The Grim Cellar

1980, Italy/Spain, Directed by Umberto Lenzi

Colour, Running Time: 92 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R2, Anchor Bay; Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: DD Stereo

Ace Reporter Dean Miller is sent on an assignment to interview an influential politician on the important man’s arrival at the airport. Miller is immediately aware of a ‘situation’ unfolding as he arrives with his fearless cameraman - there is indeed a plane soaring in to land, but it’s not responding to communication of any kind and, possibly worse, it’s an unmarked military aircraft. The army are called in due to the potential security issue and everyone gathers there waiting - machine guns or cameras at hand - as the plane comes to a halt on the runway. Minutes pass with no sign of activity, until the door opens and out pour a horde of crazed disfigured men - and armed to the hilt to boot. All hell breaks loose as they go about slaughtering virtually everyone in the vicinity - army gunfire proves useless and before long there are scores of bloody, motionless bodies littering the runway. Miller manages to get out alive and head for the TV station with the intention of alerting the public to avoid any lethal delays. Interrupting an important dance show that’s being aired (‘It’s All Music’!) he bags himself about a minute of airtime before the boss realises his schedule has gone to pot, and switches him off. His efforts were in vain either way as there is a sudden disturbance down on the dance floor - the mutants have invaded the building, ripping apart the dancers (at last granting them a modicum of dignity…) leaving Miller to escape once again as the army try to regain control of the situation - the massacre would appear to be progressing across the city as the horde of creatures show no mercy in their unstoppable motiveless destruction.

People think that the Running Dead phenomenon started with the likes of 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead 04, but it started right here back in 1980 with a vengeance. This film makes up its own rules from the beginning and, despite being influenced heavily by Romero’s second Dead outing, it adds its own spin on the proceedings to craft something that continues to stand out from the rest of the Italian zombie movies that spewed forth from around 1979 onwards. These indestructible monsters have absolutely zero motive, other than to perhaps drink blood but that seems almost like a footnote in the wake of the surrounding madness. The creatures are downright ugly with their rotting faces and strange camera poses, but they stop at nothing in the onslaught - all humans can do is fight and die, or retreat. Miller (Mexican actor Hugo Stiglitz) manages to get away from the airport (his assistant stands there shooting film, blissfully ignorant to the threat) and subsequently the TV station to collect his wife so they can leave the city behind as civilisation crumbles. This movie is an almighty ‘fu*k you’ to critics as it obstinately lies beyond conventional criticism - you can sit there pointlessly outlining its abundant cinematic problems, or you can sit there and have a great time wallowing in the insanity that simply jumps off the screen. In that sense, it’s not a ‘good’ film, but you almost can’t help but have a good time as you witness the spectacle: that gob-smackingly ridiculous It’s All Music dance show that has to be seen to be believed (where the cameramen have stone faces and laboratory coats); the female dancers when attacked routinely ending up with their breasts exposed; the doctor who greets an intruder to his surgery not with questions, but by throwing his scalpel across the room into the poor man’s body; the army colonel delivering his rather non-specific militaristic instructions (Plan H, Plan B, etc.); the list goes on and on. The TV station was probably only written in because Romero had done the same a couple of years earlier, and the conclusion would have been a cliché in any other film, but the sheer audacity somehow gets Lenzi and co. off the hook. Miller and his wife’s journey turns out to be pretty cool, while the final sequence depicting them on the run before climbing a roller coaster structure to get away from hordes of creatures is actually rousing. Taken on its own unbelievably unhinged terms, Nightmare City is a bit of a winner. Groovy electronic music score too.

Anchor Bay’s UK DVD was a blessing for fans such as myself. Previously I’d only seen Incubo Sulla Città Contaminata (or City of The Walking Dead) on video cassette. VTC released it in the early eighties; good looking for video but cropped at the sides and censored to hell. There have since been a number of uncut DVDs released around the world: for example, EC Entertainment (non-anamorphic 2.35:1, with trailers, stills gallery), Italian Shock (containing gallery, trailer, interview, commentary, plus the entire soundtrack as a separate entity), a rough one from Laser Paradise (with non-removable Japanese subtitles!), and a US Anchor Bay disc that’s virtually identical to the British release. As far as extras are concerned the Italian Shock disc wins out, but transfer-wise the Anchor Bay discs are probably the victors. The film is generally dubbed in English but this seems to suit the oddball nature of the production, adding to the enjoyment somewhat. Check it out if you’re feeling brave, but switch off the synapses and get the beers in for maximum effect.

1995, US, Directed by John Carpenter

Colour, Running Time: 95 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R1, New Line; Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: DD 5.1

Insurance investigator John Trent is dragged struggling into a cell within an institution for the hopelessly deranged. Visited by one Dr Wrenn he recounts his story: months ago he was hired to investigate claims made by a book publisher for the disappearance of one of their most prominent writers of terror novels - Sutter Cane. Sniffing a publicity stunt on the eve of the release of one of Cane’s most anticipated books Trent begins scrutinizing the situation more closely. After the meeting with the publishers he picks up a number of Cane’s books to see if there’s anything to fathom from those, however the perpetually sceptical man soon finds himself being drawn into the illusion of Cane’s supernatural domain as he spends the next day or two reading. Realising that the covers of Cane’s books contain a hidden map, presumably offering a clue as to the author’s whereabouts, Trent sets off on a long drive with one of the publishing assistants despite not being aware of precisely where Cane’s possibly fictitious town is. However, after a couple of days of driving and a number of odd encounters on the road they arrive at the place which, as far as any map is concerned, doesn’t exist - Hobb’s End. As strange occurrences begin to increase with frequency it appears to Trent that the possibilities of a publicity stunt were left behind long ago, and in its place is an uncanny nightmare that almost suggests that Cane has created everything that is happening. Or Trent has gone insane.

Amidst Carpenter’s erratic career those consistently familiar with his work often agree that there is a roughly fifty-fifty split between the genre busting classics and the oddly misfiring projects that a seasoned director would be expected to do something a lot better with. Whilst everybody agrees that, for example, The Thing is amazing and Ghosts of Mars sits at the other end of the extreme (yeah?) there are some that mix opinions, In The Mouth of Madness seemingly one of them. Sam Neill and his misjudged American accent together take on the role of John Trent, but I think considering the fact that he’s experienced and generally capable he doesn’t pull it off completely convincingly. There’s something that doesn’t quite work about him and it’s one of those things that you have to learn to live with if you’re going to be watching this more than once. Julie Carmen (the aristocratic vampire chick from Fright Night Part 2) thankfully tags along as his sidekick for the journey and brightens things up a touch, while other more renowned stars have brief (probably financially dictated) appearances here and there: most notably David Warner as Wrenn and Charlton Heston as the publisher. The film’s story confronts the idea that gruesome fiction can warp the minds of its followers, or at least that’s what it appears to be confronting although if this is a moral angle of some kind I see it as a slightly hypocritical ideal - preaching the pitfalls of horror on the human mind within a horror vehicle designed to entertain. Aside from this hiccup the movie winds up being one of the best interpretations of H.P. Lovecraft’s worlds of terror that’s not actually based on any specific Lovecraftian work. It sort of welds Stephen King to Lovecraft (the antagonist, Cane, representing the former, the domain he creates representing the latter) with a degree of success. Trent’s largely retrospective story is told from the cell of an insane asylum (a characteristic of many Lovecraft stories) as he recounts how the world outside began to go crazy during the release of Sutter Cane’s latest novel on to a blood-hungry public. In flashback he recalls noticing a thriving aggressive madness swelling around him as interest in the book became feverish, his own understanding of reality beginning to break down as he investigated the disappearance of the author - there are shades of Videodrome here (confusion of where the line between fantasy and reality lies resulting from immersing oneself in some form of entertainment). His trip into the fictitious town that may or may not have been created out of the imagination of a man is suitably nightmarish and one of Carpenter’s best realisations of the essence of terror in film. Illustrations of this include the strange geriatric cyclist who’s really a boy that can’t escape Hobb’s End, a sadistic old lady who mutates into a multi-tentacled monster, a psychotic crowd of children, Trent’s repeatedly unsuccessful attempts to escape the homicidal townspeople, etc. As with a number of his other projects, Carpenter was heavily involved with the music and this really announces itself over the lead titles as pounding metal guitar accompanies images of a printing press producing thousands of books that will eventually spread insanity across the globe. Therein lies the apocalyptic thread that flourishes throughout much of the director’s other material - The Thing, Prince of Darkness, Escape From New York… What I ultimately love about this movie is its inherently inexplicable nature, something substantiated by the conclusion - leaving the horrifying without explanation grants it the power to tantalise. It’s possible that Trent investigates the author’s absence and goes mad in the process, but this is only one possibility and, as usual, I enjoy this sort of ambiguity.

Unjustifiably this has never reached the UK on DVD. Back in the nineties good old EIV put out a cropped fullscreen tape (which I believe was later followed by a widescreen version). It’s common knowledge that Carpenter prefers shooting in anamorphic Panavision (2.39:1) and his visuals always look unreasonably compromised when dissected in such artistic blasphemy - see the two stills above for an idea of how much information is removed in the pan & scan process. The US disc on which this review is based was released years ago by New Line and contains both wide and fullscreen options (allowing me to capture the comparative stills above), a trailer and a commentary from director and cinematographer. It is therefore the only sensible way to buy In The Mouth of Madness until someone has the understanding to undertake a Blu-ray restoration. The New Line DVD is not a bad choice in the meantime.

1970, UK, Directed by Roy Ward Baker

Colour, Running Time: 95 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R1, Anchor Bay; Video: Anamorphic 1.85:1, Audio: DD Mono

As the cinema world moved on in terms of sophistication and evolution, so Hammer remained almost static (increases in gore and nudity aside) as they made an almost unnoticeable transition into the seventies. At the time their films may have began to appear old fashioned or tired but several decades on it hardly seems to matter as their output has taken on a cult status that many collectors today really get into. So after a run of a number of well concocted sequels in their Dracula franchise during the sixties Anthony Hinds wrote was became their most sadistic and cruel interpretation of all - possibly an attempt to modernise, perhaps a reaction to diminished censorship restrictions. A young carefree individual is caught in the aftermath of having had ‘relations’ with the burgomaster’s daughter and makes his escape by leaping from a window and landing in a horse/cart combo that carries him off into the wilderness. Coming across a melancholy village that’s in the grip of Dracula’s reign of terror Paul attempts to claim a room for the night by persuading another woman to mate with him, only to be turned away by the paranoid innkeeper, thus he hides in another horse and carriage as he’s whisked off again, this time to the castle owned by the infamous count. There the initial hospitality of the count, residing with his servant and a nymph, begins to turn sour as the count interrupts a love-making session between Paul and the young woman (this man‘s a love machine!). The count brutally stabs the woman as Paul stares on in shock, but as the sun comes up Dracula has gone - and the door has been locked. Already in trouble Paul is now locked in a room with a murdered woman! The castle itself is built precariously on the edge of a cliff and, ever resourceful, Paul attaches several sheet together and makes his way down the side to where he can see another window below. What he doesn’t realise until he gets there is that the window is the only entrance/exit to a crypt where the vampire sleeps by day; Paul is not seen again, or at least not alive… Later on his brother and part-time girlfriend attempt to retrace Paul’s steps having not seen him for some time, this leading them to the very same village, castle, and ultimate threat.

There are a multitude of real problems with Scars…, the first being the terribly unimaginative prologue establishing Dracula’s relationship with the nearby village. Basically a bat releases some blood on to Dracula’s cape, this reviving him, before a corpse shows up with holes in its neck. This prompts the villagers to go on a rampage attempting to burn the castle but only enraging the count in the process as he has the worshippers of the church massacred in a fit of deliberate blasphemy. Aside from the church massacre the ten minute introduction is woefully outdated and doesn’t set great expectation for what’s to come. Then there are two factors that cursed Hammer from the beginning, two things they never could get right: day-for-night photography, which never works and was overused; and those ridiculous bats! Seriously, even back in the sixties and seventies these hopeless bouncing rubber things surely didn’t convince anyone. And as if to rub out faces in bat shit, the damn things turn up at every single possible opportunity - they’re an embarrassment. Finally the overall problem is an obvious reduction in production values - the sets looks cheap and I think Roy Ward Baker has expressed his disappointment in the past over his arrival after accepting the script, only to find there was far less money available than what he thought would do the story justice. The climax - not to give anything away but it features a large burning thing falling from the castle top, down the side of a cliff- is a demonstration of god-awful special effects. Based on these issues Scars… may not be looking too hot - however! Once the prologue is out of the way and we’re introduced to Paul, his brother (a young Dennis Waterman) and their spicy female associate (Jenny Hanley) things look up. Paul’s antics get him into some comedic trouble forming the catalyst for a supernatural adventure into the unknown, as one obstacle leads to yet another increasingly difficult one and Paul spirals further into strife until his very existence is in the shadow of the vampire - this building of events catches you off guard after the mundane opening sequence, suddenly leading to quite an eerie series of situations. This is maintained as Paul’s brother and girl retrace the same route, Hanley is quickly dressed down to clothing far saucier, and the violence is stepped up a notch. Patrick Troughton’s servant character is both tragic and funny - twice during the course of the film he’s tricked into opening the door to unwanted company. On the other hand he reveals horrific scars that are routinely caused by his master as punishment for whatever the count considers an issue. The crypt built into the cliff wall is a great idea, both because it’s a suitably creepy hideout for the count (and a place for Paul to get himself trapped in) and due to the fact that it provided Baker with an opportunity at last to have Dracula scale a vertical wall on camera - an element of Stoker’s book that hadn’t been attempted by the studio prior to this. It’s brief albeit effective. Also the inn full of hostile villagers predates that of American Werewolf, though this period piece takes place a hundred or so years into the past - the cast there is headed by a perpetually angry Michael Ripper, Hammer regular as some of you may know. It’s disappointing that Hammer failed the cast, crew, and audience with a diminished budget as there is some good stuff here, almost ruined by stripped down production values. Nevertheless Scars of Dracula is a movie I’ve found myself rewatching a few times and lapping up the periodically creepy, sadistic, titillating moments that punctuate the craziness.

Anchor Bay put this out as a two disc set in the US (the feature documentary Many Faces of Christopher Lee making up disc two), uncut with a moderately soft widescreen image. Picking up the UK disc also (from Optimum) I made a comparison of the two (screen samples above, a portion of the frame captured only - hover cursor over them for identification). It seems to me that, whilst the source was probably the same, the UK transfer is slightly sharper in appearance perhaps due to a small increase in contrast. Colour is also a touch bolder on the R2; overall the UK disc looks more attractive by a small degree. It loses the documentary, however this can be found coupled with the Optimum UK release of Dracula Prince of Darkness, so it is reasonably easy to get a hold of either way. Both UK and US releases of Scars… also contain a commentary with the director and Lee along with other minor extras such as trailers/stills, etc. Significant flaws aside I’m happy to own this film and the DVDs available are pretty good.

1997, US, Directed by James Cameron

Colour, Running Time: 187 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R2, Fox; Video: Letterbox 2.30:1, Audio: DD 5.1

Cameron’s nineties blockbuster Titanic is one of those movies that neatly slots people into categories: there are those that love(d) it, those that have seen it and hate it, and those that haven’t seen it but hate it anyway. It attracts such polarised responses not for the extent of its qualities as a piece of art or cinema I believe, but more so because of its status as an epic romance - hardly a recommendation for hip factor or street cred. The most obvious initial problem with tackling the story of the Titanic’s sinking is that everybody would already know how it ends (well, excepting today’s youth generation perhaps, who are apparently more aware of who Simon Cowell is than God himself according to recent surveys). What Cameron decided to do was weave in a fictitious onboard romantic drama with the historical details, one that should invite in audience sympathy via a side door rather than attempt the more obvious front door and risk preconceived boredom. Using a present-day wraparound idea, an old woman recounts her days aboard the Titanic ship on its maiden (and only - for the youngsters) voyage. An upper-class girl, Rose is about to be roped into a marriage to an abhorrent man, ultimately leading a life of unfulfilment and worthlessness. She feels trapped and suffocated by the fact that she’s being ushered along by cultural expectation and social/family pressures, thus she attempts to resort to the only escape she can imagine: suicide. That is until Jack persuades her otherwise. Having won his ticket to board, he’s essentially a homeless wanderer who lives purely for what each day brings as it materialises, travels to wherever he pleases, and does almost as he likes without really harming anyone. By all accounts he’s the antithesis of Rose and where he’s happy with his minimal status and non-existent financial worth she has everything materialistically to look forward but no joy. The instant and developing attraction between them is the cause for much class and personal conflict amongst Rose’s aristocratic acquaintances - then the boat hits an iceberg and their fight to survive together becomes infinitely more desperate.

Cameron had progressed his varying movie-making skills over the years, realising talents that were clearly budding back when Terminator was released, proving that with modest resource he could put together a cracking, technically adept story that brought in reasonable returns. Through The Abyss and the sequel to the 1984 Arnie classic Cameron established an ability to utilise cinema’s technologies, not just in a derivative manner but to a point where he was instrumental in their evolution. But beneath the wizardry he understood how to craft a story and this is the factor that’s kept his films alive all these years, including Titanic. If you can’t (or don’t want to) identify with the characters of Rose and Jack and their ensuing relationship then the film will fail for you - everything sinks or floats (excuse the pun) based on that. Thankfully I can identify with them, despite not having much of a liking for Leonardo DiCaprio, and I get sucked right in I’m sorry to say! Kate Winslet was at peak here and was photographed stunningly - her beauty was astounding and the plight that brings her to almost self-destruction is understandable and engaging. Titanic is almost a film of two halves, the first establishing the people along with their various situations while snowballing the relationship between the two leads, the second focusing on the effects of the catastrophic impact between ship and iceberg, the love story operating alongside. Because most of us truly feel for Rose and Jack by the time the ship strikes the berg there is a tingling emotional connection between us and the disaster that unfolds: the impact on the viewer is magnificent despite being pre-empted due to its historical significance. And even after seeing the movie several times, scenes where Rose is attempting to break Jack free from his handcuffs as water rises or the fumbling of a key in the lock of a barrier, for example, are incredibly tense; a sign of great cinematic storytelling. Underlying this are the class struggles that seemed to be more apparent in preceding eras, though divisions are probably as present now as they ever were. Herein people are treated according to their fateful status in life, and there is in hindsight a rather sledgehammer approach to this - the fact that Jack and Rose are from essentially opposing classes accentuates this social/political aspect of the narrative. This black and white view of life is where the only real problem in the film lies for me - the upper classes generate the handful of evil people in Titanic, and these people are all English of course (good being generally represented by Irish and American). This seemed to be the start of a trend for English-bashing in film, something that’s an easy target in today’s PC times. Aside from this hiccup, unconscious or otherwise, and a smattering of corny occurrences along the voyage that I don‘t really need to go into, Cameron pulls us inevitably to the sinking of the ship. This monolithic climax lasts for at least an hour, one very frightening and sobering hour, and this leads to a very emotional conclusion. The touching score is instrumental in maintaining the ongoing emotive drive and thankfully Celine Dion’s sappy voice and the piece that infinitely did the rounds on the radio back in ‘98 doesn’t kick in until the end credits are rolling. Whether Titanic is a historical recreation first and foremost or a romantic epic is up to the viewer to decide, but either way it’s a powerful and emotionally vibrant tale from a gifted director who’s been absent from feature films for way too long.

1970, France, Directed by Jess Franco

Colour, Running Time: 84 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R2, Hardgore; Video: 1.33:1, Audio: DD Mono

We take a moment to peer into the insane world of that Spanish auteur/madman Jess Franco, the director who’s created movies that even some of his ardent fans hate the sight of. Amidst an excessive proliferation of creative output there have been a few nails hit and some may consider it worth wading through the excrement to find them. Alternatively you may let us poor, tormented reviewers do it for you… A popular nightclub dancer’s act of strange and slow paced erotica lures the eye of an eccentric mademoiselle and the naïve woman is enticed back to a house where she is almost held willing captive for some period of time, the bars being the promise of fame/fortune, etc. During this time she repeatedly finds herself experiencing lucid dreaming, progressively confusing what’s actually happening around her with what’s possibly pure imaginative fantasy. The dreams take on a sadistic and increasingly sexual tone as the woman’s perceptions distort and sanity begins to crumble. Is she losing her mind or is there something more calculating going on with her mistress or the strange people across the street who peer at her from behind closed windows?

The aura of Nightmares… is appropriately dreamlike and surreal, as in many of Franco’s better works. Whether intentional or not, the misty look of the image accommodates the uncanny nature of the material aptly, and our perception of what’s really going on is blurred with efficacy until closer to the conclusion. The crowning creative achievement, however, is Bruno Nicolai’s necessarily schizophrenic score, swiftly alternating between psychedelic jazz and the haunting whining of strings at the drop of a hat - he understands what Franco was trying to capture on film and accentuates it. The soundtrack is an integral part of the beauty to be found here. Conversely Franco’s cinematic techniques can be quite irritating at times: his compositions seem to be largely random, and that damned zoom lens (a staple of many of his works) should have been banned. For the most part the underlying story can be seen as a feeble excuse for consistent softcore pornography as the females relentlessly stroll around either naked or titillatingly exposed to varying degrees - it’s actually quite steamy and makes for comfortable entertainment on a couple of levels. Unfortunately the narrative is undermined by an attempt in the final act to authenticate the preceding events by returning the story to earth, thereby dissolving the mysterious ambience that had been built up. Franco drops the ball here and a shame it is because he inadvertently or otherwise had something quite ethereal and sexy on his hands up until that point. It is nevertheless essential viewing for Franco fans and those who might enjoy seventies eroticism or surreal fantasy. Everyone else may be driven mad.

Hardgore’s DVD would appear to be a convert of the earlier Shriek Show release, containing similar specifications and extras. The film has its original title over the credits (La Cauchemars Naissent la Nuit) but alas the audio is presented in awful dubbed English. The SS disc contained a French language option in addition to the English, so this alone makes it a clear winner. The Hardgore is well stocked aside from that sad omission: a twenty three minute featurette on the Eurocine production company, originators of many a terrible movie plus a few minor gems too - quite a few clips of rare pieces are included. This is followed by a twenty four minute interview with an aging but jovial Jess Franco, though I found his thick accent hard to follow at times. A fake trailer for Nightmares… is also present alongside a large number of trailers for other Hardgore releases, some of them worth watching, some of them need to be avoided but this at least gives you an idea which of their other discs might suit your tastes. I really can’t stand some of these modern shot-on-video timewasters, on the other hand a few of the pre-nineties movies (The Boneyard and Creepozoids for example) bring back memories and I may try to pick them up. Taking Hardgore’s DVD (admittedly nicely designed) cover art into consideration, much is made of Soledad Miranda’s involvement in Nightmares Come At Night but it should be noted the ill-fated beauty only has a small role, though she does get quite a portion of the extras devoted to her one way or another, and her costumes on screen in the movie itself are on the rather hot side… Nightmares… is an erotically-charged exploration of surrealism with expository flaws that could have been avoided, and aside from a soft, non-progressive image and English-only audio, it gives Hardgore their best DVD I’ve yet seen (thanks more so to US-based Media Blasters).

1974, US, Directed by Frederick R Friedel

Colour, Running Time: 68 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R2, Hardgore; Video: 1.33:1, Audio: DD Mono

Three criminals are on the loose in California and the story opens with them waiting for a couple of losers to return home so they can teach them a lesson for some wrongdoing. After beating and killing the losers the mobsters (one showing off a terrible afro that resembles him to Oddbod in Carry on Screaming) head out on the run across country, stopping only to humiliate a shop assistant in their ongoing search for amusement in the suffering of others. Later through their journey they discover an old farmhouse populated only by what appears to be the helpless combination of a young girl and her paraplegic grandfather - a seemingly perfect opportunity to hold out for a few days. After making themselves unwelcome by asserting their newly claimed territory one of them decides to have his wicked sexually-charged way with the innocent female, only to have his throat slashed following a struggle. After tricking one of the other wayward fools into hiding the body for her she’s soon accosted by one of the others and right in front of her lifeless grandfather too - minutes later the lawless man is finding himself on the nasty end of an axe as his blood is splattered around the room. The group have chosen the wrong house to hide out in it seems…

The opening minutes might bear a vague similarity to an area of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, though perhaps Axe has a little less sheen to it… I was prepared to write this movie off after around half an hour - very little happens and the acting is almost revolting. In fact for the first eight or nine minutes virtually nothing happens and bearing in mind the running time only extends to just over an hour that’s a significant proportion of the total that we’re sitting around effectively watching the paint of the opening set’s walls dry. The three stooges are such a charismatically challenged bunch too that we’re descending into almost irreversible boredom by the twenty five minute mark. Their brief interruption of serenity at a roadside shop - where they proceed to throw fruit, harass the assistant, and fire guns at an apple on her head - is a fairly pathetic affair and it can’t stop our diminishing confidence in the product from dropping out of sight. Then they come across the farmhouse and the oddball family of two that live there and some juice is injected at last. Lisa (the young girl) could be Rosalie from The Child albeit a couple of years older - quite a cold little girl, distanced from her own emotions and disconnected from normal social tendencies partly by her geographically isolated location: a perfect candidate for someone to be pushed over the edge towards homicidal revenge. Her minimal pleasures in life have resulted in a person with little to lose, except virginity, which the criminals are intent on taking. By the conclusion the story has revealed itself to be a very limited but to-the-point exercise which conversely doesn’t really seem like it actually has a point to make anyway. Its existence is based on the moderately brutal despatching of several people who didn’t need to be on the planet in the first place, and pretensions beyond that are entirely absent. Hence the short running time. If it wasn’t for some of the hopeless acting on display this perhaps could have been more widely recognised as a noteworthy film, coming as it does from the same era and mode of thinking as the likes of Last House on the Left and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but its technical and artistic limitations will always prevent an audience of any reasonable scale from being interested in such a molecular dot in the history of cinema. Amidst the rubble that this film creates in its wake there are a couple of satisfying glimmers of light, or darkness, that keep it from drowning in its own occasional gore.

It’s hard to believe British authorities took offence to this one two decades ago and banned it on VHS, but that’s what happened (the highlight sequence - Lisa‘s dismemberment of one of the bodies - is admittedly quite darkly visceral). I’m sure Axe will never be high on anyone’s list for priority restoration so Hardgore’s DVD is almost as good as we might get. Many of these no-budget seventies exploitation flicks look appropriate with an opened-up fullframe negative and that’s pretty much what we have here I believe. Quality is acceptable whilst not providing demonstration material and the weird soundtrack survives equally. Extras are almost non-existent (a theatrical trailer), as is to be expected. Something Weird released a DVD in the US years ago that was quite padded out with little bonuses but most of it had nothing to do with the film in question, however they at least gave the package a little more value seeing as you’re not getting very much film for your money here (SW also generously added a complete bonus film, The Electric Chair, for real masochists). If you can find Hardgore’s DVD cheap enough you might want to check it out, and use it for a coaster if you discover it’s not been a good way to spend an afternoon with your first date (I wouldn’t recommend it…).

1981, US/New Zealand, Directed by Michael Laughlin

Colour, Running Time: 95 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Hardgore, Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: DD Mono

The cover of Hardgore’s DVD might fool people into thinking they’re picking up a homicidal mutant flick but this is more of a twist on the old mad doctor movies, mixed with a little genuine psychological theory to keep its head above water (not that mad doctor movies ever needed that but the injection of credible science brings a touch of freshness). Pete Brady, a college student in a small American town (actually a New Zealand town for tax reasons but we would never have noticed), is in dire financial straits and takes up on the suggestion of a peer to earn some extra cash at the local laboratory, giving himself over to an experiment that he has almost no prior knowledge - obviously the resident scientists would have to go for students with this scam because few others would be stupid enough to succumb. Meanwhile a number of deaths are occurring around the town, the perpetrators being college students inexplicably acting out of character. When Pete actually shows up for his appointment he’s promptly strapped into a chair, reassured that everything’s fine and injected with a horrifically large needle; later Pete himself is beginning to act a little on the unusual side but can his policeman father stop him before he does something nasty?

The film-makers have done a reasonable job of crafting a moderately professional offering with an obviously minimal budget, constructing a story that requires only people, locations, and a few nicely executed gore effects. Though Hardgore would have you believe otherwise when purchasing their UK DVD, there are no crazy mutants in this film (the image in question is actually a homicidal teen wearing a cool Tor Johnson mask), rather kids who have been manipulated into behaving against their normal conduct at the hands of a scientific organisation headed by an ancient professor who has somehow acquired extended longevity. Unlike today’s fright flicks the kids of early eighties horror were bearable and actually quite likable on occasions (today’s pretty young hipsters generally have the audience rooting for the killers) so the bunch here score marks for eliciting a modicum of sympathy - they include Dan Shor from Tron and Strange Invaders, hot babe Dey Young and Marc McClure who played Jimmy Olsen in the Superman movies! Theories were formulated and proven decades ago by the likes of Thorndike and Skinner to present to us today great insight into how humans and other organisms learn through voluntary actions in response to stimuli that persuades them to act or avoid depending on the expected outcome - this was called operant conditioning and forms the basis for some of the ideas in the film. Whilst liberties have been taken with these theories it makes a pleasurable change to find a film with a little thought in academic areas. The other real bonus is a catchy and emotively executed score by Tangerine Dream, a marvellous synthesiser instrumental specialist outfit from Germany who produced many noteworthy albums outside of cinema, plus created scores for the likes of the hip vampire movie Near Dark, Ridley Scott’s mess of a fantasy Legend, and Firestarter (before Drew Barrymore became a drug-lovin’ lesbian… I assume). There’s a pretty groovy disco/party episode as well that will have viewers smiling. On the downside Strange Behaviour (or Dead Kids as it was known in some territories) is slow moving and hardly shot with boundless energy - the camerawork is often quite static while the killings themselves have an oddly laid back pace about them.  The film rarely succeeds in exciting the viewer in any way, however you might consider checking it out for its positive aspects but it’s not necessarily one that will have you repeatedly reaching for it on dark stormy nights.

Hardgore’s DVD presents the film well enough considering the depths they‘ll usually stoop to, surprisingly anamorphically enhanced to its full Panavision ratio, well detailed and coloured quite naturally, if perhaps a little under saturated. In a move that could in truth be a sick homage to the subject matter of the film, the caveat here is that the BBFC have censored it by around 40 seconds - a scene depicting suicide in such detail that it would have had mindless Brits topping themselves everywhere. I’m sure if one is so inclined to voluntarily cease their own existence they wouldn’t be using Strange Behaviour as a step-by-step guide to aid them on their journey to The Beyond - whilst I can understand removal of scenes that depict real life animal cruelty (e.g. Deep River Savages) this is the sort of thing that tends to irritate me somewhat, especially in the internet age where people can access pretty much anything they want online without having to track down nasty gore films to fulfil their insatiable bloodlust. If this removal of footage bothers you then the version to go for was released not too long ago by Synapse in the US. Having said all that, this was submitted to the board around 2004 and perhaps attitudes may well differ these days. The Hardgore disc also features a written interview with writer Bill Condon, the man who later got involved with the Candyman franchise as well as netting himself an Oscar for Gods and Monsters. Finally there are a selection of trailers (one or two of them extremely bad) for a handful of other Hardgore DVDs, some of which persuaded me to avoid them like the plague - presumably not the intended effect. Butchered anyone? Somehow I don’t think so…

1971, US, Directed by Benjamin Clark

Colour, Running Time: 76 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R2, Anchor Bay; Video: Anamorphic 1.85:1, Audio: DTS

Night of the Living Dead was, as most reasonably knowledgeable film fans are aware, responsible for drastically altering the landscape of zombie cinema through transformation of the sub-genre from folkloric curiosity to something altogether more terrifying. In its wake followed outings directly influenced by its impact and success as this transformation continued its periodic evolutionary steps beyond the film’s first sequel right up to the present day, where the undead devils have now often learned to sprint faster than their living counterparts. But going back to the period between 1968 and 1978 (where Dawn of the Dead made its own indelible indentation) there were some interesting works being produced around the globe that pretty much had Night… to thank for their existence while possessing enough qualities to propel them to positions of value in their own right. Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (i.e. immature teens shouldn’t mess with black magic and corpses, as we all know from personal experiences, natch) is one that’s survived to be noticed through the last three decades but continues to attract completely varying opinions.

The narrative ideas of the film clearly owe a lot to Night… where a group of people become trapped in an isolated house against a relentless onslaught of the rotting dead, although reciting the story in a little more detail goes something like this: Alan hires a troupe of young adults/wannabe actors to travel to a small island for a night’s fun interfering with the black arts via rituals and the like, something that’s almost exclusively designed to provide him with some amusement thereby breaking up what must be ongoing personal boredom with the more mundane aspects of life. Following some embarrassment at the apparent failure of his expression of satanic rites one of the troupe shows Alan how it should be done, everyone laughing before the budding director forces them to take a corpse from the cemetery back to their cabin for a bit more tomfoolery. Some of them go along with it, some are understandably perturbed, but Alan heads further down the road of pushing taste to its boundaries for the sake of attention and the sheer amusement of revelling in other people’s distress. Then the graves outside begin opening up - it seems Alan’s ritual was a success after all, and within minutes a horde of the walking dead approaches and surrounds the cabin in a thirst for blood. Where Night… was very straight faced in its dealing of the material the tactic here is somewhat different: the first half of the film takes a persistently facetious angle as it presents its characters to us, most of whom are wisecracking teens that are endearingly lacking in pessimism. Heading the group is Alan (actually Alan Ormsby, one of the scriptwriters and special make-up effects artists on the crew - this sort of thing happens in low budget productions…). Alan is possibly the character that makes or breaks this film for most viewers due to his relentless arrogance and obnoxiousness. And it goes on and on to a point where viewers might wonder if anything horrifying (beyond the barrage of verbal gags) is ever going to happen. That’s why, for me, this film is actually successful - when the shit does hit the fan its impact is multiplied. It goes from comic to dark in one very swift turn and the contrast lends the nastier second half an edge it might not otherwise have had - sort of a similar effect to that of Shaun of the Dead, or American Werewolf, though not quite in the same class. It’s the stuff that gets on everyone’s nerves that ultimately aids the payoff, if people can just see past the things that are getting on their nerves of course… For this reason the film works much better on multiple viewings. The show-stopping corpse rising sequence is something that Night… never had and it’s remarkably executed, having an air of the sinister and uncanny about it. The teens’ comedic and dramatic interactions up until that point turn to disbelieving terror as the final third spirals upward to a chilling climax and a final shot that hints at something apocalyptic on the horizon.

This has been consistently available in one form or another for years. In the video age it would surface time and again with the crafty re-titling tactics of small video distribution companies that would trick fools like me into repeatedly buying the same film (Revenge of the Living Dead for example, neither title nor (extremely bad) cover artwork bearing resemblance to the real film it was selling). There was a DVD from VCI in the US that then became the most acceptable way of viewing Children… for a long time (in the post laserdisc era of course), but its non-anamorphic, dark and fairly indistinct picture was not entirely desirable by modern standards. Anchor Bay UK then released this disc on review and improved things in some respects: we had a clearer anamorphic transfer, multiple (and unnecessary in the case of DTS 5.1!) sound options, and a commentary by Alan Ormsby. (Incidentally the sound design of the original film is absolutely brilliant - psychedelic and completely insane!) The problem with the AB disc was that it contained a shorter version of the film; the ball was well and truly dropped on that one. Finally, after a brief transfer hiccup that involved the discs being temporarily recalled, a marginally more definitive edition was put out a year or so ago in the US by VCI again: anamorphic enhancement for the full length version (approximately 87 minutes), another commentary, and several short featurettes. It’s a monumental shame that Anchor Bay could/would not obtain the full version for the UK disc as it would have resulted in the best overall presentation. The source material will only allow image quality of a limited standard with a film such as this so it must be considered that it might not look any better than the AB disc even on HD, at least not without the full restoration it will likely never get. All in all, this movie is a minor cult item that can bring rewards to the more patient viewer of the macabre.

1973, Italy, Directed by Antonio Margheriti

Colour, Running Time: 95 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Blue Underground, Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: DD Mono

Following a mysterious opening sequence where a body is seen dumped in a cellar and horrifically disfigured by hungry rats we jump forward to meet convent girl Corringa, who is paying a visit to her old family home, a gothic castle in rural Scotland. She’s confronted with all manner of unhinged activity: people are - regardless of traditional gender matching in some cases - having illicit affairs with one another (which she inevitably becomes drawn into herself), there are arguments about the family wealth, and quickly the lady of the house is brutally murdered. This is followed by more killings as the police are brought in to find out who’s behind the bloody mess, Corringa probably wondering what sort of domestic madness she has stumbled upon.

The title, production period, country of origin, and the initial impression of La Morte Negli Occhi Del Gatto may indicate we’re in store for a classic giallo but that’s only partly accurate: the film has a lot in common with the gothic Italian horror stories that proliferated throughout the sixties, a couple of which director Margheriti himself was responsible for (notably Castle of Blood/Danza Macabra and Virgin of Nuremberg). To throw a spanner into the works as far as our preconceptions about genre are concerned, once the killings are under way one of the characters hints at the possibility of vampiric activity (an undead vision at one point supporting this theory), while another blames everything on the poor cat that consistently hangs around doing no harm to anyone - the title seems to be tenuously designed to allude to the possibility that the cat itself witnesses the killings. There’s even a gorilla repeatedly spotted spying on several of the castle’s inhabitants and may be responsible for the deaths in some sort of anti-human vendetta. Hence there is a schizophrenic, slightly chaotic edge to the story outline that is not altogether outside the realms of commonality when it comes to seventies Italian genre output, and it certainly takes the ideas of any viewers who think they may be able to fathom out what’s going on and buries those ideas in the castle crypt, right alongside the coffin that’s discovered smashed open from the inside. Having said that, this imaginative approach to crafting an insane plot goes frustratingly astray by the film’s conclusion, which is rather conventional in comparison to what’s preceded it. The journey up until this conclusion is fun nonetheless. Margheriti (here credited with his usual anglicised pseudonym Anthony Dawson) generally seemed like a capable director who pumped out fairly large volumes of work without apparent detriment to quality, though his films aren’t A-class to be honest. Without going overboard on the sex and bloodshed he managed to construct fittingly atmospheric movies that were both raunchy and periodically violent, particularly for their respective eras - see for example the horrific rat face-eating sequence in Virgin of Nuremberg, a film made in 1963! Incidentally the prologue to Seven Deaths… reminds me of that earlier film, featuring as it does a horde of rats devouring some poor sod’s face. Riz Ortolani, one of my favourite Italian composers (e.g. Zeder), provides the score though it’s not especially emphasised and not as notable as some of his other works. The cast function reasonably well, English girl Jane Birkin taking centre stage as the sensual Corringa as she’s surrounded by an assortment of oddballs whose relational issues keep the pace trekking along nicely. The stereotype police inspector who materialises on the scene the moment a corpse appears, complete with Scottish (dubbed) accent, is an amusing touch. Regarding the soap-opera shenanigans, it’s sometimes hard to follow just what’s going on with who on occasions, but I found this can easily take a back seat to the homicidal nature of the proceedings if one so wishes to mentally disengage. The production design stands out along the way, lending an apparent finesse to the project. Successfully consolidating elements of the giallo and gothic sub-genres Margheriti again proves himself to be a director who delivers pretty much exactly what’s needed with this one.

The best version to seek out is undoubtedly Blue Underground’s DVD, placed on shelves several years ago. The image is soft, most likely a symptom of its source, while colours are strong, possibly a touch too saturated - overall a satisfying widescreen transfer. Audio is provided in English dub only which is marginally disappointing as I would have liked an Italian track at least for comparison. A couple of scenes seem to have missed English dubbing as they’re present in this cut but with Italian dialogue only (subtitled), however it’s not too jarring and commendation is due thanks to the cut being complete. Given the British setting the English dialogue is not out of place, so I can happily live with what’s here despite griping a little. An interview with Giovanni Simonelli rounds out an acceptable DVD release that could admittedly have been improved but is nevertheless welcome due to the film’s preceding obscurity.

1975, Spain, Directed by Amando de Ossorio

Colour, Running Time: 90 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Blue Underground, Video: Anamorphic 1.82:1, Audio: DD Mono

As part of a marketing strategy for a new boat two helpless young ladies are sent off to float around the middle of the ocean in the hope that they will be ‘accidentally’ found, the resultant publicity doubling for a sneaky advertisement for the boat which helped them through their ordeal by simply staying afloat. Of course the whole plan goes to sh… bits when the two models drift through a dense patch of fog and discover an old abandoned galleon adrift at sea. Despite warnings from base one of them foolishly decides to board the ship to have a look around: she’s never seen again. Deciding they’d better help out, the marketing guys get together with a crazy meteorologist and a couple of the girls’ acquaintances and set off on a voyage to bring back the lost ladies. Passing through the sphere of mist they locate the same medieval galleon, their intention to find out what’s going on. But soon their boat disappears leaving them stranded on the creepy ship and the meteorologist surmises that they’ve actually passed into another dimension, a place where the dead are able to walk again…

The third film in Amando de Ossorio’s infamous Blind Dead series, this has a different feel compared to the preceding entries. All four films utilised different characters and settings (much in an equivalent way to what Romero has done for his Dead films) with the principle threat sourced from the same thing: the rotting, eyeless corpses of the Knights Templar returning to transient life to reap havoc on the living. Most of the action (and I use that term lightly) in The Ghost Galleon (El Buque Maldito) takes place on the eponymous transportation unit and I think it was quite a stroke of imagination to have the Blind Dead discovered floating around on a supernatural vessel in the ocean as opposed to their usual terrestrial circumstances. Little exposition is offered for this and it lends a touch of mystique to the proceedings. As they do in the other three films, the dead awaken periodically to claim anything human that happens to be roaming within the vicinity but where it’s a nocturnal activity in the other parts, here it simply seems governed by some unspoken time lapse because night and day are blurred within the odd Twilight Zone that the ship inhabits. This was a difficult film to obtain for years and I’d always read that it was the most inferior of the series, but being a fan of the first two movies I was anxious to check out the final chapters when Blue Underground released the fanboy’s dream that was the complete DVD set several years ago. Whilst I could understand some of the complaints people levelled at this film I found it to be quite a spooky little chiller once the flaws were acknowledged and pushed aside. The most obvious flaws are some of the special effects: the ship from a distance looks downright awful, almost inexcusably bad. Second to this is the setting up of the story, which is improbable to say the least. But given the central premise I think minor improbabilities can be overlooked (we do after all watch films as a means of escapism do we not?). The characters themselves are bad-movie caricatures in some respects but they bring some amusement to the screen, inadvertently. The meteorologist is perhaps my favourite of these, dropping his office status at the slightest manipulation to head out on a real mission and managing to arrive at scientifically perplexing conclusions concerning their alleged switch between dimensions. Regardless of the incredible delivery, this theory fits in with the director’s ideas about the Blind Dead generally who, he has said, exist in state of spatial/temporal distortion rather than being conventional walking cadavers. Back to the ship itself: whereas the longer distance shots of the vessel are terribly realised, the situation on board is very different; the place is a rotten, dilapidated, creaking entity that’s satisfyingly creepy - very much the ultimate haunted house albeit on a boat. The Blind Dead sleep below deck in boxes that resemble the coffins that would make a more natural home and the homicidal knights appear to be oblivious to their change of locale. Very often stated as the least favourite of fans, The Ghost Galleon does the trick for my idiosyncratic tastes and creates a strange and eerie world that makes for comfortably inebriated viewing on winter nights.

As previously mentioned the film was not easy to come by until around three years ago. Redemption had released the first two in the series on video cassette here in the UK but stopped there so it was quite an anticipated event when BU announced they’d managed to acquire the rights to remaster and release all four of them uncut. The third entry then made it across to the UK on DVD (with the other three) thanks to Anchor Bay, albeit missing the Spanish language soundtrack, which was a real shame. The BU contains Spanish and English audio with optional subtitles. I’ve listened to both tracks in their entirety and they’re both very good, clear representations of how the original might have sounded without any intrusive hiss. The English track in fact is dubbed fairly well and, given the sometimes less than sane nature of the material, it doesn’t suit the film badly at all. Image is presented in a roughly accurate ratio with strong levels of detail and appropriate colours, overall looking better than the final entry in the series (which suffered from grain and extremely soft focus nocturnal shots), although there is a murkiness to the onboard scenes due to the omnipresent fog. This presentation of a fairly obscure but charmingly uncanny film is appreciated and I’ve already had my money’s worth out of the disc along with the rest of the amazing and comprehensive set.

1972, Italy/Thailand, Directed by Umberto Lenzi

Colour, Running Time: 86 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R2, Hardgore; Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: DD Mono

It seems almost everybody has heard of Cannibal Holocaust, partly thanks to similarities portrayed in the more approachable Blair Witch Project, partly due simply to its brutal notoriety as one of the nastier films of all time. The film was the most prominent component of a wider sequence that flourished to an extent throughout the seventies and before quickly dying a death in the early eighties, probable as a result of lack of diversity - you can only do so much with this sort of material before people go off looking for other things to interest them, such as political dramas and romantic comedies. The cycle often followed a predetermined narrative; ignorant westerners stumbling into jungles inhabited by evolutionary throwbacks in the shape of carnivorous natives with a taste for human limbs and organs. Along the way the westerners (and therefore, we) would witness horrific acts of barbarity that would push the boundaries of cinema to extremes, along with testing the limits of our constitution. Unfortunately these acts often utilised the ‘services’ of real animals and new depths in the search for entertainment and enterprise were reached. This latter point of course illustrates an indefensible staple of cannibal movies, at least from my point of view, but the continuation of productions throughout a decade or so must surely outline questions regarding the public search for entertainment. And indeed this links into the main moral focus that is dubiously raised time and again throughout the sub-genre, that there is at core little difference between us and the so-called savages portrayed as opposition to the westerners - we are endogenously barbaric ourselves. This is the real and oft forgotten reason that Cannibal Holocaust is the best of the bunch: it actually outlines that point better than any of the others and almost seems to have some social relevance amidst its rape and mutilation, though its means is still to some degree unjustifiable.

So where does Deep River Savages fit into all of this? Well, this film could be considered the starting point for the whole thing. The tone slightly differs to what would commonly follow but many of the trappings are still present. After being deserted by his girlfriend in Thailand, a London photographer gets into a brawl in a bar that results in a Thai man’s death. Despite a potential argument for self defence he heads off into the night to disappear, not realising that that’s precisely what he will soon be doing… Heading off towards the wilderness until the whole thing has chance to blow over, he arranges a long and quiet guide-driven sail down the river, eventually into uncharted territory. After several uneventful days of photography and sleeping his guide is found murdered by the side of the boat and John is promptly captured by the local natives that killed the man. What follows is several weeks of punishment, humiliation, attempted escapes, and slavery as John becomes gradually accustomed to what appears to be his new life in the tribe’s village. Until Marayå, a woman he has caught the eye of, experiences increasing attraction to the western man culminating in John being accepted as part of the tribe and marrying Marayå. But the imminent danger of neighbouring tribes is never far from reality…

What is essentially the birth of the cannibal movie surprisingly transpires to be a grisly-exploitation-movie-cum-love-story. Much attention is placed on the progressing relationship between John (Ivan Rassimov from many an Italian exploitation flick) and sexy native girl Marayå (actually Me Me Lai attempting to further her career after a stint in Sale of the Century). John’s former girlfriend is mysteriously banished from memory as he embarks upon a mission that will change his perspective on life forever. There are a couple of things to enjoy in Il Paese del Sesso Selvaggio (or Man From Deep River) believe it or not. Firstly the locations are attractive and make for striking travelogue-style imagery. Next is John’s voyage down the river, which actually musters a little bit of tension as the titular savages remain persistently unseen until he’s accosted. Finally there’s the omnipresent but underlying feeling of hopelessness as John’s repeated attempts to emancipate himself are thwarted before he’s dragged back to the village for more problems. This film initiated a trend for animal suffering that was to continue without any real justification, and this is where for once the BBFC’s intervention is merciful - they’ve removed almost all of it from this Hardgore disc. Lenzi was to make a name for himself in the sub-genre and went on to direct Eaten Alive (Mangiati Vivi!), a reasonable concoction of adventure and cannibalistic violence, and Cannibal Ferox, the man’s similarly horrific answer to …Holocaust. He was never going to be an Oscar winner of course but did manage to produce a couple of genuinely entertaining non-cannibal movies along the way, Nightmare City being my personal favourite.

Deep River Savages is almost palatable in its UK-approved censored version, exhibiting little animal violence (though there is one throat cutting of a goat that caught me off guard near the conclusion so beware) and only snippets of fairly heavy gore here and there. It’s nowhere near as nihilistic as what would come later on and its delineation of taboo love adds something of worth to the material. The influence apparently derived from the earlier western A Man Called Horse, to which Lenzi’s film bears more than a passing thematic resemblance, is also of historical interest to buffs. It’s never going to make any top ten lists but neither is it competing for any worst movie prizes either. The Hardgore DVD looks quite appealing in its fully scoped glory but is missing around 4 minutes (perhaps more) of visceral imagery that most people would really rather not see anyway. Back in the seventies this film was rejected outright in Britain by the BBFC, it was then technically banned on video and briefly placed on the DPP list during the eighties, there was then the strange appearance of a reportedly uncut though terribly cropped disc (DVD Classics) several years ago - I could only assume this to be a disc production error because there’s no way the board would allow this through uncut as long as they were awake when viewing. Media Blasters in the US have put out the best disc hitherto, being fully uncut and containing an Italian soundtrack alongside the English with optional subtitles. There’s also a ten minute interview on that disc. Despite that, casual viewers who’d prefer not to see cruelty to innocent creatures could safely get by with the Hardgore DVD reviewed here.

2006, Canada/France, Directed by Christophe Gans

Colour, Running Time: 127 minutes

Channel 4 Broadcast, Image: 2.35:1, Audio: Dolby Surround

Following the successful PlayStation game of the same name (unleashed on gamers in 1999 and superseded by several sequels/spin-offs) this adaptation would appear to continue a trend that has brought in a few shilling for the film industry whilst simultaneously burdening the preciously limited time of viewers with an increasingly large and smelly mound of dung to wade through. Guilty entries include House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Postal and, to a lesser extent, Resident Evil; notice a pattern developing? Back in the nineties it was rubbish like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat (bearable maybe) and Super Mario Bros.; nowadays they’ve clearly got it in for horror movie fans it seems. I wrote off Silent Hill when I caught the theatrical presentation a couple of years ago: too long, not enough story, style over content, Sean Bean, etc. Despite that, however, it’s sometimes worth checking out a movie for a second viewing because it can reveal its underlying charms that way, should there be any present.

Swapping Harry from the game for a woman (in fact that’s the case with many of the characters) called Rose the storyline otherwise remains fairly faithful to the first game: Rose and her husband Christopher have a few problems with daughter Sharon whereby she sleepwalks, draws up nasty little images and mumbles about a place called Silent Hill that they discover is a ghost town with a horrific history. Rose decides the only way to break the cycle (medication hasn’t worked) is to take Sharon off to this place Silent Hill to see why it’s become such an ongoing mental problem with the girl. After coming into unwanted contact with a policewoman along the way, Rose and the cop both crash their car and bike respectively, Rose waking up to find Sharon missing. She goes in search across the town, a place strangely misplaced from reality, and soon realises there’s something truly frightening about the environment. Air-raid sirens periodically sound the arrival of all-encompassing darkness and with it truly monstrous organisms that will slaughter anything vaguely human. Meanwhile Christopher is understandably perturbed by his wife’s rash trip with their daughter and heads off to Silent Hill himself. There he finds a police detective and team overseeing the scene of the former vehicle accident. Both the detective and Christopher head into the town to look for Rose and Sharon, but while they’re all there at the same time they don’t actually see each other - as Chris and the detective are present in everyday reality, Rose and the female cop now seem to exist in some alternate dimension - a limbo world inhabited by hellish creatures and the damned former inhabitants of the town.

Second time around Silent Hill didn’t strike me as nearly as bad. The story is undoubtedly quite limited, with many sequences simply following Rose as she’s exploring the town or being threatened by demonic apparitions from Hell. The problem there inherently lies with the very nature of the production, it being a game-to-film adaptation. A writer is damned if they do or don’t in that respect: add too much story and you’re at risk of disappointing the hardcore fans of the game by not maintaining faithfulness, take the game literally and there’s inevitably barely enough story to stretch the onscreen action to conventional running time. In that respect at least Silent Hill falls into the sincere camp, but it still exceeds two hours (two and a half with advertisements) and that’s way too long in my opinion. The other issue I really have is with Sean Bean. Of course he’s often extremely good at his vocation but he just doesn’t cut playing an American. If I was American I’d think he was taking the piss, it just doesn’t work. I never see much point in hiring an actor for a part that requires an accent so grossly at odds with their own natural tongue but here we have someone heavily northern (from Sheffield specifically), who can pull off a traditional English accent well enough, but when it comes to American he’s an embarrassment to whatever’s left of international peace. On the positive side the film’s visuals are stunning and Gans possesses stellar understanding of powerful composition - many of these frames could be frozen and hung on the wall (depending on the surrounding décor…), and the 2.35:1 proportions (thankfully maintained for C4’s broadcast) are comfortably put to use by the director. Colour choices and contrasts are so acute it’s almost too perfect. Similarly the music (mostly adopted from the game) adds to the tension with originality and impact throughout. Radha Mitchell does well as Rose, and though the Australian is another accent-choice anomaly she’s certainly more successful in this area than Bean. She also looks fantastic. Finally, the point of the film: terror. I realised more so second time around that there are certain scenes here that are utterly nightmarish in tone and effect. There are times when proceedings escalate to such a tremendous height of insanity and absolute ghastliness they not only drag you in but also make up for the movie’s aforementioned shortcomings. It should be pointed out in connection with this that the inhuman creations are highly imaginative and an appreciable cut above usual genre monsters. Whereas I once considered Silent Hill to be an overly stylistic waste of space I think I might have changed my attitude to the film. It might even go on my Christmas Blu-ray list… (Incidentally I believe that for a change the UK has received the best treatment for the BD compared to other parts of the world - nice.)