empty space in the mud where ‘a large man’ would have lay, and of course a dead villager nearby. Oh yes, and the giveaway, there’s a bit of bandage left on the murdered person (I shit you not). While Kharis is roped in by one of the Egyptian servants to kill more people, this time Ananka also reawakens to wander around in a state of perpetual confusion regarding her origins or purpose.

The problem primarily by this point was the fact that the stories really had nowhere to go and very much continually rehashed ideas from earlier films. Quite literally too, as we were very often treated to flashbacks of footage from the other movies despite meagre running times. The mummy, again played by Lon Chaney Jr., was a creature of limited potential and was lucky to have his lifespan stretched out over this number of movies. The Mummy’s Curse begins more in the vein of many of Universal’s other films of the period, almost a timeless entity in a dimension undiscovered. The murders themselves are quite feeble - one guy stumbles in on a ritual during the awakening of the mummy and sort of asks what they’re up to, like one would, before the mummy, which would have been plainly in his sight, staggers right up to him without him noticing until he‘s actually being strangled. There is one standout sequence in this film, and indeed one of the best of the whole series; the revival of Ananka: she squirms awkwardly out of her grave, her eyes covered in mud and barely able to open, then staggers off in a manner that the TV girl in Ring would have been proud of. It’s possibly the creepiest scene in the whole mummy series and director Leslie Goodwins must have realised he was on to something because he gets his mileage out of it. Other than that it’s a derivative and uninspired finale to the series.

There was of course one more appearance for the monster to come: Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy (1955), but this would offer little other than the two comedians making fools of themselves as the creature proves ineffective as a killing machine, though at least it would return the series to its Egyptian beginnings. The mummy films provide some fun overall, but were clearly not greatly respected by its studio - this is apparent by the haphazard manner in which the stories were rushed together and the running times as meagre as the films’ respective budgets. The mummy (actually Im-Ho-Tep in the first one, Kharis in the following four, and Klaris in the A&B entry) had minimal development as a character beyond the first film though at least there was some narrative progression and continuation from film to film, but within each context there was little to do for the monster other than stagger around and kill. In that sense he is almost a precursor to Michael Myers of Halloween or the homicidal lunatic of almost any other long-running slasher series - this is possibly the slasher movie in its embryonic infancy here, formulating many of the staples that would much later on become clichés in slasher cinema. Compared to Universal’s other series of the time the creature is less charismatic and quite a lonely entity. The fact that his arm and leg are virtually unusable (unless he needed to carry a helpless woman) did irritate me a little throughout - he’s rendered practically impotent and the explanation for this was briefly iterated early on in the series but afterwards employed simply as a tool for having him walk in a (then) tension-building fashion. The aforementioned temporal distortion is something that stands out if the viewer is to watch them in sequence, but there is some inadvertent bewilderment to be had with this. In fact the series as a whole works at its best if you simply switch off the logical side of your brain and accept the crazy rules on their own terms but, though idiosyncratic in the extreme, it can never quite match up to the studio’s Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man cycles. It’s a pity that the gradually diminishing quality of the series detracts from its achievements but it is nevertheless something that will provide a reasonable degree of entertainment, and that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.

(P.S. Extra special thanks to Colin at Riding The High Country for making this article possible)

1977, US, Directed by Robert Voskanian

Colour, Running Time: 83 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Something Weird, Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Dolby Digital Mono

Rummaging through the monolithic back catalogue of horror movie history you come across many films by directors who were never heard of before or after, plus a number of gold nuggets that have slipped to the bottom of the lake along the way. Sometimes alternatively known as Zombie Child or Kill and Go Hide, The Child falls into both categories in my opinion, though it’s not a favourite among the majority who’ve seen it, either because my tastes are very exclusive or perhaps because it never found its target audience. Having said that though its target audience was never going to be large numbers of people. Exploitation specialist Harry Novak executive produced this (one of his last movies, but who the hell was Rob Voskanian?), and some may have come to this one having seen his preceding notorious work. Alicianne is on her way to move in with the Nordens as a housekeeper and babysitter. On her way the (vintage?) car malfunctions and she’s forced to make the rest of the route through the woods on foot, during which she runs into an old woman who delivers a few warnings about the locale. Once at the Norden place she meets the old man, his strapping son, and the young Rosalie. Immediately on arrival there’s something decidedly morbid about Rosalie - she seems to be humoured by stories of people suffering and apparently visits her mother’s grave in the cemetery next to the house in the middle of the night. There seem to be some eerie inhabitants in that cemetery too but it’s a long time until we get a clear look at them, though gradually it becomes apparent that they’re putrescent corpses - the walking variety - and Rosalie possesses some sort of psychic connection with these creatures. As it’s revealed that she’s using these monsters to kill off anybody that causes her any kind of irritability Alicianne and the Norden son are forced to make a run for it but the corpses rapidly close in on them, trapping them in an old industrial plant.

It’s apparent from the beginning that the atmosphere of The Child is a little bit different to that of your average film. I mean, there are relatively conventional plot points in there that could have been considered unoriginal - it’s obviously the product of a post-Night of the Living Dead era, with elements of The Bad Seed in there as the rear of Something Weird’s cover rightly acknowledges - but the feel is offbeat and appropriately supernatural. There are two factors that I believe contributes most significantly to this. One is the overall look of the image. Possibly it has been shot on 16mm given the appearance of the film used (though the IMDB lists it as 35mm, so I can’t be sure), and the cinematography is quite stark. Secondly, there’s the amazing sound design - the score and sound effects are extremely imaginative and unique. I know it also utilises looped dialogue and that can be considered amateurish itself if not conceived under highly professional conditions but I think here it possibly adds to the idiosyncratic feel of the world being created. It is also, however, undeniably cause for some amusement as Rosalie in particular blurbs her lines in such a strange and emphatic fashion. Creature design is quite excellent too: Voskanian makes the smart move of only partly revealing them in earlier scenes rather than adopting the show-all ethic of many such films, but later when we get full sight of them they’re strikingly eerie things. The assault on the old building with the two protagonists trapped inside mounts progressively in tension, almost resulting in a worthy successor to Romero’s Night…. Perhaps if it had been made ten years earlier though The Child might have been recognised in the same light. As it is, few people have seen it and many of those few have simply disregarded it as an amateurish rip-off, which is a shame because I think it has much more to offer than that and has stood up well over a number of viewings too.

After discovering The Child in the early nineties on a horrific looking video cassette whose image alternated randomly between colour and B&W (that’s not a feature of the film itself, rest assured) it was fantastic to find the Something Weird DVD with a comparatively incredible transfer. It appears to be a slightly cropped version of the full negative but essentially looks balanced. There is excess print damage at reel changes but this settles down after each intermittent bout, although at one point during a fade-to-black the screen is an absolute mass of speckles and scratches but I really don’t mind being reminded that I’m watching the product of ‘film’ in this digital day and age and the fact that it’s only of periodic concern should make it quite bearable for all but the most anal of fans. As was the tradition with SW there is quite an entertaining arrangement of extras, though few of them actually relate specifically to the feature film itself. There are some funny short documentary films made around the fifties about ‘creepy kids’, lots of insane trailers for movies you never knew existed, some great radio spots for flicks like Invasion of the Blood Farmers (played over an amazing collection of exploitation movie posters) and an entire feature film as added bonus. I Eat Your Skin is pretty bad all round - I used to own the SW video cassette of this one and here the disc transfer is actually more than acceptable in comparison, though somewhat lacking in definition by modern standards. SW have managed to fit all of this on one side of a DVD too - you get your money’s worth there’s no doubt but it’s a cool disc to buy just for The Child for fans of the more obscure zombie film.

1979, France, Directed by Jean Rollin

Colour, Running Time: 78 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Redemption, Video: Letterbox 1.66:1, Audio: MPEG Mono

Among those that have seen and dislike Jean Rollin’s work his skills behind the camera are undoubtedly in question. His movies may sometimes come across as clumsy or amateurish with his performers usually only vaguely aware of what constitutes good acting. But he made films over a three decade period with regularity, and aside from stopping off at one or two other genres along the way he generally drifted between porn and fantasy horror often amalgamating the staples of his two specialist areas with wanton disregard for established trends. Could there have been something more to this man and his material than tits and cheapo vampire teeth? By 1979 he had established himself as a prolific director in both porn and erotic vampire cinema, and Fascination would seem like a collision of the two at times with less overt emphasis on the latter than his earlier works. In the middle of rural France there’s a castle where two attractive females waste away their days, apparently waiting for some initially unspecified event. Elsewhere a group of bandits have robbed some poor sod carrying a fortune in gold and are about to make off with it when an argument splits their group and Marc makes off with the bag having betrayed his fellow criminals. After a struggle with his hostage he is located in the woodland by the other thieves and is forced to take refuge in the aforementioned castle, where he meets the two girls. Threatening them with his, er, gun the women appear to be distinctly unperturbed by his aggressive attitude towards them. Meanwhile the other bandits are keeping a safe distance from the castle effectively preventing Marc from leaving while waiting for their chance. It becomes apparent that Eva and Elisabeth are awaiting the arrival of a posse of bourgeois females in the middle of the night for some sort of ritualistic meeting. Unable to leave due to the gun-toting bandits outside and now unwilling to leave anyway due to a notable degree of sexual enticement from Eva, Marc is destined to be swept up in the strange activities that are about to take place in the castle.

While Rollin’s commonly used theme of vampirism is evident in this film it’s not visible to the point of fanged, blood-sucking people being present as it was in movies such as Le Frisson Des Vampires. This serves to provide both an interesting new slant to his favourite subject as well as removing one of the things that newcomers may have previously found hard to digest: very odd looking vampires. It takes a subtle backseat as Rollin crafts a surreal world which Marc becomes enslaved in, notably signified by the meteorological shift that takes place as he gets closer to the castle - the area is surrounded by mist. Eva and Elisabeth are gorgeous young women and obviously reflective of his regular theme of two female companions as protagonists that invades almost every Rollin movie. That Marc is trapped in a house with these two indicates that Rollin is purely recreating his own sexual fantasies on film and I think it’s this exhuming of the creator’s own omnipresent dreams that helps lend the work its share of artistic authenticity - beneath the surface there’s a tangible beauty here that’s difficult to fake. Eva is of course played by Brigitte Lahaie, star of a large number of porn flicks during the seventies including a few of Rollin’s, and her range of ‘skills’ is utilised in Fascination wherever possible without descending the story into outright hardcore. Her relationship with Elisabeth is slightly more complex than what we see on screen, this being hinted at when the latter displays a certain amount of suicidal jealousy upon Eva’s demonstration of sexual affection for Marc, though who she’s actually jealous of is quite ambiguous - perhaps it’s anybody when attention is not being directed at her. Marc himself is essentially a fool, a man who’s devoted himself to crime even to the point of stealing from other criminals and he wades into the girls’ world with a sense of arrogance that will eventually be stripped, and as such there is also an air of morality about the story that is flimsy but lurking nonetheless. Possibly more important than individual characters though is the surreal ambience that surrounds the situation that they find themselves in - it’s an odd world that has the boundaries between itself and reality blurred. Rollin’s landscape photography and exceptional use of locations here is, as ever, exemplary. Whether that’s a happy accident is for the viewer to decide I suppose. It’s also worth noting also that the music used in this film is among the best used for any Rollin venture and aids the visual material in several significant scenes. The most suitable approach to Rollin’s work is to forget about cinematic convention, remove expectation of complete verisimilitude, and sit back to witness the strange events of a place that surely can’t exist. Fascination is actually a better starting point than many of his other films and one of his best all round.

Releasing Fascination on video cassette during the nineties was something that helped Redemption become a respected distributor of lesser seen genre material. Many of the flicks they unleashed on their niche audience were almost impossible to see at the time and they quickly became a favourite of those who could appreciate cinematic obscurities. Unfortunately they failed to grasp the possibilities of the digital era when DVD arrived and their disc releases were consequently difficult to admire with companies like Blue Underground and Synapse appearing on the horizon. Fascination was their very first UK DVD some time near the format’s infancy so most issues can be forgiven considering DVD took a few years from conception to be perfected. The problem is that even years later their discs had hardly evolved and thus the only thing going for them was their obscure content - hardly an accolade in a new era. Things may be looking up for them, however, with what looks like a sparkling new anamorphic transfer of Lèvres de Sang materialising soon in the US. Anyway, Fascination in particular is correctly letterboxed though without enhancement. It looks reasonably detailed with copious print damage and some washing out of colours. Audio comes in MPEG format, something that was adopted to a small extent at the birth of DVD but quickly became overshadowed and eventually snuffed out all but completely by the much more marketable Dolby Digital. It serves its purpose but is at least in native French with functional subtitles for those of us whose grasp of continental tongue extends only to bon jour. Dark Side magazine later joined forces with Redemption to release the film on a double pack (limited to availability through the magazine) with another of Rollin’s greats, Requiem Pour un Vampire, though the claimed anamorphic enhancement provided no benefit due to the fact that it was from the same master. All in all there is a much better disc of Fascination to be sold to us at some point and I’m sure I’ll be one of those shelling out for it when it finally appears.

1935, US, Directed by Stuart Walker

Black & White, Running Time: 72 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Universal, Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Dolby Digital Mono

After the success of Guy Endore’s 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris Universal missed the opportunity to hire the author as a screenwriter (MGM beat them to it - he went on to work on Mark of the Vampire, Mad Love, and Devil Doll for them), so they set about putting together their own wolf-man story. Appearing several years before the more commercially viable The Wolf Man the first real lycanthrope outing for the studio brought in Cornish actor Henry Hull as botanist Wilfred Glendon in search of a rare moonlight driven plant in Tibet. The scientist is mauled in an attack that occurs during an excursion through a valley that’s populated, as locally hypothesised, by demons - actually people that turn into wolves under moonlight. Having brought the plant back to England and now recovered from the vicious attack with only scars apparently remaining everything seems back to normal as he goes about studying the nature of his unusual find. Soon London is in the grip of terror as a series of murders and monster sightings threaten the safety of its inhabitants - Wilfred himself is afflicted with the Tibetan curse, transforming into a homicidal wolf-like man under full moon.

This is quite a different beast (excuse the pun) compared to Universal’s Larry Talbot series. It didn’t have any major stars, though reportedly there was to be a werewolf film around this time starring Karloff - something that was ultimately abandoned. Hull had the opportunity to wear make-up similar to what Chaney would later adopt in The Wolf Man, but found the process arduous and too uncomfortable to endure so a modified version was developed by make-up artist Jack Pierce. The creature as a result is quite unusual, sort of a less monstrous cousin of Oliver Reed’s titular monster in Curse of the Werewolf. One thing that’s quite unique to this film is the fact that the transformed beast actually resembles its human alias to a point where it can be recognised by those who know him, such is the similarity of facial features. Also, the werewolf here is less animal-like than is often the case: this creature doesn’t so much as shed clothing as he does actually getting dressed up to go out - leaving home after one transformation the werewolf grabs his hat and coat on the way out! At a glance the roaming monster could be mistaken for Mr Hyde and even utters some words later on during the film’s closing sequence. One nifty little idea comes when Wilfred begins realising there’s a problem: experimenting with simulated moonlight in attempts to stimulate the Tibetan plant into growth his hand gets caught under the lamp and promptly begins growing hair. It’s difficult to say whether Hull’s monster would have been more effective with Pierce’s full blown make-up as I never thought Chaney’s equivalent looked exactly threatening, but Hull is not the most frightening werewolf to be put on screen. He is, however, quite an eccentric creation and very eloquent along the way. A nice plus is the presence of the beautiful Valerie Hobson as his wife. She played alongside Colin Clive as the baron’s wife in Bride of Frankenstein and a notably different character too - while in Whale’s film she was of a slightly melancholic disposition here she is bubbly and perpetually effervescent. She brings some unwanted complexity to Wilfred’s life when she begins flirting and going out with an old flame, a situation that possibly evokes some of the darker feelings that reside within Wilfred. The werewolf myth has always seemed like an expression of the cathartic manifestation of man’s less desirable emotions and thoughts - the literal revelation of the primordial animal that’s buried beneath evolutionary layers to the point of almost complete suppression, at least in those of us that generally abide by the law. Thus there is much going on underneath Wilfred’s uptight exterior that can be contributing towards the creation of a beast.

This DVD presents a sharp image and mostly solid greyscales, along with quite a degree of grain in darker sequences. Generally it’s very agreeable. The audio track has plenty of hiss that does not detract from any enjoyment along the way - on the contrary, I actually prefer to hear some of this on particularly old films so I have little problem with it as long as it’s not excessive or obscuring dialogue, etc. Extras are non-existent also my DVD shares its nine gigabytes with the decidedly inferior She-Wolf of London, an unrelated borefest and possibly the nadir of Universal’s monster series (if it even qualifies as such). Werewolf of London is well written, competently acted, and features some unique ideas that elevate its value as a movie, despite the fact that it’s not especially frightening or challenging.