The Black Lagoon

Season of the Witch (1973)

2005-11-28T21:07:00.000Z

Or: George Romero does feminism. This might not seem like the most obvious conceit for a movie, but Romero's at his happiest (and best) when exploring social themes and concerns under horror / supernatural premises, and this rarely-seen feature, recently exhumed on DVD in the US, is a flawed but worthwhile addition to the director's canon. Season of the Witch was Romero's third film, following the epochal Night of the Living Dead and the scarcely-mentioned romantic comedy There's Always Vanilla, and tells the story of Joan, a bored and repressed middle-aged housewife who finds release and fulfillment through the occult. Her confidence grows as she begins to identify herself as a witch, even though she finds a new lease of life, she also takes on a whole range of new problems...

Those looking for Dead-style carnage in the film will be sorely disappointed, as Season of the Witch is ultimately a very slow and talky film. Like Night of the Living Dead, its limited budget and resources is partially concealed by a script that doesn't call for outlandish sets and effects, but the tense paranoia of Night has given way to a more stately pace that often feel like the film isn't really going anywhere. This is especially true of an early scene in which Joan and her future lover Greg debate the powers of the mind; it feels in some way significant, but is really too opaque in its intentions to feel that it's advancing our understanding of the story, and also seems to go on forever. Apparently Romero shot over four hours of material before cutting it down to ninety minutes; weirdly, the film feels both overlong and incomplete - it's a tough one to sit all the way through, but although it's pretty obvious what the film's about it's hard to say what it actually means. More practically, some important plot points get lost along the way, including crucial information about Joan's miscarried baby, which does contribute greatly to our understanding of her character.

That said, one shouldn't approach Romero films expecting anything overtly didactic or opinion-based. He's admitted himself that he's more impressionistic in his writing, preferring to hold a mirror up to social issues that interest him rather than pursuing an agenda. Obviously, this approach works incredibly well in the Dead films where he's comparing different strata of society, but it comes rather unstuck in Season. It's clear that Joan's move into the occult is a metaphor for feminist liberation, but Romero sends mixed messages about the implications this has. Most troubling of all is the sequence in which she (unwittingly) kills her husband, who dies unrepentant for the patriarchal quasi-slavery he has held her in. Is Romero really suggesting that female emancipation will lead to tragedy? It's unlikely, given the measured ambivalence he shows elsewhere towards the issue.

As long as one is prepared to resist looking too hard for a clear-cut message, such flaws are eminently forgivable for a director who was ultimately still honing his trademark style. Although the camerawork frequently lacks finesse, the editing is unmistakably Romero, as is the effective use of music. The opening dream sequence, in which Joan's oppression is played out in literal terms, is startling and the death of her husband is brilliantly shot and cut, despite my reservations. As might be expected, the acting is very variable, but Jan White and Ray Laine are very good as Joan and Greg, getting good mileage out of their scenes together and frequently showing real chemistry. Season of the Witch is not the easiest film to watch, a feeling that's not helped by the really murky print on Anchor Bay's DVD release, and neither is it the best introduction to Romero's work. However, I'd recommend it to any Romero fans more interested in his themes than splatter. In some ways, it's a partial dry-run for Martin, another Romero character-study and arguably his best feature. Season is rough and ready, but provides food for thought for the patient viewer.

Alien (1979)

2005-11-13T18:56:00.000Z

When you come from a crappy region like mine you tend to hold onto the merest sources of civic pride with a pronounced vigour and trumpet them for the world to hear. With such thoughts in mind it is my honour to announce that Ridley Scott was not only educated here but also drew inspiration for the stunning opening in ‘Blade Runner’ from the surrounding industries. Not much you might retort if you managed to get through an entire sitting of ‘G.I. Jane’, but you’d have to concede that for the awe-inspiring Alien we should at least have named a library after him or something similar.

Alien stands unrivalled in successfully combining science-fiction with horror, and it’s difficult to know which of the genres to slot it into. Scott isn’t content with staging a simple story of ‘death stalking innocent victims’ in space; the success of Alien comes from the fact that he utilises his premise to its utmost effect. From the opening shots of the crew of the Nostromo coming out of hibernation we are clearly intended to feel uneasy at how reliant our human heroes are on the technology that surrounds them. That technology has dated remarkably well considering the film is over 25 years old (compare it to Star Wars, released a couple of years before). Scott throws us into a cold and mechanical environment where the noises and whirrs of the Nostramo add to the claustrophobic anxiety that steadily accumulates as the film progresses.

This is accentuated by the captivating special effects that bombard the senses when the ship makes its ill-fated diversion to the home of the aliens (deservedly bagging the Oscar for Best Special Effects). Again we know that John Hurt’s descent into the pod field is a stupid thing to do but the world that we’re thrown into is as mesmerising as it is repellent. The alien itself quickly established itself as something of a horror icon which will surprise first-time viewers of the movie as it doesn’t appear that often. With his time-bomb in place Scott moves the focus of the film onto the human struggle for survival, as the perfect killing machine takes its relentless toll. Though they cannot help but play second fiddle to the effects none of the cast puts a foot wrong. Sigourney Weaver really grows into the character of Ripley, becoming the sole figure of strength as things collapse around her but clearly terrified ever step of the way. Ian Holm is excellent too, never batting an eyelid as his part in the unfolding tragedy is unmasked.

As the inevitable siege begins the scale of their helplessness becomes oppressive. It’s obviously true that ‘in space, no one can hear you scream’ but Alien is wonderfully effective at creating a sensation of watching something that’s actually unfolding in front of you. In part I think this has something to do with the fact that our heroes themselves don’t know what they’re up against. To all intents and purposes they’re simple miners returning from work and the fact that they’re on a spaceship is neither here not there. This is obviously the first time that they have come across aliens before and when the killing begins you genuinely feel for them. Now their technology counts for nothing, and it’s always liberating to see humans knocked off the top of the evolutionary table for a while. A lot of things are feeding into this – a non-too subtle critique of the heartlessness of big business, a human indifference/arrogance to the environment around them, the unsettled status of females in the gender wars of the 1970s – but at its heart Alien is a bloody scary take on the future. The sum total of this is beautiful and hypnotic, captivating and terrifying and without doubt one of the best science-fiction/horror films of the 1970s, if not ever. And we still haven’t built him a statue…..

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

2005-11-13T18:53:00.000Z

When I was thinking of how good Alien was my mind turned to a film which might be placed somewhat closer towards the other end of the science-fiction/horror quality spectrum. With its premise readily apparent from the title I have to confess that I do hold Killer Klowns in something approaching genuine affection. It’s probably because it’s one of the first films I can remember watching as a child (I had very negligent parents) but with a few years growth under my belt I can still identify one or two redeeming features for any Black Lagoon readers who might happen across a copy to look out for.

Unashamedly aspiring to cult status by being as silly as possible, there is nothing sophisticated about Killer Klowns. From entombing their victims in candy floss through to their circus tent shaped spaceship (they’re aliens by the way, in case you missed it in the title), we’re never given any indication as to precisely why the Klowns are doing what they do. This is a shame as I’m quite intrigued by the idea of an alien race of killer clowns who draw sustenance from human blood (it’d spice up Royal Variety Performances no end). The scenes where hapless humans realise that these aren’t real clowns but are instead quite bitey are a treasure to behold, with most of the cast trying to play it straight but the few lucky enough to be wearing the red noses realising they have more to gain by playing it for everything it’s worth.

What the Chiodo brothers offer up is a film fitting the mould of the numerous ‘made for midnight’ movies that the big American TV networks pumped out to provide waddage to their late night schedules in the late 1970s. You shouldn’t base your evening around watching Killer Klowns but I can’t, as much as I try, say you should omit to viewing it all together. It’s one of the silliest films you’re likely to watch but there’s something inherently enjoyable about watching clowns kill people, especially so when they’re aliens and wrap them in candy floss. Surely it sells itself?

Body Snatchers (1993)

2005-11-08T19:27:00.000Z

Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers has proved a remarkably robust novel. Each generation of film-makers seems to see its own concerns reflected in Finney's tale of alien takeover; the 1956 film was basically all about the cold war, the 1978 adaptation poked fun at narcissism and pseudo-spirituality, and this 1993 version is... a teen movie. It doesn't sound massively promising on paper, but in fact director Abel Ferrara (best known for the notorious Driller Killer slasher flick) uses the original plot to take a subtle and sober look at the crushing loneliness and isolation of adolescence. Gabrielle Anwar gives a nicely understated performance as Marty Malone, a teenage girl who reluctantly spends her life on the road with her father, who inspects military bases for their chemical safety, her step-mother and her younger step-brother. She already feels frozen out of her dad's new family, but when one airbase become infected by alien pods which turn humans into emotionless 'pod people', she quickly realises that she has very few people she can turn to...

In truth, none of the characters in the film are massively interesting, but Marty's unwhingeing sense of hopelessness at the start of the film means that she's at least sympathetic. Interestingly, Ferrara makes the best possible use out of the clipped, strictly regimented military base setting; in a situation where everyone is trained to keep their emotions under wraps at all times, it becomes quite difficult to tell who's an alien duplicate and who isn't, which means Marty's attempts to escape the base are pretty compelling with some quite surprising twists. Initially, I found Billy Wirth's performance as Tim (ostensibly the dashing pilot who Marty falls for) to be gratingly wooden, but his lack of expression is eventually his saving grace and does lead to some tension as we try and work out if he's to be trusted or not. By contrast, the change in Marty's family when they are duplicated is so marked that it becomes screamingly obvious that they are aliens - thankfully, these transitions are not dwelled upon too much, although Carol's fate is drawn out for far longer than is dramatically satisfying.

Body Snatchers does sag a bit towards the end, and suffers from an overly linear plot, but at 87 minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome. The limited sets and occasionally plastic-y special effects (especially the human 'husks') mean it feels rather more like a TV movie than a cinematic blockbuster, and in all fairness it's probably a rather minor entry into the history of cinema; however, Ferrara's sensitive updating of the novel's themes means the film is definitely worth a look. Whether 2006's Invasion remakes - starring Nicole Kidman - achieves the same feat remains to be seen.

The Fog (1979)

2005-11-07T19:38:00.000Z

There seems to be a thing for John Carpenter remakes at the moment, with this year seeing a big-budget version of 'Assault on Precinct 13' and next year the (British) release of The Fog. There were high-hopes of The Fog at the time of it's release, following as it did Carpenter's seminal classic, 'Halloween' (readers will forgive me for overlooking his immediate successive offering - Elvis: The Movie - in this regard, though I suppose Kurt Russell as The King might conceivably be described as a form of horror). To be fair to Carpenter he doesn't do a bad job here, and though The Fog lacks the searing impact of Halloween it suceeds in offerering up a more contemplative and developed story, with the trademark atmospherics and effects that you'd expect from his (early) offerings.

Unlike Halloween, where the terror is styled as unfathomable and unrelenting, The Fog is presented as a good, old-fashioned ghost story (literally, with a great little camp-fire intro. by Mr. Malten, a sea-dog who could be straight from the ship of the Sea Captain in The Simpsons). This works well though as Carpenter has the good sense to ground his simple tale in a very simple setting. His talent for straining the maximum effect out of his environment is no less obvious here than it was in Halloween, with Antonio Bay and its environs (most especially the lighthouse) appearing instantly as troubled and haunting places, visually stunning yet oppressively confining (think The Wicker Man and you'll not be far wrong). Once the fog itself descends this fear becomes even more heightened, and though each of the main characters has a car and could thus flee (a rarity in horrors) you just know that the town itself holds them captive as much as the curse which precipitates its downfall.

Perhaps because the visuals and atmospherics are so attuned Carpenter spends less time on character development, which does hold the film back a little. Fans of Halloween will be happy to see several of its stars retained here, with Charles Cyphers and Janet Leigh to pick a couple (Trivia buffs might also note that Tom Atkins - star of Halloween III - is also included). It's very surprising that more use wasn't made of Jamie Lee Curtis considering what she achieved for Carpenter in Halloween but as the film suffers from rather two-dimensional characters as a whole then at least she's not singled out for it.

This doesn't hold the film back though as the inherent momentum of the plot, coupled with Carpenter's eye for where a shadow should be placed to derive maximum effect, are enough to keep the viewer engaged. It's also nice to see the action kick-off almost immediately, with the leper sailors making no attempt to hide in the shadows or subtly stalk their prey (I love the fact that they have the good manners to knock before smashing down the door and killing people). Again, this works admirably when done by Carpenter and it's quite refreshing after the unbearable twists and turns that Michael Myers takes before lancing his foes. Here it's not quite Shock Waves but it's not a million miles off either. I've not seen the remake yet and, as a rule, I'm not one to judge before I watch a film. Having said that the original is often overlooked by movie goers because of the success of Halloween, so I'd urge everyone to watch this before rushing out to the cinema to see the new version (even if you are only going to watch the rather attractive blonde from Lost) Stick with this and you even get an excellent early use of the now overutilised stop-start ending. What more could you want from a film?

The Black Lagoon Halloween top 5

2005-10-30T21:45:00.000Z

As you may well have noticed, it's Halloween, so we thought we'd cash in with a list of our top five films best suited for viewing on October 31st. These aren't necessarily the most gory or horrific films, but we've tried to pick stuff that's suitably creepy... And of course, any other recommendations are more than welcome in the comments box below!

5. Halloween
Inevitable really. But in a genius twist, this classic slasher film turns the act staying in and watching spooky films on Halloween into something you should be afraid of. Post-modern, but bloody scary.

4. Bad Day At Black Rock
Not strictly speaking a horror movie, but few films are as successful in fostering such an uncomfortable sense of unease. A simple morality tale that’ll really get under your skin.

3. The Wicker Man
A creepy, slow-burning build up leads to a pretty shattering conclusion that completely changes your perspective on everything you've just watched. You'll never look at Scottish people the same way again.

2. Night of the Living Dead
Effectively, it's one night in a haunted house - but the house is very ordinary, and the dangers very real. Camp-free, funereal and upsetting, it suggests that your peers are actually the people you should fear most.

1. The Night of the Hunter
The classic good-against-evil parable. Laughton’s accomplished synthesis of American Gothic and German expressionism makes this both chilling and hauntingly beautiful to watch.

[Honourable mentions go to the original Frankenstein (gothic and gorgeous), Suspiria (nonsensical but gorgeous) and Ringu.]

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

2005-10-24T21:16:00.000+01:00

Okay, so it's taken us an unreasonably long time to get round to one of the genre's defining classics, but is there really all that much to say about Night of the Living Dead? Probably not, and I'm certainly not going advance the art of film criticism by announcing that it's both a historical and an artistic milestone for cinema. What is interesting is viewing it in the context of the three Dead films that followed it. I rewatched Night for the first time in about 18 months, hot on the heels of revisiting both Dawn and Day and seeing Land and the superlative Martin for the first time, and found it fascinating how Romero managed to bring so many new ideas to the table whilst simultaneously learning his craft both as a film-maker and as a storyteller.

Many of the prevailing traits of Romero's work - characters in conflict against a backdrop that is supernatural but has very real practical consequences - arrive fully formed; indeed, the conflict between the seven inhabitants of the farm house is really the entirety of the film, with the frenzy of killing in the final reel really only serving to accelerate the plot towards its brutally ironic climax. But if the ideas are there, the characterisation isn't; the survivors are a rather obvious cross-section of late 60s America, who fight one another from the word go - there's little interaction other than shouting, which rather leads one to the conclusion that those massacred by the zombies rather deserve their fate for being so wooden-headed. Many of the films quieter moments are the scenes between Ben and Barbara, but the fact that she's permanently shell-shocked means there's little opportunity to understand her as a person. It's presumably intentional that it's only really Ben who earns the full respect of the viewer, and this is probably in part down to Duane Jones' commanding but subtle performance.

This rather one-note characterisation is probably the only weak link in the film, but for my money it makes it a lesser film than both Dawn of the Dead and Martin, both of which feature far more rounded protagonists. There's a lot less wall-to-wall splatter than in Dawn as well, but this means that when it all kicks off in the finale the gore scenes have extra punch. The photography captures events with a claustrophobic, almost documentary realism, which really makes the best of the director's limited resources. Though I feel Romero went onto greater things, Night of the Living Dead more than deserves its place at the top of the horror tree, simply for the way it broke horror out of the Universal / Hammer mould and gave it a new shape that carried both shocks and contemporary resonance. He gave us a new form of horror movie in which terrible events struck real people in real places and had real consequences, and for this reason alone many later classics owe him an inestimable debt.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

2005-10-23T16:58:00.000+01:00

There are lots of people who argue that Scream was one of the most significant horror films to come out of the 1990s. Tosh. When it comes to picking the most significant, most original and most refreshing film to emerge from that decade The Blair Witch Project must be the leading contender for the crown. Perhaps I’m being a little biased here; Blair Witch was the first horror film that I’m conscious of being more than just a film and more a cultural phenomenon even BEFORE it was released in Britain. It seems to be on the wane now but it still happens that a horror film which tries to big itself up before its release styles itself as ‘Blair Witch meets…..’ in the way that Psyhco was used in the 1970s and The Ring is now (in this vein one can only marvel at a film which claimed to be ‘Psycho meets Blair Witch meets The Ring). Perhaps because of the voyeur element of the camcorder it has also spawned more soft-porn tributes than any other film I aware of– horror or not – with titles such as The Bare Wench Project (and the unforgettable Bare Wench 2: Book of Babes), The Erotic Witch Project and Witchbabe: The Erotic Witch Project 3.

When you get behind the hype though you’re left with a film of stunning simplicity and astonishing impact. Milking every last drop of potential out of the art of amateur film-making Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez use their meagre resources with a finesse and ease that puts some of recent efforts of the big studios to shame. They aren’t many people around who don’t know the basic story of Blair Witch; a group of friends head out into the woods to investigate a local myth, expedition goes wrong, noises at night etc. The film looks cheap and that’s the secret of its success. By making us think that we’re watching the recovered tapes of the lost expedition Myrick and Sanchez completely erode the barrier between the film and the viewer. By the end of the tale we’re completely taken into the world of Heather, Josh and Michael.

Much of the parodying of Blair Witch comes from the fact that, at times, the acting appears to be melodramatic (think of the scene where Heather is crying into the torch and again how many times you’ve seen it sent up); this misses the point though, and the fact that we view the ‘actors’ as real people adds a real sincerity to their plight. It’s impossible not to recognise in their spiral from cheerful optimism through to an elemental terror something very raw and very human. That our only contact with them is through a shaky camcorder adds to this sense of intimacy and again adds an all too real dimension to their doomed journey. Myrick and Sanchez’s decision to base their story entirely on the ‘amateur footage’ recovered from the woods of Burkittsville also allows them to be quite daring in their direction and pacing, with the need to slot every scene nicely after the preceding one dispensed with. This works very well, with short, snappy shots which at first seem innocuous belaying a hidden depth that dawns on the viewer later in the movie. Blair Witch, more than any other film, proves the effectiveness of the technique and it was to be hoped that more directors would have taken up the challenge of incorporating it into their movies, especially horrors.

It also means that the end, when it inevitably comes, is still something of a shock when viewed for the first time. I cannot speak highly enough of The Blair Witch Project. It’s the kind of movie that you’ll get most from the first time you watch it, lacking the depth and complexity to sustain long-term viewing. This is not to belittle the movie in any way, for in saying that it is one of the finest ‘shocker’ movies out there. It’s wonderfully refreshing when talented filmmakers turn out a product on their own backs which – however temporarily – completely crowds out other efforts and deservedly marks itself out as a unique experience.

Last House on the Left (1972)

2005-10-17T19:09:00.000+01:00

The directorial debut of genre superstar Wes Craven, Last House on the Left is another film whose violent reputation precedes it. It tells the story of two teenage girls, Mari and Phyllis, who are taken captive by a group of escaped murderers led by Krug (David Hess), raped and then finally murdered. Faced with the bumbling and ineffective local authorities, Mari's parents decide to take matters into their own hands and avenge their dead daughter - in the most horrendous and brutal way possible.

Last House on the Left shocked audiences on its initial release, and it's never received a full cinema or uncut DVD release in the UK. On balance, the most unsettling thing about it is not the level of violence (really, there are only six deaths in the movie) but the unflinching way in which Craven presents it. It's shot with documentary realism, complete with grainy hand-held camera work, that neither obscures the brutality on display nor glorifies it. Craven himself said that many people expect the camera to "blink" when presenting stabbings and killings, whereas it was his intention to present unflinchingly both the physical and emotional realities of rape and murder. His squalid, nasty direction works wholly in the film's favour - considering the story is about the dehumanising and all-consuming aspects of a cycle of violence, it's entirely appropriate that it's delivered like a sickening punch in the gut. Many films are happy to present heroes killing their foes in an entirely positive light, whereas Craven is keen to show just how horrendous and upsetting any inflicted death can be. Banned in the UK on the grounds of the 'potential harm' it may cause, it's hard to imagine anyone being incited to murder by this film - even Krug and his gang don't seem to enjoy it very much, and that's before they get their comeuppance.

The film's cycle of violence is played out with depressing inevitability, adding weight to almost every line of dialogue no matter how naturally it's delivered. Particularly significant is the opening scene in which Mari is preparing to see a band called Bloodlust - to the confusion of her parents, who cannot understand why their daughter (or anyone) would want to see a rock group that uses such violent imagery; later, of course, it is the parents who become the killers, displaying a more twisted imagination than either Krug's gang or Bloodlust could imagine. Mari and Phyllis, on the other hand, enjoy Bloodlust's pantomimic performance but seem relatively uncorrupted by it - Mari fantasises that sleeping with a member of the band would be like being wrapped in cotton (unlikely), and both girls are in no way desensitised to the real horrors that they later face. In a way, Craven taps into the the 'video nasty' debate ten years early - those seeking to ban graphic movies did so under the claim that imagery could corrupt; but whereas Mari and Phyllis, who willingly exposed themselves to such imagery, are uncorrupted, it her parents (whom one can well imagine siding with Mrs Whitehouse) who prove capable of the most depravity. It's not the most sophisticated psychological outlook, but it's fairly pertinent.

The film isn't 100% successful. It frequently suffers from poor pacing - the chase through the woods in which Phyllis attempts to escape her soon-to-be killers seems to last an age, and quickly becomes repetitive. Similarly, the 'comedy' subplot involving the bumbling local sheriff and his assistant (a bargain-basement Laurel and Hardy) is largely unnecessary and slows the film down; however, presenting the sheriff as a figure of fun is not entirely without purpose as it makes the final shot of his blood-spattered, horrified face all the more impactful. And David Hess's country and western music score is often intrusive and poorly judged; the atmosphere really steps up a notch when the twanging banjos are replaced with the obligatory 70s horror film analogue synth.

Still, even though it's an uneven film, Last House on the Left has a powerful immediacy that gives it an almost unparalleled impact. Hess proves a better actor than a composer, bringing a quiet but terrifying malevolence to Krug, and the rest of the cast are superbly naturalistic, especially Sandra Cassell and Lucy Grantham as Mari and Phyllis. The film's trailer and promotional material make liberal use of the phrase "keep repeating to yourself - it's only a movie", which is apt - Last House stands up today because it feels horribly real. It's slapdash, gruelling and deeply nasty - but also commendably honest it its portrayal of violent acts and their consequences.

They Came Back (2004)

2005-10-16T17:05:00.000+01:00

Okay, so it’s another film about the dead returning to life but I’ll wager that They Came Back is unlike any other zombie film you’re likely to have seen. When you think of the number of movies that are turned out on this subject you have to give credit to anyone who injects their story with a measure of originality; Romero and Fulci manage it, and Shaun of the Dead is a more recent Black Lagoon favourite. They Came Back offers us a stunningly simply plot twist, namely what would happen if the dead came back to life and DIDN’T try and kill the living? Considering the simplicity of the premise it’s surprising that it has never (to my knowledge) been tried before. When done well – as it is here – the results are infinitely more unsettling than dealing with the consequences of legions of the undead hunting down the living.

Robin Campillo approaches his subject with the kind of quiet consideration typical of French cinema. We’re led into his story beautifully, with the opening shots of the recently dead quietly exiting the cemetery followed by a very matter of fact explanation of what has happened. It’s clear from the off that the consequences of 60 million dead people suddenly reappearing present a whole series of problems, both practical and psychological. As one would expect, the sudden reappearance of a loved one who has passed on and been grieved for precipitates a huge moral dilemma for each of the main characters. Campillo chooses three people with whom to explore this huge societal dislocation, Rachel (whose partner returns having died four years earlier), Isham and Veronique (their young son comes back) and the town’s elderly mayor (who is reunited with his wife). The performances given by each are brilliantly effective and beautifully draw out their personal dilemmas. The fear that Rachel feels at seeing Mathieu again is at times painful to watch, discerning as we do her fear of suddenly reattaching her life to his after trying so hard to reconcile herself to his absence. This is further probed in the conflict between Isham and Veronique, with the former trying his hardest to reintegrate their son back into the family unit and at the same time fighting his wife, who is quicker to observe that those who have returned are but empty shells of their former selves.

As if it wasn’t enough to confront us with the debilitating emotional consequences of the return of those who players had learned painfully to live without, Campillo makes it even more difficult by asking us to imagine the practical effects. At first this might seem no more than the necessary plot foundations for his moral tale but in actual fact it is crucial in helping to propel the momentum of unease that the situation exudes. At first the authorities try and reintegrate the ‘returned’ back into their previous lives, to the extent that that the government is prepared to pay for people to be given their old jobs back. The resentment that this breeds amongst the living at having their routines disrupted so massively is subtly and effectively played out, with the authorities slowly coming to realise what an inconvenience their return is and preparing us for the natural conclusion that it would have been better if they’d stayed dead.

Campillo never makes it that easy for us though. Rachel might resent the fact that Mathieu has returned but this is also a person that she loved deeply and a doctor rightly points out that ‘anger, resentment, hope and fear’ are now synonymous. In the end it is the dead themselves who realise that their return - which they never seem to have hoped for – is causing nothing but trouble and that it is they who must bring tranquillity to the cocktail of emotions that they’ve stirred up. They Came Back is as captivating as it is troubling. It instantly engages you with some of the most profound questions that there are, and in doing so tells a story that is at the same time both wonderful and thoroughly dispiriting. Not bad for a ‘zombie’ film.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

2005-10-09T21:44:00.000+01:00

A quarter of a century on from its original release, Cannibal Holocaust has lost none of its power to stir up fierce controversy and in many ways embodies the extremes to which Italian fringe cinema was prepared to go in the late 1970s and early 80s. It is only available in cut form in the UK, and a recent (uncut) reissue in the US ran into trouble when two firms of printers refused to print the DVD sleeve. It achieved notoriety in the UK during the 1980s when it topped the list of films banned by the DPP during their 'video nasty' witch-hunt, its title frequently used as a by-word for the (allegedly) corrupting depravity that the movie and its kind were engendering in the British public. In many ways, it's a shame director Ruggero Deodato plumped for this title, as it does little to differentiate his film from other, less sophisticated splatter works such as Cannibal Apocalypse, Cannibal Ferox and Zombie Holocaust. Although it's a film many will find unsettling and probably upsetting, Cannibal Holocaust is a good deal more subtle than its peers in its attempt to offer something a little more worthwhile than simply wall-to-wall dismemberment.

The plot concerns a quest led by Professor Harold Monroe to recover reels of film shot in the jungles of South America by a team of documentary film-makers who disappeared without trace six months earlier. When he returns to New York with the tapes, both the city's University and the Pan American Broadcasting Corporation are keen to see what it on them - but nothing can prepare them for what they see. This twist raises the movie's game altogether - during the second half, we see the contents of the tapes intercut with scenes set back in New York, as a moral debate rages between the Professor, the university and the broadcasters over the actions of the film-makers and whether or not the footage should be shown to the public. This makes explicit what is implied in the jungle footage; Mark and his the rest of his documentary team come across appallingly, goofing around one minute before feigning shocked outrage at the 'barbarity' of the cannibal tribe, and slashing, killing and burning their way towards their goal of making an arresting film. Deodato claims the movie was inspired by catching his seven year old son watching harrowing reports from Vietnam on the television news. He invites us to debate the way unfamiliar cultures or events are sensationalised for the viewing public; his point seems to be that although film offers us a window onto a world we might never otherwise see, if the person behind the camera has a prejudiced agenda then the result will be misinformed ignorance. Interestingly, the film's two halves deliberately present the jungle setting from two very different perspectives; for Deodato's framing narrative, it's achingly beautiful (especially the opening aerial shots) helped by Riz Ortolani's gorgeous music, but the 'documentary' footage makes it look scuzzy and unpleasant.

Crucially, though, Deodato does not attempt to apologise for the cannibal way of life or sanitise it. Their brutality is presented unflinchingly and is incredibly repellent, especially the famous image of a young girl impaled on a vertical pole through her mouth and a horrendous abortion sequence. Although clearly the victims of western heavy-handedness, the cannibals are not innocents - it's just that the Americans are just as brutal, whilst claiming to be part of a 'civilised' culture. The film's most contentious scenes - cut from the DVD I am reviewing this from - involve the team killing animals including rats, monkeys and a turtle; Deodato incorporated real footage from a documentary film for these sequences, meaning the slaughter presented on screen is real. Whilst I'll readily admit that I haven't seen these scenes and have no particular desire to, I'm uncertain as to whether their inclusion - and more importantly their authenticity - helps or hinders the film; part of me thinks that it unhelpfully shifts the debate away from the issues considered within the film towards Deodato's own film-making, but I am also mindful of the fact that he uses footage from the kind of film he is explicitly criticising, and therefore genuinely shares the audience's own distaste and outrage.

Cannibal Holocaust's conviction for obscenity is ironic, considering that it's a film about how far film-making should be allowed to go. In effect, it's not a gory movie, but a film about a gory movie - not that this lessens its sickening impact, but it suggests that Deodato was at least plugged into the debate about extreme film-making and attempting to contribute to it, rather than merely attempting to shock / titillate (delete as applicable). The gore is present in spades, but the rough, documentary style of the film means it is never fetishised in the way it usually is in lesser movies. And although the film's final moral message - a voiceover from Prof Monroe asking "who are the real cannibals?" is hackneyed and obvious (as is much of the more overt moralising), it's the discomforting moral issues that linger in the mind after the credits have rolled, not the imagery. Cannibal Holocaust is extreme and unashamedly provocative, but it is never exploitative. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone simply because many will (with good reason) find it a difficult film to swallow, but it's a valuable entry into canon of cinema for its more considered approach to a rather murky area. Sadly, its reputation and title go before it, meaning that its core audience will largely be fans of horrid cannibal movies, but it's a smart and surprisingly reflective piece that pulls no punches in confronting its subject matter head-on.

Land of the Dead (2005)

2005-10-06T22:31:00.000+01:00

Clearly, a new zombie movie from George Romero is officially very big news. So big in fact that we've decided to watch it together and offer up this double review. Enjoy...

Matt says...

With expectations almost unreasonably high for George Romero's return to the genre he helped forge, it was perhaps inevitable that Land of the Dead would divide opinion. But although the film doesn't really look or feel much like the previous installments of the Dead saga, it's largely an elegant and worthwhile return to the director's trademark themes, advancing the ongoing story in a consistent yet intriguing way.

The most obvious different between Land and the holy trinity of Night / Dawn / Day is the scale of the story and the impact it has on Romero's direction. The tense claustrophia and small casts that define his previous films are gone, replaced with a much more expansive vision that takes in entire cities and cultures. In its 'hugeness', it's probably the closest thing (visually) that Romero has made to a traditional blockbuster, but rather than sell out, he's upscaled his story to make use of the far greater resources that he now has at his disposal. The characters in Night of Living Dead are a microcosm of a society in conflict that is doomed by its inability to settle differences in the face of a wider threat. In Land, we see that society for real, the divisions made plain by the plush comfort enjoyed by the rich and the grinding poverty suffered by the poor. Having tackled personal ideology, commercial culture and militarism in his previous films, looking at the class divide is a logical next step; Romero probably didn't anticipate that his bleak outlook would look so apt in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As with the previous two films, however, the allegory is painted in very broad, impressionistic strokes, to the extent that attempts to insert specific topical references to terrorism and jihad feel a little forced and out of place. Land follows its predecessors by offering very few hard and fast opinions about the state of the world and how it needs to be changed; again, it's more of a 'state of the nation' piece, throwing up problems but leaving us to debate the solutions. It's not a political film, but it's pertinent.

One aspect of the story that's received much criticism is the characters' obsession with money, with the consensus seemingly being that in a crisis such as, say, the dead returning to life and attacking the living, money would cease to have any value. I actually felt it was quite effective; I like the notion that in the years (?) since the events of Day of the Dead, what remains of human society has managed to rebuild itself into some semblance of what it used to be, at least for the rich. One look at the inside of Fidders Green (all blandly corporate architecture filled with suits and briefcases) and it's clear that money - and the power and social standing that accompany it - is still important; this walled enclave was built by the rich so that they could forget about the problems of the wider world. Cholo wants to get into Fiddlers Green, but he can't because he doesn't have the cash; to him, money represents the difference between sleeping in comfort and surviving out their with the zombies, and thus his attempt to extort five million dollars from Kaufmann doesn't seem so far-fetched.

The film's other contentious aspect is the gradual evolution of the zombies into more capable beings. As Carl points out below, this is hardly new in a Romero film, but it's an effective enough 'crisis' to destabilise mankind's rather makeshift society. Far more interesting is Romero's slightly comical but also rather touching humanisation of the zombies; rather than being the generic rotting corpses of lesser zombie movies, Romero's zombies have always had enough about them (mainly through clothes) to hint at a rather tragic backstory of who these people were in life. Everyone remembers the nurse and footballer zombies from Dawn, as well as the less celebrated but perhaps even more notable zombie in Day wearing an apron and rubber gloves. Land takes this even further; as well as the brass band in the film's opening sequence, the zombie uprising is triggered by "Big Daddy's" vague memory of being a garage attendant. Whilst seeing zombies firing guns is perhaps less impressive than seeing them bite people open (don't worry, there's plenty of that on display), Land does far more than any other zombie movie I've seen to characterise them as former humans rather than simply ravenous monsters.

Land of the Dead is inevitably not as good as Night or Dawn, but for my money it's on a par with Day. It's probably not the movie anyone expected Romero to make for his 'homecoming', but it's still a thoughtful and thoroughly effective piece of work, even if it lacks the rivetting character interaction of the previous movies. Sadly, Land didn't really do very impressive business at the US box office; nevertheless, on this form I look forward to more work from Romero, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

Carl says...

After the high expectations surrounding the news the George Romero was updating his Dead series the first question must naturally be, ‘is it any good?’ The short answer is yes, it’s very good. Unlike George Lucas on his return to the series that established him, it’s clear from the first few minutes of Land of the Dead that Romero has actually put a lot of thought into the next stage of his saga rather than just fleshing out the hangovers or answering the questions that arose in the original.

I say this is obvious because of all of the movies that followed Night of the Living Dead this one feels closest to the original. In spite of the obvious budget differences between Land and its predecessors Romero has not lost his ability to give his movies a very distinctive feel, and of the series Day of the Dead jars a lot more than this. Indeed, though the perspective has now ostensibly focused on an entire city it is undoubtedly superficial, with the siege mentality in Land just as disturbing and soul-destroying as that in Night. Land of the Dead sees Romero’s scenario come full circle, with humanity now forced to huddle for shelter in a city-cum-fortress dominated by the rich-only paradise of Fiddler’s Green rather than an isolated farm house. The dynamics are all familiar though, with human nature itself set up as the truly corrosive force and not the legions of zombies (‘stenches’ struck me as a very apt title for some reason, I can’t think why Romero didn’t use it sooner) hammering at the gates. Though we’re never given a time scale by Romero as to when ‘everything changed’ it is clear from his message that humanity will never be secure in the new world order because of its inherent flaws.

The class/race/creed divide is a smokescreen for this, with heavy-handed lines like ‘I’m gonna Jihad his ass’ and the ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ intentionally diverting in their heavy-handedness from the central theme. The excellent performances from the lead actors assist in this, with Dennis Hopper especially brilliant as Mr. Kauffman. Though the role is something of a pantomime villain one the dialogue – combined with Hopper’s criminally underused talents – are enough to show us that nothing is simple here. Though he’s obviously exploiting the situation there is also a clearly discernable sense that he does have some regard for the people he’s helping to protect, even if this translates into giving them enough vice to alleviate their woes.

Likewise, the widely trailed notion that this would be the one where Romero’s zombies learn how to think is also something of a mirage. I don’t think he ever suggested that the creatures were brainless automatons (think of Fly-boy leading the zombies to the safe-house shortly after he becomes one, or of Bub); rather, the threat that they posed would always be manageable so long as people pulled together and recognised the dire plight that the common good was facing. When we ignore this advice and return to our flawed ways the logical conclusion of Romero’s premise is that we’d be overwhelmed, and this happens in fine style here.

I could rant about Land of the Dead for much longer, but it’s enough for me to say Romero has succeeded in bringing everything that distinguishes the Dead series from other zombie movies to the latest instalment. Everything about this film feels right, from the finely balanced action and gore scenes through to the problematic ending. That it feels as though he has avoided answering the questions he posited earlier is precisely the point, for as we’re told in the opening scenes, ‘they won’t stop until there’s nothing else to eat. When that happens we’ll all be dead’.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

2005-09-26T22:13:00.000+01:00

Generally speaking, I'm not a movie purist when it comes to remakes - to my mind, there's no reason why a good director can't pull something fresh and interesting out of a familiar story. Even though the original is still held in high esteem, George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, in which four survivors attempt to ride out a plague of zombies in a deserted shopping mall, is particularly ripe for retelling. When the original first opened in 1978, shopping malls were a relatively new proposition - hulking, vacuum-formed consumer paradises that seemed to embody the the retail culture of the future. Fast forward to 2004 and the situation's just as Romero predicted, only much much larger - there's a mall in every city, and a generation of babies who can recognise the McDonalds logo before they can say "mummy". You'd think there's a fascinating survival story to be told there, and there probably is, but director Zack Snyder's none too interested in telling it; his Dawn of the Dead pays lip service to the original (title, mall, original cast cameos) but is essentially a slick but soulless major-studio action movie of the kind that Hollywood knocks out by the bucketload. It ticks all the requisite boxes for a summer blockbuster, but ultimately fails to live up to its potential.

Those who enjoyed this movie (and surprisingly, there seem to be quite a few) will all say that it needs to be judged on its own terms rather than in comparison to the classic original. Whilst this is true to an extent, it lets Snyder off the hook simply by saying that he had a thankless task in trying to better the original. This isn't really the case; although the original Dawn is undeniably a masterpiece, it is flawed in places. Sometimes the limitations of its budget show on screen (particularly the blue-skinned extras), and the satire on consumerism is painted in very broad strokes - it's never as subtle, clever or revelatory as some horror enthusiasts would have you believe. Where the original does succeed - and succeeds beautifully - is showing the human story, the changing dynamic between four characters who are about to spend the rest of their lives in a building that is simultaneously paradise and hell. As one of the generation that grew in the consumer culture that Romero was writing about when it was still in its infancy, Snyder is well placed to add some much more targeted and focused satirical bite. Instead, he uses the mall simply as window dressing; it might as well be a railway station or a biosphere for all he mines its potential. When Sarah Polley meets a group of survivors while on the run from zombies, they casually announce that they're going to head for the mall; you almost expect Avril Lavigne to pop up, skateboard in hand, shouting "Dude, let's crash the mall." It's a perfect example of how Snyder's able to sap the drama from a dream scenario that's presented to him on a plate.

As for the human drama, it's rather limited by the unwieldly cast. Because we can't get to know everyone, we only really get inside the heads of Kenneth (Ving Rhames) and Ana (Sarah Polley), which makes the dynamic much more of a straight-forward "his 'n' hers". All four characters in the original complemented and hindered each other equally, but here we don't really get to know anyone else well enough to care. It doesn't really help that a lot of the dialogue and acting clunks along forgettably; I'm not asking for Shakespeare, but it seems in the bid to grab the MTV audience someone forgot to write anything with any heart or soul. The most poetic line is delivered by Ken Foree (Peter from the 1978 version) and it's taken from the original movie, which really shows the level we're working at here. In fact, cameos from Foree, Scott Reiniger and make-up guru Tom Savini are actually more irritating than pleasing, a patronising salute to Romero's movie and its fans which fails to atone for the hatchet job done elsewhere.

Dawn of the Dead 2004 is disappointing when compared to the original, but the biggest disappointments are squarely on the film's own terms. There are flashes of inspiration, but Snyder seems unable to carry them through - or at the very least to give us more of them. The scene in which a traumatised boyfriend keeps his zombie-d girlfriend 'alive' so that she might still give birth to their baby (who arrives a zombie as well) is fantastic, and really gets to the heart of the philosophical implications of the dead returning to life. But it's a set-piece, and when it's over, it's gone and we're back to the rather mundane story. Unforgivably, there's a dog in peril scene, which suggests Snyder was either taking the piss or that he doesn't watch many movies. But most crushingly of all, the ending - first person camcorder footage of the characters fleeing from zombies on an island - is great, and in a flash shows you the way Snyder should have made his movie. Had he stuck with this device throughout - and used Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters as a starting point rather than Dawn of the Dead - he might have had a modern classic on his hands. Instead, it's just a poor movie, both as a remake and on its own terms. Not so much a case of dumbing down as just not bothering to think in the first place, Dawn of the Dead 2004 is an identikit shoot 'em up that rides on the kudos of the original without ever showing an understanding of why Romero's original idea was so good.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

2005-09-23T20:13:00.000+01:00

I was expecting good things from a movie which no less a critic than George A. Romero unashamedly promotes at any opportunity as one of the finest zombie films he’s ever seen, but even I wasn’t prepared for the quality of Shaun of the Dead. My eyes tend to glaze over when I am confronted with a piece of recent British film-making, which is a real arse as some of my favourite films hail from these very shores (I have only to mention The Wicker Man as proof). I blame it on too much box office success for Richard Curtis and his insidious ‘rom-coms’, which have somehow distracted the cinema going public’s attention from the fact that Hugh Grant a) cannot act and; b) is a tosser. I thus made every effort to avoid Shaun of the Dead at the time of its release in light of reviews describing it as ‘the first romantic zombie comedy’ – no thank you. With several friends recommending it though I finally bit the bullet (having first been assured that Grant was nowhere to be seen) and can only apologies for every shrug of indifference I affected when being told to go and watch it at the cinema.

What strikes you most about Shaun is the seamless integration of several genres into such a slick little movie. You could describe it as a zombie film, a romance and a comedy and you’d be right on all fronts. This is a very ambitious undertaking, especially when you consider that it was Simon Pegg’s first effort at movie screenwriting. Those who’ve seen him on British TV will appreciate that the man is a comedian/comedy writer of the first order but here he shows that he’s overly capable of dealing with any challenge a story might through at him. Though the comedy and romance are integral buttresses of Pegg’s story he’s much truer to the Romero approach to horror than most other imitators. Here, as in the Dead series, the zombies provide the startling catalysts to the human story. We’re back to the slow-moving, ponderous creatures of old which is a refreshing contrast to the hyper-efforts of the Resident Evil-type that seem to have established themselves as the typecast, with the former being infinitely more effective in fostering a menacing atmosphere.

Pegg pulls off the difficult task of retaining this horror while at the same time delivering a hilarious comedy. His mum calling the unbeknownst to her zombies ‘a bit bitey’ or Bill Nighy reassuring the family that he’ll be okay having just been bitten because he’s run the wound under a cold tap. Quintessentially English, but they gel together beautifully with the top-notch cast that delivers them. Pegg and Bill Nighy I’ve already mentioned, but it’d be unjust if I didn’t also single out Nick Frost, who’s fantastic as Shaun’s flatmate. On top of all of this (as if that wasn’t enough) the movie also has a serious and at times uncomfortable undercurrent which is impossible to disregard. The scene where Shaun has to shoot his mother is really wrenching and seems to jump out of nowhere and knock the viewer off balance. It’s a measure of both the writer and the superb cast that they never skip a beat in navigating their way through the confusion, and the sincerity with which they exhibit fear, sarcasm and genuine emotional hurt is a rare thing to see in film, especially a relatively low-budget British offering. A first rate zombie film, comedy and human drama, Shaun of the Dead is one of those rare offerings that gratifies on every level and restores faith in how good the cinema can be. It deserves to be in every DVD collection.

Boris Karloff

2005-09-21T20:20:00.000+01:00

The outline of Boris Karloff in his full Frankenstein makeup remains to this day one of horror cinema’s most enduring images. An immensely versatile actor, he gave accomplished performances in many non-horror movies, but his astonishing performance as the monster in James Whale’s classic came to define his career; but whereas many other actors would have come to resent such a ubiquitous role, Karloff was always proud to be associated with the character, and cherished the acclaim and popularity it brought him.

Karloff, whose real name was William Henry Pratt, was born in Camberwell, London, on 23rd November 1887. Often asked about his exotic looks, he claimed to be of Russian extraction; however, this is more than likely a fabrication. In actual fact, he could claim East Indian ancestry, and the musical ‘The King and I’ was based on the experiences of his great aunt Anna. He was orphaned at an early age, and although his initial intention was to join the foreign legion, he emigrated to Canada in 1909 to work on a farm, where he was bitten by the acting bug. There, he changed his name to Boris Karloff in a bid to attract more attention.

Karloff then spent many years in America taking a variety of theatre roles, but success eluded him. In 1919 he began to get regular work as an extra at Universal Studios, eventually taking more sizeable parts in silent movies such as His Majesty the American. Although he worked prolifically, his breakthrough wasn’t to come until 1929’s The Criminal Code, as Columbia Film that established him as a character actor of note. He found himself on the shortlist to play the (mute) monster in a 1931 screen adaption of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Although Bela Lugosi, fresh from his success as Dracula, was the studio’s preferred choice for the role, he won the part and the film was a runaway success. Karloff went on to do two other notable Universal horror movies – The Mummy (as the lovelorn ancient Egyptian pharaoh Imhotep) and much later Bride of Frankenstein, where he returned to his signature role. Although happy to reprise the part of the monster, Karloff had concerns as to whether letting him talk compromised the character. Nevertheless, it was another sensational performance in a film many consider to be the high point of the ‘Universal Monster’ series. Between these two films, he made a number of pictures in both Hollywood and the UK, including several pairings with Bela Lugos.

Karloff moved to the Broadway stage in 1941 with Arsenic and Old Lace, playing a man who is continually mistaken for Boris Karloff. He also played Captain Hook in Peter Pan, and his performance in The Lark won him a Tony Award nomination. With a couple of exceptions, however, the quality of his film work deteriorated rapidly; although he continued to give excellent performances, they were mainly for mediocre B-movies which diminished his Hollywood stock considerably. Throughout the 1950s he became a regular fixture on US television, and at one point he even had his own show. During the 1960s, he became firmly aligned with low-budget director Roger Corman. Suffering from emphysema, his final performance was in Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets (1969), in which he played an aging horror star. He died later that same year.

Carl says...

Like his onscreen rival Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff towered over the horror genre from the 1930s right through to 1960s. To a certain generation of horror fans he was terror incarnate, with Frankenstein marking the beginning of a career which spanned some 30 years but which never escaped his landmark performance as The Monster. Unlike Lugosi in Dracula I’ve always been a little surprised that such a role could propel the actor filling it to the heights of stardom; that Frankenstein is a classic offering is beyond doubt, but the role of the Monster is a fairly uncomplicated (dare I even say easy?) one to pull off and I don’t think it gives any actor the chance to shine in the way that Count Dracula did for Lugosi. Lest this be thought of as a knock at Karloff though I quickly add that I think that his performance in the role demonstrates precisely why he established himself as a staple of horror films of the period – he’s an excellent actor who gave himself wholeheartedly to every role he was offered and his sincerity in doing this always enhanced the quality of any film he starred in.

Ironically, this is perhaps least observable in the film that made his name. Frankenstein was a quality film on every level, with Karloff’s adeptness merely enhancing the quality rather than producing it. This is also the case in his other big budget roles, like The Mummy or The Mask of Fu Manchu. You have to look beyond these movies to see just how commanding a presence Karloff was though, to films like The Ghoul, The Ape and (it brings tears to my eyes just to say it) The Terror; average to sub-standard films which Karloff totally dominates and infuses with a hint of respectability and quality just for being in them. This is a lot more difficult to pull off than it sounds, and there’s a lot more involved than casting a fine actor in a crap film – think of the turkeys Robert De Niro has been in recently. He was committed to the profession right up to his dying days, with Targets delivering plaudits in (unusually for Karloff) a rare non-horror role.

Phrases like workmanlike and diligent are often taken as veiled compliments, suggestive at first of the rewarding of effort rather than achievement. When they’re sincerely meant though nothing can be further than the truth. Boris Karloff personified these attributes; he loved acting for the sake of acting, and to this end he was prepared to accept roles which ‘serious’ actors might not have sniffed at. In doing so he gave horror fans some of the finest movie going experiences on offer, rightly deserving their devotion in return.

Matt says...

Watching Karloff’s performance in Frankenstein, it’s readily apparent that he learned how to ply his trade in silent movies. In Mary Shelley’s novel, the monster is eloquent and talkative, happy to elucidate on his inner pain and desires, and it’s probably true to say that the decision to keep the character mute in the film was motivated by the need to simplify the text and inject some traditional scares. Karloff’s doleful performance manages to reclaim some of the monster’s anguish that Shelley writes at such lengths about; his physical presence, his demeanour and most importantly his astonishingly expressive face lend him far more pathos than the ostensible ‘hero’ of the piece, Henry Frankenstein. As a performer, he instinctively understands that less is more, the monster’s awkwardness and rather apprehensive approach to new experiences give him a depth that runs far deeper than the (highly impressive make-up). His scene by the lake with the child manages to be comical, poignant and tragic all at once, and this is purely down the quality of acting involved.

Karloff did pretty much the same thing in The Mummy and Bride of Frankenstein, but this apparent lack of versatility is offset by both his blinding performances in many other films – good and bad – and the simple fact that he’s so much better at it than anyone else. Anyone doubting his capabilities as an actor should look to the series of films he made for Monogram in the 40s and 50s – they’re weak movies, but he towers above everything else on screen. It’s testament to his qualities as a performer that he always brought out the best from everything he did – no matter how ropey – and more than anything else he simply seemed to love acting. A great performer, then, but it’s his Universal work that secures him legendary status, for helping to redefine the emotional resonance that a horror movie can have. Frankenstein stands as a symbol of all that can be great about the genre, and Karloff’s at the centre of that success.

Black Lagoon key film

Obviously it's going to be one of the Frankenstein films, and - for reasons outlined elsewhere on this site - we're plumping for Frankenstein. But his performance in The Mummy is sensational, even if the film itself is not as tight as its predecessor, and Bride of Frankstein, although flawed, it worth checking out too.

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)

2005-09-18T22:54:00.000+01:00

It's nothing new for horror to borrow from other styles of film-making, but even by the genre's own mix-and-match standards Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals is a real curio. As the title suggests, it's one of the Em(m)anuelle films, a long running series of soft-core porn films the began in France in 1969. By the late 70s, the series was being helmed by Italian director Joe d'Amato, who saw fit to try and incorporate the character into that other late 70s Italian staple, the cannibal movie. The results are odd in the extreme. Laura Gemser plays roving reporter Emanuelle, working undercover at a New York lunatic asylum, where a young female patient has bitten a nurse's breast off. It transpires that the girl was raised by a tribe of cannibals, and intrigued by the story, Emanuelle puts together an expedition to track down the tribe - only to find that her team are top of the menu...

It's hard to imagine who this movie is aimed at, or indeed why it exists in the first place. I can't imagine any porn fans being massively excited by scenes of genital mutilation and disembowellment, and nor are gore-hounds going to be satisfied by the acres of bare - intact - flesh on display. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it feels like two different films shunted together. The first half is where all the porn is, and seems to be set in a parallel world where people are constantly having sex, or thinking about sex (although crucially, never talking about sex - possibly because they're too busy with the first two). Maybe I haven't watched enough 70s porn, but I was amazed at how much sex the film crammed in whilst setting up the expedition plot. When Emanuelle meets the straitjacketed cannibal girl, she calms her down by - naturally enough - masturbating her. She then meets Professor Mark Lester, consults him on cannibals, has sex with him, meets up with her boyfriend, has sex with him, then travels to the Amazon with Mark, having flashbacks about their earlier sex en route before having some more when they arrive (whilst another girl watches and masturbates). Emanuelle doesn't limit herself to men either, leading to perhaps the film's oddest sequence, where she rather listlessly cavorts in a stream with a girl called Isobel whilst a monkey sits on the bank smoking a cigarette. There's a nun too, and although she doesn't have sex, we do get to see her without her knickers on, so that's okay. And every time Emanuelle has sex - usually unannounced and never commented on afterwards - the soundtrack kicks into a bizarre song where a female singer wails about how she is the queen, he is the king, and how "when we make love my arms are tired". Extraordinary stuff. Luckily, Laura Gemser is very easy on the eye, and her lovely statuesque figure and bronzed skin manage to save the day at the end of the movie, so you can't complain.

Horror fans will find themselves on more familiar ground in the second half, where we're treated to the usual parade of rubbery flesh and gloopy red blood, whilst men in loincloths dance around to some tribal drumming. The gore effects are pretty much as good as any you'll find on a Fulci movie, but even by Italian standards, this is an ineptly made film. It has some of the strangest edits and worst continuity I think I've ever seen, whilst some of the jungle scenes hark back to Ed Wood with their apparent mismatching of night and day shots. The dubbing is nothing short of atrocious, with the voiceover artists continually interrupting each other and making a hash of their lines. In particular, the scene where Emanuelle and Mark first have lunch has to be seen to be believed, as the voice artist attempts to fit the dialogue around mouthfuls of food. And whoever dubbed Emanuelle's newspaper boss deserves a medal for one of the weirdest accents ever. It doesn't help the the dialogue is clunky at best and risible at worst. "Tomorrow I'm leaving for the Amazon, for work. Something very, very interesting. It's about cannibalsm," she informs her boyfriend. "Emanuelle you're crazy, you're really crazy," says her boyfriend, to which she replies "Maybe I am, but right now I want to make love". Cue the sex.

Basically, this film is total tosh, but then you could probably guess that from the title. If you're watching this movie, chances are it's not because you're looking for a great movie, it's not because you have a gore fetish and it's not because you're looking for a wank - Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals fails on all three counts. As allmovie.com observes, it's basically a film with no target audience whatsoever, but it achieves a certain greatness through its sheer oddness. I struggle to think what D'Amato thought he was bringing to the table while making this film, but I can't pretend I didn't enjoy it, even if it drags towards the end. Citizen Kane it ain't, but anyone with a passing interest in the seedy underbelly of cinema history will have a field day here.

The Grudge (2003)

2005-09-18T16:50:00.000+01:00

The international success of Hideo Nakata's Ring led to a frenzied search - both in Hollywood and in Asia - to find the next international "J-horror" (as it's doomed to be known) success. The unlikely candidate appears to have been the Ju-On series, aka The Grudge, which already exists in five screen versions already - two Japanese TV movies, two Japanese feature films and an American remake, with an American remake sequel on the way. Having only seen the first Japanese movie, I can't really offer any comparison as to what's the best, but on this evidence alone I can't really say that the whole Grudge industry fills me with much enthusiasm. The recent US remake, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, was extensively (and rather cynically) promoted as being the "next Ring", even down to the spooky girl with long dark hair on the posters, and the UK DVD release of the first Japanese film has a rather odd quote from The Metro on the back, claiming the film "scares the socks of The Ring", which I can only assume is a typo. Hell, you can even buy the Japanese DVD in Woolworths - even Ring didn't get that treatment, so someone's obviously banking on making a lot of money out of this series.

I can only assume that the Grudge hype is born more out of the fact that it's a spooky Japanese horror film rather than anything to do with the film itself. It's got quite a clever twist; it's a haunted house movie, but if you come into contact with the house, the ghosts can get you anywhere, even after you've left the building. The film is almost an anthology movie, telling the various, intertwining stories of people who become involved in the house (the scene of several nasty murders), from a volunteer social worker to the policemen investigating the strange goings on. I'm all for a non-linear narrative, but the one that director Shimizu Takashi employs here hinders rather than helps the story. The movie is divided into segments each telling the story of a different character, and so the film's time frame shifts all over the place; unfortunately, the characters are not really interesting enough to warrant this exclusive treatment, and in some cases are utterly interchangeable. It might have been more worthwhile to show us perhaps a day / week / month in the house and all the various comings and goings in that time, as at least it could have lent the film some Ring-style 'race against time' pacing; instead, the confusing timeframe saps any energy out of the story, dragging it down.

Even worse, it all looks so sterile. At least when you watch a Vincent Price haunted house movie you get some impressive interiors, but the Grudge house is just painfully dull to watch, with some of the most pedestrian lighting I've ever seen. The ghosts add some momentary excitement, but even they are sloppily inconsistent: in the shadows, in full view, going down corridors, passing through walls... Maybe it's meant to be enigmatic but it feels sloppily thought out. The Grudge may be many things, but it's not a strong enough film to support an international franchise. The Ring saga may have been milked to death, but at least it had a knockout origin - this doesn't. And like Hideo Nakata, Shimizu Takashi is starting to look like a one-trick pony; he's helmed (in various capacities) all the incarnations of this film so far, and precious little else. The Grudge has had premier league status conferred upon it, but it doesn't feel like the start of a phenomenon - it's just dull.

Carrie (1976)

2005-09-18T14:11:00.000+01:00

The high esteem in which Carrie is held has as much to do with its portrayal of high-school life as it does with any of the film's shocks or scares. Although it's been a very fertile area for all manner of teen films - good and bad - since, Brian de Palma's classic was one of the first films to really get inside the brutal caste system that many teenagers grow up with. Sissy Spacek plays Carrie White, an emotionally crippled schoolgirl who has developed powers of telekinesis, which enable her to move objects with her mind. Of rather more concern to her is the bullying she receives at school and the terrible treatment she gets at home from her psychotic, bible-bashing mother. The situation improves when a concerned classmate sets her up with a date for the prom, but as her confidence grows, she has no idea that the tempestuous Christine Hargenson is planning one last humiliating prank - a prank which forces Carrie to use the full extent of her powers to devastating effect...

The cast of near-unknowns play the whole thing faultlessly, with many of the school scenes, particularly those involved John Travolta's Billy, having a loose, natural feel which contrast heavily with the almost operatic confrontations between Carrie and her mother. Spacek delivers a knockout performance as Carrie, her southern accent and rather lopsided features marking her out as a total outsider from her confident, more sexually aware peers. But in the run-up to the prom the transformation she undergoes is palpable; compared to her pasty awkwardness in the early shower scenes, she takes on a rather fragile beauty - still very much the outsider, but now with a charming delicacy that the other girls lack. In all fairness, anyone's going to look good sitting next to William Katt's Tommy Ross, sporting the most outrageous poodle perm in cinema history and clad in a tuxedo that even Jon Pertwee's Dr Who would have balked at. Still, it's interesting to note that whilst everyone else's appearance roots them very firmly in the mid-70s, Carrie's prom dress and styling have dated the least - whether this timelessness was intentional or not is a moot point, but it makes the film seem less like a product of its age.

Having had some indication of the plot before I watched it, the film confounded my expectations as to its tone. Having watched Carrie grow in confidence, I expected her revenge to be her vindication, a determined stand against the bullies on behalf of all the little people people crushed by the high school system. In the event, Carrie's tormentors get their just deserts, but her allies suffer as well, and what's more she undoes all the positive change she has brought about for herself. At the beginning of prom night, she's an independent young woman; a few hours later she is driven back into the arms of her insane mother. The DVD box bills this movie as "the ultimate revenge fantasy", but I'd describe it more as a revenge tragedy; everyone's punished, the deserving and the undeserving. There can be no satisfaction in the outcome, and no-one is left to learn from it.

At a lean 90 minutes, Carrie is a taut little film, and the excellent screenplay sensibly keeps things linear. It's a shame, then, that de Palma doesn't always let the script and the cast speak for themselves. His direction occasionally feel heavy-handed, such as the unnecessarily foreboding thunder and lightning when Carrie announces her decision to go to the prom to her mother. And unforgivably, he uses some appalling and inexplicable split-screen trickery over Carrie's revenge, which robs the scene of potential scale and horror and instead makes it look like a cheap MTV video. These slip-ups are few in number, but do give the impression that the director was perhaps trying a little too hard.

Like all the best horror films, Carrie is powerful because it essentially tells a very human story, and uses its arsenal of shock, scares and blood to elevate everyday problems to an almost epic scale. Yes, the ending is a very up-front bloodbath, but far more powerful is its sickening emotional impact. At the prom, Tommy does genuinely fall in love with Carrie and in a strange way we do too, making her subsequent unravelling quite harrowing to watch. Ultimately, the supernatural plays second fiddle to the human, which really is as it should be.

Undead (2003)

2005-09-18T13:24:00.000+01:00

The debut feature from Australia's Spierig brothers, Undead has secured a cult reputation (mainly through DVD) over the last couple of years, but could probably achieve a degree of mainstream success if given the distribution. Although it's a low-budget, independent horror, it aims unashamedly high, taking on the epic scale of a blockbuster without ever once feeling like a cookie-cutter studio picture. Essentially a very gory action movie, its piercingly witty script and outrageously choreographed action make it a relentlessly enjoyable but never mindless ride, even if it offers nothing substantial to think about.

Strange things are afoot in the small town of Berkely. Meteorites are striking down members of the public, and very soon they're returning as zombies to feast upon the living. A rag-bag gang of survivors, led by former beauty queen Renee and enigmatic fisherman Mason, attempt to hold out against the spreading zombie plague, but as they attempt to flee the town, they realise that their problems extend a lot further than just the undead...

One of the most refreshing things about Undead is the way it proudly wears its Australian roots on its sleeve. One of the first shots of the film is of a fat man in shorts playing cricket, swigging a beer shortly before being decapitated by a meteorite; his companion's startled reaction is to shout "bugger me!" in probably one of the broadest accents in screen history. Although never played exclusively for laughs, the film is full of genuinely funny one-liners, mainly from Steve Greig's hysterical (in both senses) cop. Upon seeing a zombie kill someone for the first time, he shouts "When I was a kid, we use to respect our parents, not fucking eat them", before turning his gun on Mason and threatening to "finish you off faster than a birthday cake at a fucking fat girl's birthday party".

Lines like this keep coming, and provide a happy distraction from the plot, which starts off as a fairly routine runaround and becomes increasingly nonsensical. It also shamelessly steals sequences from other films; when the survivors attempt to hole up in Mason's basement, it's effectively Night of the Living Dead on acid, and we later get tributes to Dawn of the Dead and, in the final third, Independence Day. This last part gets very sci-fi very quickly, and the lack of any real explanations for what's going on get a little wearing, even though there's enough funny dialogue and entertaining imagery to hold the attention. I'm not asking to be spoonfed, but a little more information as to who the aliens are and how they relate to the zombies would have been nice.

Aside from the dialogue, Undead's triumph is its action. Having watched a lot of Fulci movies lately, I thought I'd seen every possible disembowellment, but some of the initial deaths are jaw-droppingly inventive. We get zombies managing to punch someone's entire brain out, as well as the aforementioned meteorite hits. Surprisingly, the human retaliation is great too; one zombie is sliced in two at the waist and his legs continue to run around like a chicken, whilst Renee's zombie massacre with nothing but a broom handle and a rotary blade makes Kill Bill look like childsplay. Mason's gun-toting is pretty dextrous, but probably the most memorable killing involves a zombie, a can of pop, a soapy floor and a ball-point pen; the results are astonishing.

Okay, so the music's a bit intrusive, and the acting variable, especially Mungo McKay's phoned-in performance as Mason, but how many movies have shown a man punching a flying zombie fish? And made it slightly menacing as well as funny? That's Undead in a nutshell - not deep in any way but smart, very funny and never cheap, despite its low-budget origins. On the strength of this I'd like to see more films from the Spierig brothers, and I'd recommend Undead to anyone with a love of quirky blockbusters.

Martin (1978)

2005-09-18T12:01:00.000+01:00

Martin more than deserves its reputation as the best of George Romero’s ‘non-Dead’ movies. Stylish, intelligent and deeply troubling in its implications, it’s impossible to watch without detecting Romero’s hand at the wheel. He sets about deconstructing the myths of vampirism much more overtly than in his subtle analysis of zombies and the undead, but the skill with which Romero crafts the tale leads the viewer very quickly into a minefield of moral confusion and offers few pointers as to who is right and who is wrong.

This is a very difficult thing to do when the first thing we see the Martin do is brutally murder an innocent young woman. He makes no bones about the fact that he is a dangerous killer who chooses his victims with a disconcerting randomness. Martin’s inner turmoil is beautifully rendered in the dream scenes, where we see him fulfilling his vampiric fantasies. When contrasted with the gritty and desolate reality of his life in a declining Pittsburgh the clash between his world and his fantasies become even more apparent, and it is easy to feel sympathy with him for seeking refuge in the latter. This is especially so when we are shown his childhood trauma of being branded a vampire by his Eastern European family, and relive the attempts to purge him of his ‘evil’.

What really pushes the film along is the struggle between Martin and his uncle, Tata Cuda. Again it is difficult to resent Cuda’s obsession with the vampire myth that surrounds his family (product of the ‘old country’) even though this has at the very least been ineffective in helping his troubled nephew and has probably exacerbated the situation. Once the set-piece concepts have been brushed aside (with humour when Martin eats the garlic his uncle has nailed to the bedroom door and spits it out at him) Cuda comes to represent organised religion – and conventional morality on a wider level – and its utter futility in dealing with the situation. From walking at a distance ahead of his family right through to an exorcism, Cuda wants to both hide his family’s shame and try and remedy it. His - and the world he represents – inability to do either of these is effectively framed in the context of declining working class suburb of Pittsburgh, where human dignity has been eroded by the fight for survival.

There is an ageless quality about the world that Romero creates, with the economic slump of the late 1970s imposing a time warp effect on a community and way of life that is dying on its feet. This helps add to the confusion of what exactly is wrong with Martin, with the Nosferatu accusations becoming more plausible in the eerie and unfamiliar world we’re confronted with. As ever, Romero manages his players brilliantly and the largely unknown cast turn in flawless performances Thus, the film is a depressing one as you come to care for all of the characters and know that none of them will have a happy ending. Romero offers us a no-holes barred look at the dark side of human nature on every level which is gripping and disheartening and, ultimately, provocatively sensational.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

2005-09-08T10:21:00.000+01:00

You can’t help but have certain expectations from a movie whose title contains the words chainsaw and massacre. It naturally conjures up images of super-violence and blood-curdling gore, with plot development taking second place to the graphics of horror. This is especially so when a lead character – in this case the brutal Leatherface – enters the annals of cinema history in their own right and becomes the emblem of the film, even to those who’ve never actually watched it. I was steeped in these preconceptions the first time I watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and was thus delighted to instead discover a movie of real worth and intelligence.

Loosely based on the story of notorious American serial killer Ed Gein the connections between the reality of his story and what we’re given in Texas are too slack and inaccurate to overpower Hooper’s intentions for the film. He doesn’t attempt to bring Gein’s story to the screen at all but instead takes contemporary America as his inspiration. It’s easy to forget now the traumas that were racking American society in the early 1970s; the Vietnam War was limping to its tragic conclusion, having brutalised a generation of young American males and planted the seeds of insecurity in the rest of the population; at home groups like the Black Panthers and the Weathermen were spreading their anarchist creed to most major cities in a series of bomb attacks and gun-fights; the legacy of the civil rights struggle was still being fought over, with people not sure what their country stood for, if anything; and while all of this was happening the future of the nation itself seemed insecure, with the Watergate affair fuelling disillusionment and distrust of a supposedly sacred institutions.

Hooper harnesses this despair and the feeling of being out of control of events with real aplomb. As our young and innocent party embark on their tragic journey it is difficult not to recognise in them the turmoil and hopelessness of their entire generation (Hooper even dressed them in the style of the counter-culture beatniks who’d have been regular features of the anti-Vietnam demonstrations) and the sense of anguish that this generates elicits sympathy and anger in equal measure. The Vietnam War had brought horrific violence into American homes for over 9 years when Texas was released, and contemporary audiences must have bridled at knowing that what they were seeing on screen paled in comparison to what was happening in their name in Indochina. Indeed, the fact the Sawyer family (granted, not normal even on the surface) perpetrate their horrors hidden from public view resonates with the fact that even now the true picture of what went on in Vietnam is murky and one that people would rather not talk about.

So, the much expected gore never fully materialises, and we’re expected to make do with the implied horror of the situation. This is gives the film a real and gritty edge. The actors are all perfectly proficient and serve the plot well, though this is undeniably a scenario- rather than a character-driven movie. When you put everything together you’re left with a movie of deceptively simplistic clarity and a truly timeless feel which leaves an indelible mark.

The Birds (1963)

2005-09-07T20:30:00.000+01:00

I have to to confess to not knowing a great deal about Alfred Hitchcock, but I'm reliably informed by someone who does that The Birds is probably the nearest thing he made to an actual horror movie. Based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier (who apparently was none to happy with the finished film), it's one of those all-conquering, era-defining classics, and I'm not going to waste time echoing the acres of critical praise that the film has accumulated over the years. In a nutshell, it's brilliant - tense, utterly terrifying and paced so beautifully you could weep. Approaching the film as a horror fan, though, a couple of things stuck out.

Specifically, I was struck by the influence the film seems to have had over some of the later horror classics, particularly Night of the Living Dead. Whilst The Birds doesn't offer much in the way of social commentary, the nervous, jittery tension once the central characters are holed up in Mitch's house is evident in Romero's offering, suggesting both directors realised that the eerie calm between attacks (whether the assailants are zombies or birds) can be just as nerve-shredding as the attacks themselves. The reason behind both films' events is left unexplained, as Hitchcock and Romero are more interested in the psychological, human manifestations of fear rather than attempting to wrap everything up with a bow.

Bernard Herrmann's 'soundtrack' is also epochal. Featuring no conventional instrumentation, the rising concophony of bird noises seems to pre-date the more soundscapes approach of horror composers during the 70s, whose (often synthesised) work opted more abstract atmosphere rather than conventional themes and motifs. He set a trend that continues right up to today with Kenji Kawai's work on the Japanese Ring movies.

Where Hitchcock differs from other horror directors, however, is the delight he takes in obscuring and deferring the shocks that are to follow. Promoted with the tagline "What is the terrifying secret of The Birds??", even 1963 audiences must have known that something creepy happens in the film, but the first half hour plays like a bargain-basement Breakfast at Tiffanys. It's not until over half way through that things really kick off, but the feeling at the start that this rather romantic film could lurch off into something really horrible any moment is really compelling. In itself, the carnage is impressively handled, but the way we've been waiting for it all along makes it even sweeter. Unashamedly ghoulish, The Birds is essential.

The Shining (1980)

2005-09-07T19:21:00.000+01:00

The Shining is the most introspective of Stanley Kubrick’s movies and was received with a good measure of apathy in its day. This may seem surprising to modern audiences, who are used to seeing it close to the top of most ‘best horror film’ charts and who readily accept its place in the genre hall of fame. It probably didn’t help that Stephen King – author of the book on which it is based – turned on Kubrick after its release for expunging most of overt scares and instead offering up the defining tale of what happens when a family goes into meltdown. Compare this to the 1990s TV series for which King himself was the scriptwriter and you’ll probably understand why he was more than a little peeved.

I quite enjoyed the TV series, but there is no doubt in my mind that Kubrick was truer to the spirit of King’s work, if not the letter. It often happens that a film adaptation stumbles across the one thing in a story that makes it great, and cuts through the undergrowth of the rest of the book to present it in all its glory. In this Kubrick had few peers, with Dr. Strangelove taking the book Red Alert to entirely new levels of satire and chillingly cool perception – with stunning effect. The Short-Timers turned his attention to the Vietnam War, and – Full Metal Jacket later – the result was one of the finest and most intelligent war movies ever made. This is pretty much what you can expect from The Shining, with the supernatural premise playing second fiddle to his exploration of the phenomenon of fear itself.

Kubrick is crafty in this, on the surface lulling us into what appears to be a pretty conventional ghost story but allowing the underlying tension of his scenario to bubble through at just the right moments. It’s clear from the opening shots of the Torrance family driving to their winter vacation job that things are going to start falling apart. The camerawork is especially polished at expressing this, ranging from the predatory swooping of the solitary drive through the mountains to the fixed shots which amply demonstrate the gargantuan proportions of the Overlook Hotel. The matter of fact way in which we’re told of the bloody past of the hotel seems to come and go and never intrudes on the rest of the film. I’m not sure that Kubrick intended it to, for the real horror of his story is in portraying the terrifying consequences of family meltdown in its most extreme form. Like his Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann character in Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick uses Jack Nicholson as a tool of self-parody, whilst framing the rest of the film in complete dead-pan. The forceful clash between these two worlds is as engaging as it is sublime, and it’s a measure of Kubrick’s talent that he’s able to use the complex technique to turn out a chillingly scary ghost story.

Jack Nicholson is fundamental to this and, as you’d expect, portrays suppressed insanity in a way that looks too easy. It’s a role that only he could play, with his constantly on-edge expression never quite revealing what is going on in his mind. Shelley Duvall is with him all the way though, and as the hopelessness of their predicament slowly starts to sink in she gives us willing self-delusion turning into unbridled fear with a refreshing honesty and unpretentiousness. Perhaps the true star of the show is the Overlook Hotel itself which, as a physical embodiment of unsettling horror, has few screen rivals. All in all The Shining is a profoundly effective attempt to explore what fear actually is, its causes and its consequences. Kubrick clearly had little time for the standard horror mechanics of the original King book but in turning to the human dimension he brought to the tale a stunning freshness and surpassed the original in terms of impact and legacy – a rare feat indeed.

Uzumaki (2000)

2005-09-05T23:14:00.000+01:00

It's probably fair to say that Uzumaki is one cult Japanese horror movie that's not going to be remade by Hollywood any time soon. If anything, the film is a fair benchmark of how different Western and Eastern cinema cultures really are: despite being probably the most wilfully odd movie I've ever seen, it was a sizeable mainstream hit in Japan, suggesting that the Japanese cinema-going public are more than open to material this extreme.

Kirie Goshima is an ordinary school girl living in the small town of Kurozucho. She's confused over whether her relationship with childhood friend Suichi Saito is a romantic one or not, but Suichi's distracted by concerns of his own. His father has driven himself mad looking at spirals, filming snails and looking at pottery for hours on end. Suichi thinks that spirals could well end up dooming the town, and events start to confirm this: a boy at Kirie's school throws himself down a huge spiral staircase and dies with a smile on his face, while another boy seems to be turning into a snail. As the body-count rises, events get more nightmarish, and it soon becomes apparent that Suichi and Kirie need to flee Kurozucho before the whole town spirals away...

The debut feature by music video director Higuchinsky, and based on an incredibly popular Manga series, Uzumaki's probably a film of selected appeal. I was tempted to look for allegory or meaning, but there isn't any - the spirals, quite literally, are the threat, and it's unclear what causes them or what they are. For the first half hour, I was unsure where the film was going; it shares the same eccentric, small-town atmosphere as a lot of Jeunet and Carot films, especially Delicatessen, but I didn't find the characters of Kirie and Suichi particularly compelling or sympathetic. That the film is a success is down to Higuchinsky's astonishing use of the imagery; spirals gradually saturate every part of the movie, objects and people, and when the camera starts to spiral round its subjects as well, the film takes on an utterly oppressive nightmare quality. By the end, you're rooting for the two main characters simply because they're our only anchors of normality as everything else falls apart.

My other concern at the start was that the film wouldn't pack any emotional punch, but this too proved to be unfounded. As Kirie, Ericko Hitsune's range isn't that impressive, and excess emotion isn't really her forte, but she's helped by the material; although the spiral threat is surreal and intangible, its consequences are real - as the array of blood-spattered bodies testify. Suichi's mother is hospitalised because of her fear of spirals, and this leads to several shocking scenes, including one where she cuts off the tips of her fingers so she doesn't have to look at her spiralling fingerprints. Kirie's reactions to events are understandable - she hasn't got a clue what's going on, nor the faintest idea what to do or how to help Suichi deal with his imploding family. This desperation provides the film's human heart. Equally, the twee photo album scene early in the film is redeemed by the gradual overloading of spiral images later on; compared to what follows, the flickery scenes of children playing feel refreshingly 'clean'.

Uzumaki also shares Delicatessen's grotesque sense of humour, mixing the witty with the disturbing. Suichi's father's horrific death (spinning around in a top-loading washing machine) is probably the best example, but the snail scenes are great as well: Kirie and her friends only notice there is something wrong with one of their classmates when he starts walking increasingly slowly, only comes to school when it rains and is covered in a thick layer of slime. Later, as more kids are transformed, one boy is seen circling answers on a multiple-choice exam paper with increasingly spiral-like markings whiles drinking bottle after bottle of water. The final scenes, as the completely-transformed boys crawl up the sides of the school while the girls coo at how pretty their shells are, are incredible. Uzumaki's extreme surrealism may offer little emotional resonance, but its shocking images and human sense of desperation mean that once the spiral attack is underway, it's never just a sterile exercise in visuals. Baffling, beautiful and disturbing, it offers no answers and poses even fewer questions, but rewards adventurous viewers by lingering in the memory after the spiralling closing credits have rolled.

Revolt of the Zombies (1936)

2005-09-02T22:12:00.000+01:00

It is astonishing that the people behind one of the best films I’ve ever seen could also be responsible for one of the worst. After discovering the gem that is White Zombie I had high expectations of the Halerpin brothers’ follow-on, Revolt of the Zombies. Everything about it feels wrong, from the plot and pacing right through to the editing and casting. Though it was made four years after White Zombie it feels the more anachronistic of the two, and the Halperins seem to have forgotten everything that made their earlier offering the enduring classic that it is today.

First up, the acting in Revolt has to be some of the worst I’ve ever encountered on film. After ten minutes it becomes apparent that we can expect nothing from the leads - Dean Jagger and Dorothy Stone – and the only character with even the faintest hint of intrigue about him is (with Roy D’Arcy shining in the role) criminally underused. The script is truly awful, feeling as though it has been tacked together by rummaging around at the bottom of a shredder and gluing together the remnants of better movies. The Halperins clearly didn’t really care about the story as such, and contented themselves with devising a plausible scenario on which to ground a White Zombie follow-up. There are some moments of promise here, with the Cambodian mythology scenes offering the briefest moment of hope to those looking for a continuation of the excellent work the Halperins did in establishing the terror of black magic in White Zombie. This is quickly trodden underfoot though, and the heavy-handed love tryst that provides the sedentary core of the story resurfaces. What’s worse is that it’s obvious that the Halperins are trying to emulate the success of their earlier classic by transplanting sections of it directly into Revolt (most obviously in the superimposing of Lugosi’s eyes during the trance scenes); the jilted lover act premise is at the heart of this, but unlike White Zombie there isn’t enough of an internal narrative in Revolt to sustain the leaps of faith necessary for audience engagement.

Lasting only 64 minutes, Revolt of the Zombie feels like an interminable ordeal. The acting is so bad that it transcends ineffectual and becomes genuinely off-putting. Once this happens the threadbare script provides no safety net, and the pointlessness of the plot becomes inescapable. I can’t blame the Halerpins for wanting to cash in on their White Zombie success, but it’s such a shame that they didn’t use the opportunity to develop on the themes that made the original so captivating. Definitely one to avoid.

Pumpkinhead (1988)

2005-08-30T19:39:00.000+01:00

I’m in a real bind trying to review Pumpkinhead, primarily because it had the potential to be so much better it turned out to be. Stan Winston is one of the finest special effects guys going (think The Terminator, Jurassic Park, Edward Scissorhands) and Pumpkinhead marked his directorial debut, a point obvious from many of its strengths. The atmospherics of the first half of the movie are simple but effective, with the loving relationship between Ed Harley and his son Billy touched off nicely by the idyllic charm of their rural life. Lance Henriksen puts in the kind of polished performance that you’d expect from him, filling out the well written character with enough depth to allow him to pull off the (at times agonising to watch) fall into madness caused by the killing of his son. Though in appearance and form it is inescapably a run of the mill offering, Winston offer us a real moral test when Henriksen turns to a hagged old woods-woman/with for vengeance. It is clear that everything in the film has been building up to this; Winston frames it excellently, with the sunny and carefree plains of the first half of the film turning into shadowy and unsettling woods for the second half, marking well Henriksen’s fall from grace.

At this point, just as things are getting really interesting, Winston gets lazy and reverts back to the theory that served him well when he worked on Alien – the scarier and more bizarre looking the monster, the better. Unlike Alien though, he does nothing to sustain the tension that comes not with actually seeing the monster but with knowing it is there and not seeing it. This is a real shame, because he’d done everything right in paving the way for the arrival of the demonic Pumpkinhead. The viewer at this stage is intrigued with seeing if Harley’s hatred of his son’s killers is enough to circumvent his kind nature and allow him to go ahead with his compact with evil more than it is with seeing a gang of teenagers get ripped apart.

What we get instead is a sudden and disappointing reversion to a standard monster slasher movie, with the creature in question even looking like a cheap version of Alien. All the empathy that the audience had with Henrisken disappears in a flash, though he does his best to keep things on an even keel and his performance gets stronger as the rest of the movie falls away beneath him. As it resorts to clichés there isn’t enough to keep the audience onside and Harley’s realisation of what he has to do to save both his son’s killers and, ultimately, himself, now seems out of place instead of coming across as the kind of act of redemption that would have fitted in nicely with the first half. Pumpkinhead is more interesting than many of the offerings of this period but Winston really lets the side down with his tired and badly rendered finale. In many ways this paved the ways for the awful Pumpkinhead 2, which again missed the point of the true message of the original and further muddied its worthy points.

City of the Living Dead (1980)

2005-08-28T18:13:00.000+01:00

Another day, another Lucio Fulci zombie movie. I watch them because I enjoy them, but watching a lot of a director's output over a relatively short space of time really shows up their strengths and weaknesses with startling clarity. City of the Living Dead is the second in Fulci's popular quartet of zombie movies, following Zombie Flesh Eaters and preceding The Beyond. Seen in this context, City seems like almost a dry-run for The Beyond, setting up a lot of the latter film's concerns and featuring Catriona McColl in a very similar role to the one she subsequently played. McColl is probably Fulci's greatest asset in these films; although not an A-list performer, she's incredibly well suited to this kind of movie, bringing a zippy lightness of touch without ever camping it up or being too knowing. She's an engaging, naturalistic presence who carries much of the audience interest with her.

That McColl is so enjoyable to watch is pretty essential, as the main problem with City of the Living Dead is how seriously it takes itself. I criticised the mystical angle of The Beyond as being a bit ropey, and unfortunately the same is true here. McColl plays Mary, a spiritual medium who sees a vision of a priest hanging himself in the town of Dunwich, set on the gates of Hell. Mary and her journalist friend Peter have until All Saints Day to close the gates or else... erm, yes. If you've got the faintest idea what any of this means, please reply below, as frankly the whole thing was a complete mystery to me. One of the best aspects of George Romero's zombie movies is that the whole zombie thing just happens, no explanation, and everyone has to deal with it. Fulci, on the other hand, is clearly fascinated by what might cause the dead to return to life and attack the living, and unfortunately his explanation is all to do with Lovecraft and the Book of Enoch (or something). That the central premise is so impenetrable ultimately cripples the movie, as it's fundamentally unclear what the threat is or what the characters need to achieve. Zombie Flesh Eaters was far more economical, simply using the term "voodoo" to account for any supernatural goings-on and concentrating on a highly enjoyable escape narrative. But because City's mysticism is so intrinsically tied in with the zombie threat, the zombies themselves just appear and disappear throughout the story, with little menace.

City makes it clear that narrative and plot aren't really Fulci's strong point, but I'd still rate him as a director for his knack with an arresting image. Most of these are pretty gory, but he knows how to make something compellingly disgusting; there's no eye mutilation here, but plenty of intestine-vomiting, head-drilling and, bizarrely a maggot storm, in which the cast have buckets of live maggot thrown at them through a giant fan. Oddly enough, this scene seems to bear no relation to the plot, but the film's a richer one for the shot where Carlo de Mejo brushes a pile of maggots of a phone so that he can take a call. The scene's in the priest's tomb are good, too, but again were hampered by the fact that I was more confused than suspenseful at this point.

Ultimately, City of the Living Dead is a mixed bag. It's got some great gore, some great music by Fabio Frizzi and a great performance from McColl, but the story is an unfocused, confusing mess. The Beyond, although flawed, is a much more rounded attempt at telling the same sort of story, as the mythology is significantly less brain-bending and the shocks and suspense take centre stage. Neither film surpasses Zombie Flesh Eaters, but all credit to Fulci for trying something a bit different, even if he doesn't really pull it off.

Bride of the Monster (1955)

2005-08-23T08:08:00.000+01:00

The second – and most successful – of Ed Wood’s Bela Lugosi films, Bride of the Monster is the closest the infamous director came to making a ‘conventional’ B-movie and, despite the flaws you come to expect in his works, is well worth having a look at.

Like all of Wood’s movies the production on Bride of the Monster is dire. There is a mismatch between his interior and exterior shots, continuity between night and day is completely overlooked and his sets wobble worryingly during any action scenes. Having said that, it isn’t half as bad as his later Plan 9 From Outer Space and it rarely becomes distracting or too disruptive to the plot. Wood actually comes close to turning out something quite atmospheric if one can look beyond the barely disguised photograph enlarger machine as the ‘Atomic ray’ or the tellingly listless giant squid that lurks in the swamp, and there is a genuine hint of menace surrounding Lugosi’s secluded lair.

Likewise, though the script is as shoddy and clichéd as they come it is far more accessible and less convoluted than some of his offerings, so it is easy to overlook the hackneyed journalists and policemen. Wood also manages to marshal his players effectively, especially in light of the fact that one of the leads (Tony McCoy) wasn’t even an actor but the son of his financial backer. In so far as comparisons with his other works go, Bride of the Monster is a polished piece with none of the unnecessary plot twists or padded characters he allowed to creep into his other offerings. As I said above, the flaws we see here are those that you could pick out in many other B-movies of the era, movies which (unlike Bride) fail to overcome their physical defects with worthy plots or memorable acting performances.

It is Bela Lugosi who really shines, and if ever an example was needed of an actor rising above his material then this is it. The psychotic Dr. Eric Vornoff was Lugosi’s last speaking part, poignantly playing the mad scientist stereotype that became the staple of his later films. He dominates the screen with this role and fills it with his old commanding personality and sincerity. The lovely scene where he unburdens himself (“hooome? I haff no hooome”) is as touching as Tim Burton rendered in Ed Wood to those familiar with Lugosi’s career, and is a fitting swansong to the cinematic giant. For this reason alone it is difficult for me to dislike Bride of the Monster, for despite his limited resources Wood treats Lugosi and the material with the heartfelt respect they deserves and manages to churn out a respectable little movie which proves (though none is needed) that he’s far from the worst director in film history.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

2005-08-21T20:48:00.000+01:00

Received wisdom dictates that Bride of Frankenstein, James Whale's own follow-up to his epochal Frankenstein, is one of the few sequels that actually outclasses the original. Bettering a film as magnificent as Boris Karloff's first outing as the nameless monster is quite a tall order, and although I accept I'm in a minority opinion, I really don't think the sequel comes anywhere close; instead of the all-conquering masterpiece I was expecting, it's actually a bit of a curate's egg.

In between the two Frankenstein films, Whale directed The Invisible Man, a very successful blend of horror and comedy. This more lighthearted approach is self-evident in Bride from the opening scenes, where a woman's horrified reaction to the monster's survival is played more for laughs than scares. But whereas the Invisible Man's invisible-ness lent itself to a certain amount of slapstick comedy (aided by the character's vicious but snappy one-liners), here it feels rather out of place. Rather than enhancing each other, the horror and the comedy sit rather uncomfortably, as if you're actually watching two separate films taped together. Worse, the tone of the humour feels all wrong; there's a sense of conscious self-parody, which is a shame as there's nothing intrinsically silly about the first film that lends itself to parody. The self-destructive way Whale tears down the delicate suspense of the earlier movie with camp comedy is both sad and petty; it's well documented that he was reluctant to direct a Frankenstein sequel, but taking the piss on camera doesn't strike me as being very professional. It also means Bride has dated significantly faster than its predecessor.

This is a shame, as when the mugging stops there's some really good stuff here that's easily on a par with Frankenstein. Basically, the plot takes a bunch of storylines from the novel that weren't used the last time and spins a sequel out of them. This is a sound move, as the novel itself is an underappreciated masterpiece, and it means we get to see gems like the monster's friendship with the blind man - easily Karloff's most moving monster moment. Inevitably, Karloff's just as fabulous the second time round, and even though the actor was opposed to the monster speaking, he pulls it off with aplomb, without detracting from the character's bruised, awkward tenderness. His tour de force performance also shows up Elsa Lanchester's performance as the eponymous Bride as being stilted and overly stylised, although her hair shows a clear influence on Marge Simpson. Luckily, her screen time is limited.

As with most Universal monster movies, the whole thing looks tremendous as well, and the climactic sequences with the creation of the Bride are spectacularly compelling. Whale's direction is more grandiose, and the sets are jaw-dropping, making this a really slick blockbuster. It's just a shame about the script; the self-mockery doesn't sit well and cheapens the memory of the first film. I'm not saying horror and comedy can't mix - the first film had some sublimely comic moments - but the way Whale waves two fingers at the conventions he established isn't particularly impressive. Obviously history disagrees with me but although I'd recommend seeing it, I'd advise you don't believe the hype.

White Zombie (1932)

2005-08-19T20:14:00.000+01:00

White Zombie has to be one of the most unappreciated horror films of all time. It came worryingly close to never being finished, the Halperin brothers (Victor and Edward – producer and director) rarely feature in histories of the genre and it hardly ever resurfaces on TV or reissue. This is a tragedy as White Zombie is a film of stunning merit; as well as being one of the first to feature reanimated corpses it is noteworthy as one of the few successful talkies of the era to perfectly capture the atmospherics of the silent films which were on the demise at the time.

The plot is simple enough but is delivered with real presence and care. United Artists bought the rights to the film for a pittance, so the Halperins had to cut corners at every level. As is often the case, this had the effect of stimulating their artistic vision and enhances what might have been a standard offering. The lighting is particularly weak, but this has an electrifying effect as we’re given only the briefest of glimpses of the zombie hordes that are roaming over the island. The pace is slow (perhaps a little too slow for some) but never sedentary, and though there are no surprises along the way it is a joy to watch the Halperins’ story unfold. In an interesting interpretation of the concept the zombies in this are intentionally brought back to life to act as free labour for the mills of Haiti. Murder Legendre doesn’t just use his powers in the service of capitalism though, and his ability and willingness to bring anyone he wants under his control is both repugnant and enthralling.

This is in large part down to a spellbinding performance by Bela Lugosi. In a manner which was the mark of much of the rest of his career, he was contracted out to the Halperins for a discount price because Universal had no projects for him at that time. It demonstrates his extraordinary talent that he rose above this to deliver a performance that is topped only by his portrayal of Dracula. He obviously relished playing Legendre, making the most of a pretty standard script and breathing into it his own unique brand of captivating horror. The showdown with Robert Frazer is especially arresting and also gives the other fine players a chance to shine (the music on these scenes is particularly effective too and worthy of mention). Madge Bellamy brings all of the talent that made her a star in the silent era to her role, and her trance scenes are hauntingly beautiful.

Outside of Dracula I’d say that this is the finest movie that Bela Lugosi ever starred in and it demonstrates beyond doubt his ability to raise the most simple of stories to a higher standing and dominate the screen. In this beautifully atmospheric film he is given room to shine and neither he nor the Halperins put a foot wrong. Crucial viewing for both Lugosi fans AND general viewers alike.

Witchfinder General (1968)

2005-08-19T16:47:00.000+01:00

The tragically early death of director Michael Reeves (aged just 25) means that Witchfinder General very quickly established itself as something as a cult classic. It is certainly an outstanding film - and one can only imagine what Reeves would have gone on to achieve had he live a little longer – but there are one or two little niggles.

There’s no doubting that Vincent Price steals the show as the evil Matthew Hopkins (the film being based on the real life Hopkins who terrorised mid-17th century East Anglia). Reeves gives him an excellent platform to expunge the campness that crept into his Roger Corman films and he rises admirably to the challenge. As the Witchfinder he is chillingly effective, mustering a bedevilling earnestness when carrying out his public duties but retaining the nastiness and opportunism that comes through when he’s alone and exploiting his victims. Robert Russell is also fantastic as his thuggish assistant Stearne, and the pair perfectly complement each another as they go about their dastardly deeds. Their ruthlessness and interdependence is nicely illustrated in the ambush scene when Hopkins turns tale and leaves Stearne to his fate, only for them to reform their partnership and carry in their uniquely merry way.

The plot of the film is also intelligent, and I like the way that Reeves draws on the anarchy and paranoia of civil war England to frame his story. The denunciation scenes perfectly capture mob mentality and that such events are historically accurate mean they are all the more terrifying (My favourite lines being: Price – What evidence do you offer that she’s a witch? Peasant – She was seen talking to her particulars sir, a stoat and a black cat). This is just an elaborate front for Hopkins and Stearne though, and their exploitation of the collective fear amongst the communities they prey upon brought to mind the ‘Red scares’ of the 1940s and ‘50s. Reeves seems to get a little lost in this though, and the Civil War scenes sometimes feel as though they have been slotted in periodically to remind the viewer of the setting rather than acting as a subtle backdrop, and when this happens they lose their effectiveness. The absence of Price from many of these scenes also begins to tell after a while as the supporting cast do not really hold things together when he’s off screen. That’s not a criticism of the actors – generally speaking they are very good – rather a slight disappointment that they quickly adopt quite hackneyed personas off which Price is expected to play (Ian Ogilvy’s hero being the obvious example).

One last word on the violence, which brought the film some infamy on its original release. Obviously modern viewers will have seen worse in terms of gore, but some of the ‘witch test’ scenes are disturbing and well rendered. The closing scene is especially good, especially as it seems to leap out from nowhere. All in all a worthy tribute to Reeves and undoubtedly one of Price’s finest performances.

The Ring Two (2005)

2005-08-17T22:31:00.000+01:00

Whichever way you look at it, it's hard not to view The Ring Two as being a crushing disappointment. This follow-up to the US remake of the Japanese classic (you may need to draw a diagram to follow that) was passed over by several directors until it ended up in the hands of Hideo Nakata, the Japanese director who brought us the original Ring. Considering that the US film itself wasn't too shabby, you could be forgiven for getting excited by this; unfortunately, The Ring Two is almost guaranteed to shake your faith in both the versatility of the original concept and in Nakata's abilities as a director.

Where do you begin with this mess of a film? Primarily, there's the sense that Nakata and screenwriter Ehren Kruger are making it up as they go along, so listlessly do they pick at imagery and plot points from the previous film(s) before carelessly tossing in new elements. The original was driven by the race against time to solve Samara's curse before Aidan died; without that countdown, the plot's almost completely freeform, with Aidan (now apparently channelling Samara) acting as a magnet for all sorts of supernatural phenomena. Cue a CGI deer attack (that's right) which seems to come from nowhere and head the same way. Frustratingly, this also pushes David Dorfman's utterly irritating Aidan to centre stage, effectively making this yet another spooky kid movie. Aidan falls ill and is hospitalised, and his mother Rachel is suspected of abuse, until Aidan manages to make his doctor kill herself (in one of the film's few genuinely shocking moments).

Rachel then decides that Samara's curse lives on simply because... she just wants a mother who'll love her. At this point, the movie abandons the Ring story altogether and becomes a complete re-tread of Nakata's own Dark Water (recently remade in the States... are you confused yet?), complete with spooky running taps and water that won't behave as it should. Totally illogical, and utterly lazy, Nakata may as well have stepped in front of the camera at this point and apologised for having completely run out of ideas. Anyway, Rachel somehow then finds herself 'within' the deadly videotape, complete with pointlessly 2-D surroundings and scanlines, and decides that actually Samara doesn't want to be loved; she then dispatches her down the well with a single line that brings what remains of the film's credibility crashing down around its ears. Job done.

Having nailed my colours to the mast as being a devotee of the original film, this film made me reassess my view of Nakata's work. I still think the original Ring is a visionary, ground-breaking piece, but I'm not so sure about what he's done since; Dark Water is a great film but very similar to Ring (both in story and style), and the Japanese Ring 2 offered up a reasonably compelling remix of the first film. Ring Two was always going to be a make or break film, and unfortunately he proves himself to be a one trick pony, doomed to retell the same story with diminishing returns (if you include Dark Water, this is the fourth time he's done it). His boredom is reflected on the screen, and save for a few moments of excitement, is likely to be shared by his audience. Gore Verbinski's film is way better than this; whether The Ring Two has killed the franchise remains to be seen, but if we get a Ring Three, then some fresh blood is desperately needed.

The Mummy (1932)

2005-08-17T22:05:00.000+01:00

The Mummy is almost like an early greatest hits film for the fledgling Universal monster series, pairing director Karl W Freund (responsible for the lovely cinematography on Dracula) with Boris Karloff, then riding high on the success of Frankenstein. The combination is, predictably, absolutely electric; but whilst the film is undeniably a masterpiece, it's also an unexpectedly quiet, almost dreamy affair. Wisely, Freund doesn't try to get Karloff to repeat his Frankenstein performance as Im-Ho-Tep; all we see of the mummified version of his character is his face and hand, leaving the rest to the imagination. If you're expecting to see archaeologists being chased by extras in bandages, you'll be disappointed. Instead, the focus is on Im-Ho-Tep's attempts to pass himself off as an elderly Egyptian local and find his lost love, and it's here that Karloff proves his versatility, turning in a brittle, dignified but menacing performance as the 3,700 year old priest - a polar opposite to the previous year's doleful monster. As ever with Karloff, his face says far more than words possibly could, especially with his unmistakeable eyes and jaw, but when he does speak (and he speaks a lot) it's with admirable and compelling restraint; as such, he really convinces as a man driven by his love for a woman, and not just a monster.

The story is unhurried, and even if it lacks any real tension (the audience is always several steps ahead of the characters) the gradual drip-feeding of information sustains interest. Far more worthy of note is Freund's direction; as with the best shots in Dracula, the camera is rarely static. This is particuarly effective in the early excavation scenes which still look absolutely magnificent; towards the end of the movie the interiors become a bit more mundane, but Freund ensures that, unlike Dracula, events never grind to a halt.

More of a tragic love-story than a horror, The Mummy opts more for creepy atmosphere than outright scares, but still thoroughly deserves its reputation as an early classic. Overall, not quite as essential as Frankenstein or The Invisible Man, but still highly recommended, if only to see what a truly sensational actor Karloff really is.

The Beyond (1981)

2005-08-17T19:21:00.000+01:00

Following the success of Zombie Flesh Eaters Italian director Lucio Fulci clearly didn't believe in rocking the boat too much. The Beyond is another zombie splatter film, which again features innocent bystanders stumbling on an ancient and mysterious curse that causes the dead to come to life - this time in an old Louisiana hotel, neatly merging zombie carnage with rather more atmospheric haunted house overtones. Cue lots of breathless running around, gore and rather unconvincing dubbing.

Okay, so maybe one doesn't watch a Fulci film for its artistry, but his directorial style, whilst a essentially a refinement of what he was doing in Zombie Flesh Eaters, has come along in leaps and bounds, and is at times quite beautiful. Whilst the earlier film was ragged but with some brilliant composition and reveals, here he pulls out all the stops, with focus zooms, unusual angles and extreme close-ups which add up to give The Beyond an almost dreamlike ambience. In particular, a scene with a little girl being menaced by some red ooze in a hospital morgue is masterful, and the sepia tinged opening sets up the action well. Surprisingly, the acting isn't half bad either, and whilst the redubbing of some of the lesser characters' dialogue is a little stilted and odd-looking, Katherine McColl as Liza is a great lead who more than compensates. Only Sarah Keller lets the side down by over-egging her performance as the blind Emily; her excessive enunciation exposes how ropey the whole mystical Book of Eibon aspect of the story is.

In fact, the only thing that hinders The Beyond is the sloppy script, which is incredibly careless in its introduction and disposal of the various characters. Martha's death would have significantly more impact if we knew who she was or why she was so suspicious of the hotel's basement, and a number of other characters are set up with no real resolution - who is the mad guy living in the hotel? Why does the bookseller laugh so much? And what's with the blindness? These are too clumsily handled to be effective red herrings, and end up making the plot more confusing than enigmatic.

In any case, there's plenty of gore to stop you feeling short-changed. In particular, Fulci seems to have a thing about eyes; the stake in the eye was Zombie Flesh Eaters' most notorious "yuk" moment, and here we have eyes being poked out, squished and eaten left, right and centre. An attack by some hungry tarantulas is particularly effective, compensating for some rather limp zombie scenes around the middle of the film that lack any real menace. The final showdown is great, making me think I'd like to see more zombie movies set in hospitals (suggestions below please). Fabio Frizzi's music is brilliant, if a little more melodious than his previous work, and really adds to the atmosphere. It's just that script that stops it being a classic; ultimately, The Beyond is a good movie, but could have been so much more.

Salem's Lot (1979)

2005-08-16T19:04:00.000+01:00

I’m always delighted when I watch a film and stumble across a scene that has been parodied on The Simpsons but whose provenance has, until then, eluded me (I was a lonely child). If you’ve seen the Halloween special where Mr. Burns is Dracula (it’s one of the early ones, when they were still funny) you might remember the bit where Bart is bitten and appears outside of Lisa’s window one night beckoning her to join Burn’s burgeoning army of the undead. If you’ve also seen Salem’s Lot you’ll be aware that this is where Mr. Groening drew his inspiration from, though he went on to execute a brilliant bit of story-making which rather leaves Tobe Hooper’s ponderous tale behind.

The essential problem I had with this Stephen King adaptation is that it suffers from the same debilitating flaw as most other attempts to bring his books to screen – astonishingly bad pacing. Those who have seen ‘IT’ will know what I’m talking about here. This is further compounded for European audiences (i.e. me) in that the movie version that’s most widely available is an abridged version of the lengthy TV series that Hooper filmed to be screened in two parts. Though there aren’t any major jarring distortions you never really feel settled when watching the condensed three hour versions. The build-up of tension in the first two-thirds of the film is excellent, with James Mason especially effective as the enigmatic Richard Straker, who is a delight to watch and acts as real ballast to the plot. David Soul gives a more restrained performance as the hero, Ben Myers, but I think he slots in very well to his part in the story and the banter between him and Mason adds a welcome extra dimension to King’s formulaic New England horror story. Again he’s let down by the poor editing, with his character only partially developed and naturally failing to acquire the likeability that is essential in a lead role of this type.

Because of the poor cutting the story is never really allowed to breathe. For example, it is clear that the evil Marsten House is fundamental to Ben’s return to Salem’s Lot but it's story is pushed aside astonishingly quickly, so that by the end it is nothing but a standard spooky backdrop for the showdown with the vampire. Some might think that the creature in question is a hackneyed Nosferatu rip-off but I think the over-the top effects work well in this context, especially when contrasted with the more subtle (but equally effective and more unsettling) appearance of his recently recruited minions. I’d certainly recommend Salem’s Lot but be warned that it uses its ample time badly and you’ll be frustrated at knowing that a fundamentally excellent little story is laying in tatters on the cutting editor’s floor. At the very least it’ll remind you of that excellent Simpson’s episode.

George A Romero

2005-08-12T19:24:00.000+01:00

A New Yorker by birth (4th February 1940 if you were thinking of sending him a card) George Romero has made Pittsburgh his spiritual and artistic home. It was there that he attended the renowned Carnegie Mellon Institute, and he found work in the city after graduation turning out industrial films, commercials and short films with his first production company-The Latent Image. This was never enough to satisfy someone who’d been making films on an old 8mm since the age of 14 though, and in the late 1960s he got together with a group of friends and formed Image Ten Productions, one of many small-scale independent film companies that was springing up across America at the time.

Unlike the others though Romero and John A. Russo (an Image Ten co-founder) already had the screenplay written for a film which would revolutionise the genre and earn its Director / Screenwriter / Story Author / Cinematographer / Editor a place in movie history-Night of the Living Dead. Made for little more than $100,000, Night of the Living Dead barely made back its production costs on its initial release in 1968. A vocal campaign by Reader’s Digest to ban the film on account of its violence and gore quickly roused interest though, and when it was re-released in 1969 it was received affectionately by the general public and genre devotees alike. Romero’s thorough deconstruction of myths and legends through a contemporary, agnostic outlook-coupled with a natural storyteller’s flair for spinning a good yarn-earned him legions of fans and Night of the Living Dead brought in $12million over the next decade alone.

The success of Night brought with it the inevitable Hollywood offers but Romero chose to stay in Pittsburgh and produced films independently throughout the 1970s, none of which were received with the same popular acclaim as his seminal work. In The Crazies (1973, and Romero’s son’s favourite) he combined Living Dead–style paranoia with something close to a conventional ‘shoot ‘em up’, whilst Martin (1978, often considered his finest ‘non-Dead’ offering) was his first-and not last, if rumours are to be believed-attempt at a vampire film. 1978 also saw the release of the long-awaited follow-up to Night of the Living Dead; Dawn of the Dead. On familiar ground, Romero returned to his most accessible social critique and turned out a film which was more than the equal of its predecessor.

The fans ebbed and flowed through the early 1980s, and The Creepshow (1982) marked Romero’s first collaboration with horror writer Stephen King. Both were disappointed with the poor reception it received as both believed horror anthologies were excellent formats for film production, and Romero has not ruled out returning to the series if Creepshow 3 is ever touted (Creepshow 2 was released in 1987 and was again largely passed over by the public). His first ‘solo’ release of the decade-1981’s Knightriders-marked an amusing and effective change of pace from his usual filmmaking and provided an early screen appearance from his long-time associate Tom Savini (oh, and Ed Harris). 1985 saw the release of the third instalment of Romero’s Dead series, Day of the Dead. Though series devotees welcomed it eagerly even they acknowledged that it was lacking when compared to its forerunners, and the film had the least impact of the trilogy.

The 1990s opened with Romero’s long-time stunt man, make-up artist and generally insane companion Tom Savini remaking Night of the Living Dead. It was an interesting effort and served to reawaken interest in the original somewhat, and was much more faithful Romero’s work than the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004). The year after he had a cameo in Silence of the Lambs as an FBI agent, extending his acting portfolio beyond his fleeting appearances in the Dead trilogy. Bruiser (2000) was his next major release and passed over the heads of critics and the general public alike, despite being an adept look alienation and its destructiveness (Romero had the Columbine massacre in mind when making it) and perhaps his most original work since Martin. Tantalisingly, he was almost involved in production of The Mummy, the 1999 big-budget homage to the Karloff original. The long awaited fourth instalment of the Dead trilogy-Land of the Dead-is soon to be released in Britain and is, by all accounts, classic Romero. Until we can say a little more about it console yourself in the knowledge that he’s got a screenplay called Diamond Dead that is just waiting for financial backers and space in the time table, and also a script about a rogue elephant.

2005 Land of the Dead (D, Sc)
2004 Dawn of the Dead (S)
2000 Bruiser (D, S)
1991 The Silence of the Lambs (A)
1991 The Dark Half (S)
1990 Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (S)
1990 Two Evil Eyes (aka Due Occhi Diabolic) (D, S)
1990 Night of the Living Dead (S, Ex)
1988 Monkey Shines (aka An Experiment in Terror; An Experiment in Fear) (D, S)
1987 Creepshow 2 (S)
1985 Day of the Dead (D, S, A)
1982 Creepshow (D, E)
1981 Knightriders (D, S, E)
1978 Dawn of the Dead (aka Zombi) (D, S, A, E)
1978 Martin (D, A, S, E)
1973 Season of the Witch (aka Hungry Wives; Jack’s Wife) (D, C, E, Sc)
1973 The Crazies (D, S, E)
1972 There’s Always Vanilla (D, C, E)
1968 Night of the Living Dead (aka Night of the Flesh Eaters) (D, S, A, C, E, Sc)

D: Director, S: Story Author, A: Actor, C: Cinematographer, E: Editor, Sc: Screenwriter, Ex: Executive Producer

Carl says...

It goes without saying that George A. Romero stands as one of the titans of the horror world and that his Dead series continues to inform other directors and stands as the unrivalled gold standard of the zombie sub-genre. His works have been analysed to bits and deconstructed to determine their deep-seated meanings and insightful lessons. The big man himself has said, ‘Even in something like Night of the Living Dead, where there is no explanation, they’ll find their own reasons for the horror, and write about your genius in dreaming it up’. False modesty perhaps, but I think that this self-analysis runs a little deeper and shines a more useful light onto Romero’s artistic vision than the various blasé titles which have been heaped on him in the past (usually permutations of King of Zombie Films) – namely that he doesn’t necessarily regard himself, or his seminal works, as standard works of horror.

Romero’s works all run much deeper than most ‘typical’ horror films without ever drifting into the abstract and ludicrous, hence his wide appeal amongst general cinema goers and more dedicated followers of the genre. One crucial reason for this is that he never loses sight of the human aspect of his stories; in fact, this always remain central. In the Dead series, the discord and tension between the human players forms the basis of what follows with the zombies, and in all three it is the fighting between the living which allows the dead to thrive (think Harry and Ben in Night through to the military/civilian divide in Day). The zombies are plot catalysts rather than key players and are in many ways they’re less frightening than the raiders in Dawn or Day’s psychopathic Captain Rhodes. The Crazies posits rednecks as the most disturbing force, whilst Martin has to deal with the psychological possibility that he’s a vampire rather than the consequences of him actually being one. Romero’s characters are given real depth, and are rarely screen padding which means that you care about them and want them to survive the ordeals they face.

This humanity is further served by the subtle environments that Romero constructs for his characters, all cleverly crafted to enhance the story as a stage not only of terror but substance too. The conversion of a family home into a redoubt in Night is full of touching little moments that say more than lengthy scripts ever could. When Barbara finds the music box and recoils when it springs into action, it cuts deeply; we can feel her agony at knowing that a symbol of her childhood innocence and safety is a thousand miles removed from the present moment, with zombies trying to smash their way to her. Or when Ben rips the place apart to find wood for the windows, trampling underfoot the treasured possessions of the people who once lived there, now utterly redundant in the new world order. Even Day, Romero’s less respected third offering, has more mood and atmosphere than many standard horror films put together. You sympathise with Henry Creedlow’s plight in Bruiser which is why his sudden violent eruption excites mixed feelings.

We must be careful not to get too caught up in the deeper meanings of Romero’s movies and remember that they are also astonishingly good stories. His work in bringing Stephen King’s stories to the screen in the Creepshow movies is unfairly maligned and will hopefully not prevent him from returning to the anthology format. Of course, the Dead series will always be his Magnum Opus, and rightly so. Each of the series has a slightly different story but each is unique and valuable in its own special way. What unites them is the bitter pessimism of what the future holds and a vicious take on the human condition. There is no hope of salvation, no spell or silver bullet or antidote to destroy his creation as ‘they’re us’.

He has always signalled his desire to make non-horror films but he also recognises the potency of the genre in communicating effectively with an audience. You have to respect a guy who has worked away consistently for the last 35 or so years at what he wants to do whilst resisting the inevitable offers to succumb to the ‘Hollywood’ machine. That’s not to say he’s a movie snob - he isn’t – but he is clearly principled enough to make the movies that he wants to make, whether they’re commercially successful or not (they usually are, of course). The world of the independent filmmaker is under increasing pressure but some do manage to make their mark. (Blair Witch being one he notes for its efforts). In many ways they have George A. Romero to thank for that, for he is truly proof that an extremely talented man with a good story and enough determination can change film history.

Matt says...

Dawn of the Dead is a pretty strong contender for my favourite film of all time, a movie made even more epochal by the fact that it was also the first film to really switch me onto horror movies. I caught it on BBC2 at around 2am, and found it absolutely terrifying - which is odd for two reasons. Firstly, the zombies are all wearing blue face paint, which does seem a little cheap. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it's a satire on consumerism whose central image is a shopping mall - a new and uncommon building for viewers at the time, but part and parcel of modern life for my generation. When our four heroes first arrive in the mall, it's alien and threatening (when the helicopter first passes over it, they don't know what it is) and it's only when they've looted Penneys for supplies that they realise that it could potentially provide all they need to live out their days (something the addicted zombie 'shoppers' have subconsciously realised, apparently). Fast forward to the 2004 remake, and heading to the mall is the first instinct of a fair few people. For today's viewers, the mall is familiar - perhaps over familiar - and yet in Romero's hands, it still carries an eeriness. Why?

As Carl's already said, Romero's triumph is his ability to hold onto the human story at the heart of his movies. Everything else is (deeply entertaining) window dressing - and this includes the zombies and the mall. Much has been written about the satirical intent of the film, but to my mind this is often over-analysed; it doesn't really extend to much more than comical images of zombies tripping about to bland lift muzak and the occasional shade of greed from our heroes. More important is the shifting dynamic between the four characters, and their fatally jealous posessiveness of their new-found hideout. In this light, the mall is actually a bigger version of the house in Night of the Living Dead - the familiar made threatening, the everyday under siege. 1977 audiences almost certainly wouldn't have seen it that way; 2005 audiences do. I'm not saying Romero future-proofs his films, but each installment of the Dead trilogy hits upon a certain timeless truth about the way we are and why we do what we do, in a way that changes our relationship with these films as time goes on. There's nothing particularly 1977 about Dawn of the Dead; one suspects that the film has always felt very 'now', and in a genre perhaps more prone than most to cheap 'state of the nation' allegories, that's not to be sniffed at.

Black Lagoon key film

Despite the fact that we both prefer Dawn of the Dead, we're going to have to go with Night of the Living Dead, simply because it would be perverse not to. It's still an astonishing piece of work, setting a whole stadium's worth of benchmarks. There's no excuse not to have seen this one really, but the uninitiated can download it for free here.

The Ninth Gate (1999)

2005-08-10T15:35:00.000+01:00

In light of his excellent Rosemary’s Baby, a film which brings together Roman Polanski, Johnny Depp and Lucifer naturally invites high expectations. You’ll be consistently under-whelmed though, as The Ninth Gate offer up the promise of an edgy, compelling and suspenseful little movie and instead delivers a flaccid and unemotional tale that limps woefully on to its disappointing conclusion.

Polanski aims to give us a high-brow passage into the realm of evil by making our companions intellectuals and wealthy occult enthusiasts. This might help give his premise a little more feasibility but it strips it entirely of its tension and suspense. Cold, objective discussions about the coming reign of darkness, conducted in beautifully endowed libraries, strip that prospect of its inherent terror and relegate it to the level of a bad history lecture. It would be excusable if Polanski had crafted a tighter script but instead we’re expected to make do with a series of set-piece rambles from a group of characters that have no real depth and whose earnest looks and pleas to Depp to proceed with caution understandably fall on deaf ears. Each owner of ‘The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows’ seems to know exactly what the book contains (as will any semi-perceptive viewer within the first twenty minutes) and the nature of its powers, which makes the quasi-intellectual framing of Depp’s quest at best annoying and at worse ineffectually snobbish (and off putting in either case)

The number of pointless strands to the movie does nothing to help focus minds on the central story. The revelation that the secret society which grew up to protect the book has descended into nothing more than a dogging gang for the rich and famous is a nice touch but jars massively when Polanski then tries to refocus minds on how terribly serious the plot is. The hunt around Europe for the other copies of the book is also unnecessarily elaborate and you get the feeling that its there just to please the American audience who like to look at pretty buildings and think devil worship is more likely to occur in ancient buildings and (excuse the ‘Rumsfeld-ism’) ‘Old Europe’. The end - and the final showdown with Lucifer himself – is devastatingly disappointing; it’s not just he doesn’t appear (sorry to spoil the plot but I’m doing you a favour) that rankles; it’s the fact that you actually won’t care by this stage.

There are one or two salvageable aspects of The Nine Gates. Johnny Depp is as excellent as ever as our unscrupulous book-tracking hero. Indeed, he seems to feed off the confused direction of the plot and you’re unsure which way he’s going to jump right until the very end. His dispassion frequently crosses over into indifference at what’s going on around him, and in this he provides a more effective figure of empathy for the audience than Polanski intended him to be as they will be feeling pretty similar. He is probably the only saving grace in this disappointing and rather pointless film, and if you’re after a truly intelligent look at Lucifer stick with Faust.

The Ring (2003)

2005-08-09T20:07:00.000+01:00

The story goes that two Dreamworks execs sat down to watch Hideo Nakata's Ring quite early in the morning, and they were so impressed by what they saw that by lunchtime they had managed to secure the rights to remake it. Amazingly, for a big-budget Hollywood remake of an independent, low-budget Japanese film, a lot of that passion and excitement for the original actually shows through in the finished product. The Ring, as we are meant to call it now, occasionally misfires, and is inevitably victim to a certain level of major-studio cackhandedness, but on the whole it does an admirable job of bringing the story to a wider audience.

Inevitably, more people are going to see this remake than Nakata's original, but thankfully director Gore Verbinski represents him well. Snowblood Apple has a nice comparison of the two versions of the film, and it's evident that Verbinski really did his homework in capturing Nakata's visual style. He's not stupid enough to try and clone it completely, but clearly he recognised that the careful framing of each shot was crucial to the first movie's atmosphere, and tried to achieve something similar. As such, The Ring is almost as creepy as Ring, which is no mean feat. Naomi Watts gives a great performance as Rachel, the Asakawa substitute, strong where it counts but convincingly terrified when the script calls for it. Many of The Ring's departures from the original actually work, giving the film its own mythology that never once feels pointlessly tacked on; the horses, for example, are a great touch, and perhaps the most daring departure - the portrayal of Samara / Sadako as a frightened young girl - works brilliantly, thanks in part to Daveigh Chase's subtle portrayal. It's refreshing to see a remake take an intelligent second look at the original story, rather than taking a grab-bag of the bits everyone remembers and padding the rest.

Not all of it works. Having gone to great lengths to mimic Nakata's composition, Verbinski nearly undoes all his good work by swathing the whole thing in aquatic blue filters that feel like a lowest common denominator way of pointing up the spooky bits. The deadly videotape is rather too overtly stylised to give it any real impact - as Noah says, it's "very student video", lacking the 'authenticity' of the original's multi-generational static and fuzz. Probably the weakest link is David Dorffman's frankly horrible performance as Rachel's son; in fairness to him, his dialogue and characterisation is incredibly weak, turning his character into a cliched, Sixth Sense-esque 'spooky kid with mental powers', but there's only so much of the kid's middle-distance staring and deliberate pronunciation you can take. Unfortunately, the US follow-up pushed him even more to centre stage.

Amazingly, they also managed to botch Samara's iconic final attack on Noah (one of the aforementioned "bits everyone remembers"). It just proves you can do too much with special effects; and whilst her flickery, two-dimensional appearance in Noah's room ties in with the whole videotape concept, it also feels totally unreal and lacks the same punch as a real woman lurching out of the telly. Poor show.

These reservations aside, The Ring honours its heritage in fine style, and it does an extremely good job of translating the original's appeal for an audience too lazy to read subtitles. Obviously, the Japanese film is better, and is a little more taxing on the grey matter, but Verbinski can hold his head high. Suprisingly (and ironically), this film is also significantly better than Nakata's own US follow up, Ring Two.

High Plains Drifter (1973)

2005-08-08T13:28:00.000+01:00

Clint Eastwood has long been a real hero of mine, so I’m delighted to be able to add to the Lagoon a film that he not only starred in but also directed. I concede that High Plains Drifter is probably more of a mystical Western than a Western-based horror film but the proficiency of its supernatural foundations are such that it more than merits a mention here.

Eastwood reprises his ‘Man With No Name’ drifter and slots him pretty effortlessly onto the conveyor belt of the ‘spaghetti western’; an isolated town is terrorised by a gang of marauding bandits, the sheriff offers a feeble shield, the stranger is received warily but eventually rides to the rescue, etc. However, Eastwood wanted this to appear to be a conventional Western (hence his decision to take the lead) so that the power of the underlying mysticism leaks out only sporadically and put the audience on the back foot. The result is that the viewer knows that something is not quite right as the story develops and that the Western leitmotif is a cover for something much more unnerving (I’d add here that as a conventional Western it works very too but I leave it to the Cactus Lagoon or some other Western movie blog to develop that further). Those familiar with the earlier Play Misty For Me will be aware that Eastwood has a real talent for threading a tinge of fear through what appear to be pretty simplistic plots, and with Drifter he is just as successful in building up to the final-third of the film when the ghost story places itself out more blatantly.

Eastwood also grasped the fact that Westerns have a very good head start when it comes to creating creepy atmospheres, from the eerie isolation and desolation of their towns through to the inescapable terror of omnipresent danger. Drifter uses its setting to tremendous effect, with the Stranger’s haunting entrance and departure rivalling those of better known visual treats like Laurence of Arabia. Combined with fine performances from the main protagonists and a script which provides more than enough momentum to compensate for the sedate pace of the action, High Plains Drifter is a mystical and haunting film which provides a model for those seeking to cast conventional myths and legends in an unconventional setting.

Ring (aka Ringu) (1999)

2005-08-07T21:39:00.000+01:00

Hideo Nakata's astonishing adaption of Koji Suzuki's best-selling novel was for many people their first (and possibly only) brush with the murky world of Asian horror. The film's global success, and the various franchises it has spawned, was something of a watershed for international cinema; it almost single-handedly spearheaded the Japanese invasion that has dominated Western horror, both for the American studios looking for the latest hot property to remake and for cinema-goers tantalised by the promise of what has been dubbed 'Asia Extreme'.

Although it's easy to be cynical about US cinema's current love-in with the the Japanese, Ring's release did at least help commercial Western horror cinema back out of a rather nasty cul-de-sac. By the late 90s, genuinely well-crafted scares had given way either to the sneering irony of the Scream series or gimmicky, sub-Blair Witch reality devices. Nakata's film stuck out like a sore thumb, in that it has none of the jittery "oh, it was just a cat" shocks Western audiences had become accustomed to; instead, Ring is a very linear film with a rising sense of fear and dread that by the conclusion has reached nerve-shredding proportions. The ticking time-bomb of the seven day curse is the only dynamic needed to drive the plot along, without the need for artificial twists or shocks. The story, and Nakata's gradual drip-feeding of information are enough.

This last part may seem quite strange considering I've already been quite critical of Suzuki's original novels here, but as I hinted at before, Nakata's probably the best editor that Suzuki's ever had, powerfully exploiting everything the book got right (the imagery) and dropping everything the book got wrong (the silly pseudo-science). You probably don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that a story about a killer videotape is going to work better on the screen than in print, and Nakata's dark, haunting representation of the tape's contents (which is fairly faithful to Suzuki's description) has added resonance for an audience watching the film in the same way Asakawa watches the video. Equally, the film's most striking image (Sadako's final attack on Takayama) was one of Nakata's own creation, riffing on his source material in a way that defies any scientific explanation but is guaranteed to leave you open-mouthed. The junking of the novel's science and rationale actually makes the film scarier in that it becomes impossible to for the characters to establish a fair playing field. In fact, the world of Ring is desperately unfair; the ending is logical but so devastatingly depressing that it hits you like a punch in the chest and stays with you long after the credits (and accompanying J-pop wailing) are over.

Outclassing any form of the story that preceded or followed it, Ring is a hypnotic thing of beauty. It's not just a film, it's a cultural moment, and its effects are felt ever more strongly. For first-timers or conoisseurs of the genre, this is essential.

The Terror (1963)

2005-08-07T20:23:00.000+01:00

If you’ve ever finished an exam twenty minutes or so before the end of the time allotted you might be familiar with the anxiety of not knowing whether it is a good or a bad sign. Did you read all of the questions properly? Have you answered the question itself and avoided the trap of reeling out a pre-prepared body of knowledge which is only tangentially linked to the topic you’re being tested on? If so then you can probably sympathise with Roger Corman, who finished filming his 1963 classic The Raven a whole two days in advance. This being Corman he didn’t use his remaining time to mull over his original movie but decided instead to make an entirely new film (that’s right, in 48 hours) which utilised The Raven’s sets and its star actor, Boris Karloff, who was contractually tied to the director from the initial project.

The result of this hurried frenzy of film making was The Terror, a bizarre tale of a young soldier returning from the French Revolutionary Wars who gets caught up in a paranormal trial of strength between the reclusive Baron von Leffe (what is it with the aristocracy? Perhaps Tony Blair was right about the House of Lords…) and a weird hag who has managed to harness the spirit of his dead wife. The soldier in question is Jack Nicholson (who was also still bound by his Raven contract) and as far as bad casting goes this has to rank alongside John Wayne playing Genghis Kahn in The Conqueror. Ordinarily you’d forgive Corman for this-especially as this a rush job even by his standards-but as the threadbare plot is dependant on a higher level of atmospherics than his usual offerings it is difficult to overlook. Boris Karloff puts in a typical Boris Karloff performance and is the lynchpin of a film which somehow manages to be both erratically disjointed AND mind numbingly monotonous at the same time. There are some moments that’ll wake you up along the way, one being a surprisingly shocking and effective attack on one of the characters (they seem to pop in and out of the story without ever having their presence or identity explained) by the hag’s pet raven (also presumably still under contract).

The Terror is a very poor film, though that shouldn’t be surprising when the circumstances of its production are considered. For that alone it’s probably worth watching once, just to appreciate what it is possible to do in two days of frantic film making. As The Raven itself is a qualitative world apart at least Corman can escape the post-exam lecture on using his time productively.

Shock Waves (1976)

2005-08-07T16:46:00.000+01:00

You learn something new every day. According to a quote on the DVD cover, Shock Waves is "the best of the Nazi zombie movies", a sub-genre that I didn't even know existed until this movie crossed my radar. I have to say that I was drawn to this mid-70s chiller, in which the aforementioned Nazi zombies rise out of the sea to menace a shipwrecked group of holidaymakers, because of its lurid premise, and the hilariously contorted logic that says Nazi zombies are going to be somehow more evil than 'ordinary' zombies (as pointed out by my girlfriend). Matters weren't helped by the histrionic trailer here that makes the movie look like a rather tedious runaround, with the breathless voiceover guy trying his best to whip up some excitement.

If you approach Shock Waves expecting either Romero's social commentary or Fulci's all-out splatter, you'll be disappointed. There's virtually no blood or gore, and the script's premised on a rather cartoony idea of the Nazis. Instead, director Ken Wiederhorn goes for atmosphere, and it's there in spades, in the pretty-but-eery coastal scenery, the rather grainy photography or Richard Einhorn's creepy score, which like many contemporary horror movies, gives the composer's analogue synth a good workout. Shock Waves has been compared to Carnival of Souls in the past, and it's a fair claim; not a vast amount happens, there aren't very many shocks, but there's a terrible tension that builds all the way up to the final scene. It also helps that the actors underplay, which does help sell us their characters as real people; no-one gets any big speeches or much in the way of background, making them seem more like ordinary people caught in a horrible situation. Luke Halpin overcomes his unfortunate hair and moustache combo to give a decent performance as the navigator-turned-self appointed leader, and the gorgeous Brooke Adams is great, portraying sheer terror without descending into cliched hysteria. John Carradine gives an amusing bad-tempered performance as the captain, whilst Peter Cushing brings gravitas and presence to his emaciated Nazi scientist, even if his German accent is as slight as his worryingly spindly arms.

The zombies themselves are pretty good, looking more water-bloated than decomposed, as you'd expect from thirty years in the sea. They're not given a vast amount to do, and the scenes of them sitting up in the water get a bit repetitive after a while, but they do have a quiet menace when going about their killing. Seeing as they're actually genetically modified SS super-soldiers rather than living dead, they're not your conventional zombie, but a bit of blood might have been nice just to make some of the attack scenes seem a bit less antiseptic. Still, Shock Waves is a creepy little film that delivers the goods if you approach it with the right expectations - it's not for gorehounds or zombie obsessives, but fans of slow-burning tension will find something to like about it.

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

2005-07-30T17:40:00.000+01:00

Vincent Price is one of those actors who can raise the level of a film just by being in it, with his finely judged moustache, velvety voice and willingness to chew on any scenery that shares his shot. William Castle's great little movie gives him a good meal; the interiors are magnificently opulent, and the script sits on just the right side of being camp to allow Price to give one of his trademark smooth-but-sinister performances. He plays an eccentric millionaire who pays a group of strangers $10,000 each to come and spend a night in his 'haunted' house. Cue all sorts of shocks and scares as the night progresses, but is the house really haunted, is Price up or something or is someone else on the prowl?

This movie is terrific fun, mainly by virtue of Price's delicious performance, but it's far from being just a star vehicle; all the actors give it their best shot, especially Carol Ohmart as Price's scheming wife, whose scenes with the man himself really crackle. The script is taut and suspenseful, with a number of intriguing red herrings thrown in before the truth is finally revealed. But Price is undoubtedly one of the two star attractions here; whether he's shooting daggers at his wife or inserting... ridiculous... pauses in the middle of sentences, his sheer magnetism and ability to bring out both the fun and the menace from any line kept us glued to the screen.

The other highlight, though, is the appearance of the skeleton at the end. Apparently, Castle made the film in "Emergo", meaning that at the appropriate moment a skeleton on a string was dangled into the audience. Frankly, I can't think of anything more likely to shatter the mood, but the sight of a science-lab skeleton rising out of an acid bath to accuse the murderer had my jaw on the floor. This moment alone is worth the price of the DVD, but in many ways it sums up this film as a whole pretty accurately - hilariously preposterous, quite exciting, and with enough of a wink to the audience to get away with it (and Vincent's there laughing afterwards, to tell you it was all a ruse). Everyone in House on Haunted Hill clearly had great fun making it, just as I did watching it.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

2005-07-30T15:51:00.000+01:00

One of the later entries into Universal's series of horror / monster movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon is largely just another variation of the well-worn 'beauty and the beast' premise mined by many other films, most notably King Kong (nasty scary monster falls in love with pretty girl; monster kidnaps girl; men hunt down monster). But whilst it doesn't have anything vastly original to say - and lacks a knock-out performance from a Karloff or a Lugosi - it's still a fabulously visual piece of work, with spades of atmosphere and some great design.

The film was originally made and released in 3-D, but thankfully director Jack Arnold choose not to constantly throw things towards the camera in order to show of this gimmick; instead, he concentrates his efforts on the absolutely sumptuous underwater photography. Pretty much every water scene is beautifully framed, and many of Arnold's shots have been imitated / ripped off by other aquatic films, most notably Jaws (where Spielberg very liberally helps himself to the scenes of Julia Adams swimming, unaware of the monster below her). Whereas much underwater filming of this period was content to merely dip the camera in and show a few fish, Arnold really captures the expansive beauty of the eponymous lagoon, imbuing it with as much atmosphere as, say, Dracula's castle or Frankenstein's lab. Unfortunately, the ear-shreddingly histrionic score frequently counteracts his sterling work, as if the studio were worried about the lengthy, dialogue-free underwater scenes and decided to fill them with as many chattering strings as possible to keep people interested.

As with most Universal pictures, the Bud Westmore's creature design is both brilliant and iconic. The level of detail to it means it never once looks cheap, and every part of its look and movement has clearly been designed to match the concept (the missing link between man and fish) in every way possible. On land, he walks like a man but in a sort of plodding, flopping, fish-out-of-water way, his mouth constantly opening and closing through gasping. In the water, he moves beautifully, really giving a sense that this is where he belongs - one of the benefits of having a professional diver play the part. In the grand Universal tradition, he carries an equal mixture of menace and pathos, and his eventual death is quite agonising.

The film has some problems with pacing; having been alerted to the creature's impending kidnap of the girl by the blurb on the back of the DVD, I was disappointed that it was crammed into the last few minutes, as the scenes leading up to this moment are a tad repetitive. The rest of the characters themselves are stock expedition movie types, all taking things terribly seriously and patronising the token girl. For this reason, it lacks the humanity of some of Universal's other monster movies; but even if by the studio's standards it's more of a first division film to Frankenstein or The Invisible Man's premier league, it still set the bar very high for hundreds of other sea-monster movies and stands up very well as a popcorn movie today.

Audition (1999)

2005-07-30T14:50:00.000+01:00

It's not particularly surprising that the current bandwagon for US remakes of Japanese horror films hasn't yet reached the work of director Miike Takashi, and in particularly his most notorious movie, Audition. Whilst it's probably true to say that anything American cinema can do, Asian cinema can do in a way that's altogether more psychologically upsetting, most people probably won't be prepared for the astonishing brutality of the film's final reel, which is almost unparalleled in its impact on the viewer. Whilst there have been much gorier films, there can be few that lull their audience into such a false sense of security - almost boredom - before assualting them with horrendous imagery.

The plot, such as it is, concerns a widowed film producer called Aoyama, who is persuaded by his son to remarry. With the help of a colleague, he cooks up a scheme to audition girls for a role in a fictitious movie as a ploy to meet women who match his criteria. Sure enough, he meets the quiet, fragile, beautiful Asami, with whom he rapidly falls in love, despite warnings from his son and colleague who are suspicious of this "untraceable" woman. But when the true extent of Asami's damaged past is revealed, things go very very wrong for Aoyama indeed...

There's not really much more to the story than that, but Miike deliberately keeps things almost tortuously slow in order to give the horrible conclusion its huge impact. The first two-thirds are really a romantic melodrama that doesn't appear to be going anywhere in a particular hurry; but it sows many of the seeds for an ending that's unexpected but (almost) logical. The whole audition ploy is quite unpleasant in its cynicism, although Aoyama does appear to be a rather reluctant participant in his colleague's scheme. His tacit agreement, though, in his colleague's lamentations about the lack of "good girls" - ie. submissive, obedient, quiet - is unflattering, and his treatment of his doe-eyed female secretary is rather callous.

Asami is a fascinating character, mainly because Miike drops in huge sections of her backstory but refuses to connect them up - and actually revels in making them contradictory. The same scenarios from her tortured childhood and adolescence are replayed in flashback several times but altered each time; sometimes she appears as the victim, a graceful child ballerina, and sometimes she is the aggressor. Similarly, her motives for picking on Aoyama are unclear; she berates him - with some justification - about the audition scheme, saying its a sleazy way for men to pick up girls for sex, but it's apparent that although his methods are dubious, Aoyama is genuinely, desperately in love - a situation she has manipulated and brought about herself (witness her slow smile when he finally caves in and phones her). Neither does she have a campaign against men, as her murder of the female bar owner proves. Miike ducks out of giving us the easy answers; if we could simply label her "abused child turns killer" we'd have some sort of psychological handle on her, but as it is, we don't know what her game is.

As with much modern Japanese horror, there's a fidgety stillness to the film that lends it an air of dread. For the final third, Miike throws all sense of chronology out of the window, returning to earlier scenes, relocating dialogue from scene to scene, bringing back dead characters - making it unclear what is a dream and what is real. Far from lessening the impact of the violence, it increases it, cutting the horrendous mess on Aoyama's living room floor with an earlier scene of Aoyama and Asami lying in bed together on crisp white sheets. Overall, Audition is a testing but fascinating film; the first part almost challenges you to find the patience to sit through it, whereas the last part will leave you wondering what the hell you've just watched. It sort of makes sense, but deliberately doesn't quite fit together. But if you have patience, a love of atmosphere and a strong stomach then Audition is definitely worth a look.

The Corpse Vanishes (1941)

2005-07-25T13:04:00.000+01:00

If you can look beyond the unnecessarily opaque plot and poor quality production The Corpse Vanishes comes across as one of Lugosi’s better offerings of this period and actually turns out to be a respectable enough little movie.

Like a lot of Monogram films, the need to add horror to what is essentially a simple murder mystery results in some pretty far fetched and clichéd developments along the way. We never find out why or how Dr. Lorenz has managed to persuade a family of misfits to help him in his dastardly schemes, or precisely what condition is afflicting his wife and leading him to kidnap young virgins to extract their ‘glands’. In this way it resembles Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster, which was also premised on the notion that if you stuck Bela Lugosi into a laboratory with a few freakish henchmen and some impressive looking electrodes then anything was plausible. The result is that we are left more confused than scared, though this never detracts from the pace of the film in any major way. In fact, it is at its most effective in the second half when it reverts back to a standard murder mystery and the clash of wills between Lugosi and Luana Walters (excellent as the plucky cub reporter Pat Hunter) and the ‘horror’ of the situation is pushed into the background.

A couple of other things stand out too. The idea of someone’s ‘glands’ being extracted for the medical treatment of others-and the morality of doing it- is an increasingly contemporary issue so the film has a certain freshness about it. Also, Lugosi is not left to carry the film by himself and Luana Walters matches him all the way, with Tristram Coffin (seriously), Elizabeth Russell and Minerva Urecal all excellent in support. All in all a respectable and entertaining offering.

Halloween (1978)

2005-07-24T10:53:00.000+01:00

Like all successful films Halloween has been dragged out into a long-running franchise which, as time has gone on, has increasingly distanced itself from what made the original so compelling and desirable to replicate. A real low-budget affair, it was made for $325,000 and pulled in some $47,000,000. We’re currently on Halloween 8 (Halloween Resurrection-a bland, listless fusion of bad slasher movie and Blair Witch-style techno driven thriller), and though Jamie Lee Curtis decision to bow out may finally have killed off her onscreen nemesis for good, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are further attempts to wring more money out of the Michael Myers story. It would be a tragedy if people’s only experience of the Halloween story was in watching the final few movies because the 1978 original is a seminal work which inspired the genre for the next decade or so and whose originality and quality are beyond dispute.

The plot itself is quite formulaic-a child goes berserk one Halloween night and kills his sister, is locked away in a mental hospital, manages to escape a decade or so later and goes back on the rampage. With a nod to movies like The Thing (which appears on the TV screens in Haddonfield) Carpenter successfully reasoned that less is often more and so we are rarely given a clear view of Michael Myers. This ratchets up the tension amazingly and serves to transform him from a simple killer to an abstract concept of omnipresent evil (as Dr. Loomis observes, “Death has come to your town sheriff”). We know that he is stalking Laurie (Lee Curtis) and will very soon try and kill her, but the subtle camerawork and full and effective use of the widescreen frame means that the climax is still something of a shock and nonetheless terrifying. With one of the most effective scores ever written for a film we are never allowed to feel comfortable, even if most of the killing is reserved for the last third of the film.

Donald Pleasance (as Myers’s doctor cum zookeeper) and Jamie Lee Curtis (his sister and prey) effectively interact with the chilling environment constructed for them, and Pleasance’s steady revelation of his patient’s background add to the aura of fear (and also tragedy) surrounding the force that’s about to strike Haddonfield. Though we first encounter Myers as a small boy he is quickly stripped of any humanity and instead comes to be seen as a figure of unfathomable evil. This may seem trite now but Halloween was the first of the slasher films (a term I think we should use carefully in relation to this film) to frame itself in this way, and without doubt the most effective when compared to others, e.g. Friday the 13th’s Jason.

Michael Myers should have been allowed to retire after his first outing. Though Halloween II is the least worst of the spin-offs (and was actually written at the same time as the original with the intention of releasing the first two movies as single, contiguous whole) even it falls a little way into the trap of being a conventional slasher movie. The original is an innovative and unique experiment in the psychology of terror and stunningly effective and simple cinematography, and its legacy is plain to see in many subsequent horror films.

Shock (1946)

2005-07-19T22:09:00.000+01:00

Though its status as a horror movie is debatable Shock adds to a long list of psychological thrillers based around the terror of losing ones mental faculties so I deemed it worthy of inclusion here; the version I’ve got came on a ‘Three Classic Horrors of the Silver Screen’ DVD too, which is more than good enough for me.

The film is a very efficient and enjoyable attempt to cover the well-trodden scenario of a sane person being trapped in a mental hospital (Gothika being a recent, poor offering). Our heroine witnesses Dr. Cross (played excellently by Vincent Price) kill his wife in a neighbouring hotel room and faints at the sight, only to be entrusted to the care of the very same Dr. Cross. In order to keep his secret safe Cross must contrive a way of keeping the lady in a state of dementia, and from this premise a number of fairly interesting sub-plots are drawn out.

Though the plot is basic enough there are an adequate number of little twists and turns to keep you interested, and the finale is not as saccharine as it might have been. It is also one of the first times I’ve seen Price do ‘serious’ acting and he puts in a very respectable turn. Shock succeeds a simple (yet not overly so) and enjoyable little movie.

Faust (1926)

2005-07-19T18:40:00.000+01:00

Though Nosferatu is probably the most well-known of German director Friedrich Murnau’s films many would argue (me included) that Faust was his true masterpiece. There have been many attempts since to bring Goethe’s tale of tragedy and hubris to the screen but none have the quality or impact of this 1926 offering. More than any of his other films, Faust demonstrates Murnau’s maturity in every aspect of the film-making process.

The visual effects are stunning and perfectly tuned to the atmospherics of the story. Few people would fail to be impressed with Mephisto’s first appearance over Faust’s hometown, or with the physical transformation of Faust from a weak and feeble old man to his youthful former self. The camera work and sets are just as important in this and everything comes together in what has to be one of the most beautifully crafted films ever made. Few directors have succeeded in conjuring up the supernatural as masterfully as Murnau. Theodore Huff put it far better than me when he observed, ‘Carl Hoffmann's camera...has the power of impregnating everything, down to the cloth of a garment, with diabolism...’

Emil Jannings is often criticised as being nothing but a vain, pompous ham but he used these qualities with precision and intent in the role of Mephisto and can thus be forgiven. At first he is full of mirth and jolliness in seducing Faust into signing his fateful compact; the instant this is done though he is instantly able to come across as the scariest and most unsettling person you’ll ever see, and from there on in puts in an accomplished performance. The rest of the cast are fantastic too, with Gosta Ekmann and Camilla Horn generating real sympathy for their respective plights. Ekmann adroitly manages to capture the essentials of youth and old age and is intensely likable despite the obvious weakness of his character.

Faust is undoubtedly one of the finest silent films ever made, with every shot carefully rendered to bombard the viewer with the dynamism of the tragedy unfolding on screen; from the flawless score right through to the superb actors, it is a real experience (and joy) to watch.

Ed Wood (1994)

2005-07-18T22:00:00.000+01:00

Is Ed Wood a horror movie? Strictly speaking, no, but it earns its place in the Black Lagoon through its illuminating and moving depiction of one of the genre's most notorious - and intriguing - partnerships.

The name Edward D Wood Jr is usually accompanied by the words "world's worst director", which makes for a good headline but doesn't adequately describe why his films are so interesting. His all-time greats, such as Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space (which we'll inevitably cover on this site in the future), show a passion and raw enthusiasm for movie-making that is inversely proportional to his technical or artistic abilities. These are, of course, atrocious films, but not through lack of ambition or vision; unlike Roger Corman, another icon of junk cinema, Wood never felt constrained by what was feasible in terms of the resources or talent he had available to him at the time. Wood had an immense belief in and love of his work and had an eye for the big concept, but lacked the technical discipline or sound judgement to do his ideas justice. His films have a naive charm. The triumph of Tim Burton's 1994 biopic is that it lets Wood escape with his dignity intact; by having a dream, he stands head and shoulders above the cynical sharks and moneygrabbers who populate Burton's Hollywood. Johnny Depp's performance as Wood borders on the child-like in his lack of awareness and blind enthusiasm, and Burton only alludes to the awfulness of Wood's films obliquely, instead playing the mishaps that plague his career for laughs and presenting the eventual completion of Plan 9 as a triumph against the odds.

The strongest aspect of Wood's rehabilitation as a sympathetic character is his relationship of Bela Lugosi. Whereas the rest of Hollywood writes him off as a has-been, Ed gives this washed-up, frail old man a second chance at the lasting success that eluded him; he fails in this aim, but Lugosi dies a little happier for having met him. Martin Landau brilliantly conveys the sadness that is self-evident in even a cursory glance at the events of Lugosi's life; briefly one of the biggest names in cinema, his rather indiscriminate approach to projects - and his catastrophic refusal of the role of Frankenstein - more or less sank him completely and left him a morphine-addicted recluse. It's the scenes with Depp and Landau together that make this film, and when Wood films his last scene with Lugosi knowing that the end is near, it's almost unbearably poignant (although predictably, the actual incorporation of this scene into Plan 9 is woeful).

Also worth mentioning is the almost uncanny way Burton captures the look of Wood's films, both in his spot on recreations of actual scenes and throughout the rest of the movie. The black and white biography helps, but the careful framing and lighting - on a budget Wood could only dream of - is perhaps the ultimate tribute. Ed Wood is moving, funny and above all it makes you want to watch - or re-watch - some of Wood's films in the light of what you now know. Whilst it's probably more of back-door entry into the horror canon, it's also one of the best 'films about a film' I've ever seen.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

2005-07-16T18:16:00.000+01:00

The Night of the Hunter represents actor Charles Laughton’s sole attempt at directing and he presents us with a chilling tale of good versus evil of immense quality and presence. The first thing that strikes you when watching Hunter is the stunning cinematography (the work of Stanley Cortez), which is a seamless combination of German expressionism and American Gothic. Hunter contains some of the most memorable images I think I’ve ever seen on film, from the close-up scenes of the children hiding from a psychopathic Robert Mitchum in the basement through to the closing scenes of him pursuing them across country. Excellent camera work, minimal sets and swift direction combine to add real grit and a melancholy beauty to a simple tale of an evil ‘preacher’-Harry Powell (Mitchum)- who tries ingratiates his way into a family which has recently been widowed to try and steal their cash.

Laughton took the courageous decision of framing the film through the perspective of the two children of the family, and their youthful innocence gives the viewer the impression of being caught up in the nightmare that subtly unfolds, with mesmerising effect. Walter Schumann’s score bolsters the atmospherics and is really in mood with the tone of the film, making Hunter a sensory treat on all levels.

The cast that Laughton assembled gel together perfectly in telling their woeful tale. Mitchum is really unnerving as the sinister Preacher in what is undoubtedly one of his finest ever performances. His constant singing and preaching are horribly unsettling, on the one hand disarming the adults around him of their suspicions whilst simultaneously terrifying his young prey and thus acting as an effective wedge between the vulnerable and their protectors. The child actors are excellent too, and Billy Chapin especially brings a convincing realism and attractive maturity to his role of the boy who finally uncovers Powell’s machinations.

The Night of the Hunter is a strange and compelling work that stays with the viewer long after they first watch it. Haunting yet optimistic, it strives for excellence in every aspect of its production and never fails to hit its targets. Though Mitchum is undoubtedly the star of the show this was in no way intended as a star vehicle, and the story that is there tells itself with exceptional quality and resonance. Truly amongst the finest films of the 1950’s and a genuine classic to this day; If only Laughton could have given us a few more.

Zombie Flesh Eaters (aka Zombi 2) (1980)

2005-07-16T11:49:00.000+01:00

Zombie Flesh Eaters is probably the most celebrated film from a period between the late 70s and mid 80s where Italian horror movies seemed to be competing with each other to produce the most disgusting and horrific images. Directed by Lucio Fulci (who, bizarrely, had directed kids' movie White Fang only seven years earlier) was presented as a semi-sequel to Romero's Dawn of the Dead, hence the film's European title of Zombi 2 (where Dawn had been released as Zombi). This makes it sound like a bit of a cash-in, and by and large Fulci's movie has got none of social resonance of Romero's movies; but even though Fulci is concerned with just telling his own story, it's still a great little self-contained horror flick.

Set almost entirely on a remote island, the film's concern with voodoo seems like a nod to the 1932 Bela Lugosi classic White Zombie, but unlike the earlier film there's a satisfying amount of uncontrollable zombie carnage. The gore here is far better realised than in Dawn of the Dead; there are several fantastic shots of maggot-ridden corpses bursting out of their graves, and the shots of the dead feasting on the living are suitably repulsive. The film has two notorious set-piece moments: one, in which a woman gets a nasty splint of wood stuck in her eye, is pretty wince-inducing; the other, in which a zombie wrestles with a shark (!!) is astonishing. Although it's pretty clear that the stuntman is fighting a much smaller shark that the one that appears in long shots, it's still a real shark, and it really seems to bite his arms off while he's biting chunks out of its belly.

The characters and dialogue are pretty paper-thin, but this isn't so much of a problem as there's enough action and tension to hold the attention. The actors aren't bad, but the real joy of the movie is in its cinematography, which is great; at times it's appropriately raw and ragged, but then there'll be a majestic sweep round for some great revelation. In particular, the revelation of the fate of the doctor's wife is superbly handled. Fabio Frizzi's music, a bone of contention for some, sounds great to my ears, which some absolutely bonkers synth work and a thudding main theme that keeps and atmosphere of dread going (even if my TV speakers strained at some of the more extreme moments of the score).

One slight niggle: I got the Vipco Screamtime Collection edition (£2.99 in the HMV sale, folks), and the dialogue sometimes doesn't quite synch with the actors' lip movements. I really don't know if this is due to overdubbing in the film or if the DVD's been badly authored. However, it doesn't detract from a highly enjoyable film, and one which I'd recommend to any horror fan who's not looking for anything of momentous depth.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)

2005-07-11T21:01:00.000+01:00

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is undoubtedly one of the finest films of the silent era, as well as standing out as a landmark in the development of cinema in general. Though it might appear a little rough around the edges for the general viewer looking for some quick frights, for those who are willing to persevere it offers up a stunning mixture of revolutionary design and style, genuinely gripping plot and pace and surreally beautiful performances from the leading actors.

The Expressionist style of Caligari is its chief legacy to cinema. The slanted houses and interiors, the obviously artificial backdrops and the creepily effective technique of blackening the eyes of the actors combine to induce a dream-like state in the viewer which surpasses the often natural spookiness of silent films and transports the mind completely to a confused state, which is central to the plot. The chase scenes are particularly effective in achieving this, as the pursuit of Caligari over a warped and alien landscape acts as a metaphor of the narrator’s personal descent into confusion and (perhaps) insanity. As the end approaches we are given some respite in the relatively comforting and familiar setting of the doctor’s study, where the details of his plots are unearthed. This proves fleeting though, and the plot takes a clever and unforeseen twist to leave things very much unresolved. Werner Krauss is chilling as Dr. Caligari, aided by a striking performance from Conrad Veidt as Cesare and both are instrumental in achieving the ramblingly demented flow of the film.

The political debate surrounding The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari often distracts from the fact that it is a bloody good film. From an artistic, aesthetic and cinematic perspective it stands out as a ‘must see’ movie but I would also add that in terms of entertainment it is not to be missed.

The Invisible Man (1933)

2005-07-08T17:59:00.000+01:00

Somewhere along the line, director James Whale decided to start incorporating comedy into his horror movies. Many people consider 1935's Bride of Frankenstein to be the high-point of his genre-mixing, but as far as I'm concerned it's his earlier film The Invisible Man, based on HG Wells' novel, that's the most successful. Whilst Bride is obviously a great film, the camp comedy doesn't sit too well with the tragic elements of Mary Shelley's story and Karloff's doleful performance. The fact that the Invisible Man's central protagonist is, erm, an invisible man, gives a greater opportunity for the comedy to arise organically out of scenario, especially with the script's bumbling policemen, hysterical barmaids and angry mobs.

This is a terrific little film that stands up astonishingly well by modern standards, possible more so than any of Universal's other classic monster movies. Most obviously, the special effects are brilliant; the scene in which the invisible man pulls of his bandages to reveal his lack of a face is brilliantly realised. It's also really pacey; things move along at quite a lick, and Whale ensures there's always an action or special effects sequence just around the corner to keep the energy up. But best of all is Claude Rains' mesmerising performance in the lead role. As we don't see his face until the end, his voice has to do all the work, and what a voice it is too - sneering and desperate, he practically sings the witty script, and his murders are deliciously horrible.

There's not a vast amount more to say about The Invisible Man, beyond the fact that it's brilliant - watch it now.

The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)

2005-07-03T21:31:00.000+01:00

There's no getting around the fact that this is a bad film. It uses its meagre resources badly, manages to wring any entertainment out of what is a naturally engaging premise and draws together a cast of pretty ropey actors. It’s a real shame too, as there are one or two points in 'The Amazing Transparent Man' where you can detect faint hints of the larger story the producers were trying to tell but came nowhere near to doing justice.

The transparent man in question is one Joey Faust (played creditably by Douglas Kennedy), an infamous bank robber who's broken out of jail on the orders of the mysterious Major Paul Krenner (James Griffith). Krenner has also enlisted the help of the world's foremost nuclear physicist-Dr Ulof-and has plans to create an invisible army to take over the world. Ulof is the sole figure of interest as we discover that he is an unwilling accomplice of the evil Krenner and is building the invisibility ray only because his daughter is being held hostage by him.

This relationship between the reluctant scientist and his bullying and murderous ex-military paymaster is obviously set up as a warning to the audience of the potential for innocent knowledge to be harnessed for the most malicious of purposes, in this case by nefarious military types. Ulof revealing that he was also forced to work for the Nazis is a particularly interesting development in light of the contemporary political developments at the time of the film’s release (the use of German scientists like Werner von Braun for American post-war needs was still a sensitive subject in 1960's) and his repentance in the closing minutes of the film is intended as a cautionary tale to keep scientific advances under close scrutiny. I also think that the lead character being named Faust was no coincidence, and his realisation that his greed to aquire the power of invisibility has had the gravest consequences, and the act of redemption this brings, are utterly wasted.

None of this is ever developed though, which again is a real shame as it could have turned a very bad b-movie into a half-way interesting one. When I first started watching this I thought it would be a bad variation on Universal’s classic ‘The Invisible Man’. It’s to Edgar Ulmer’s credit that he tried something different with it, but unfortunately ‘The Amazing Transparent Man’ comes nowhere near to making any mark on the genre.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

2005-07-02T15:57:00.000+01:00

Carnival of Souls represents Herk Harvey's solitary departure from making educational and industrial films and, intriguingly, he really manages to pull it off. Though the plot is really nothing more advanced than an average episode of The Outer Limits, it is to Harvey manages to mould everything together and churns out a little gem.

The story concerns the sole survivor of a car crash-Mary Henry-(who is excellently played by Candice Hilligoss)as she tries to come to terms with the trauma of losing all of her friends within the first few minutes of the film. The introspective and self-absorbed Mary is a really absorbing character, and her rejection of all offers of material and spiritual help, coupled with her determination to carry on with her life in spite of the pervasive tragedy are really unsettling and effectively add a hard edge to the conventions of early 1960's American horror. You get the impression that absolutely nothing could frighten Mary, which makes her impending move to Utah in search of a fresh start ever more forbidding.

True to form, on route she sees a strange image of a ghoulish man just as she's driving passed an abandoned circus, and this 'man' seems to follow her with increasing purpose as the film goes on. I should mention here the arresting beauty of this film, from the desolate creepiness of the Utah desert through to the rendering of the 'ghouls' in the final, chilling sequences. It is difficult when watching Carnival to pick up the fact that it was made on a shoe-string budget, which adds to the tragedy of it being Harvey's only horror film.

Anyhow, the 'ghoul' appears ever more frequently which leads to Mary finally facing her destiny, and though the ending is fairly predictable (though none the less rewarding for it) I won't spoil it here. I do have a few gripes with the film-I think the issue of Mary's atheism is a little overplayed, and adds very little to the plot, as well as the distraction of the scenes with her amorous fellow lodger-but none are serious enough to detract from the true affection in which I hold it. It stands head and shoulders above many horror films of its time, and makes a really valuable contribution to the genre. What industrial and educational film-making gained from the efforts of Herk Harvey we can only envy on the basis of his natural horror-film making abilities.

The Wicker Man (1973)

2005-06-28T20:59:00.000+01:00

Although it's often named the best British horror film of all time, the impact of Robin Hardy's incredible film lies in the fact that it ultimately has very little to do with the shocks and scares we normally associate with horror. The whole film is one giant red herring; the overt referencing of magic and paganism led me to expect a more supernatural conclusion, whereas there is in fact nothing in the film that one couldn't expect to encounter in everyday life. The magnificent denouement yielded not terror but instead a sickening sense of realisation that such an outcome was glaringly obvious almost from the start, but I'd effectively been looking the other way.

The presence of horror veterans Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee helps this misdirection, but it mainly stems from the way we see events through Sgt Howie's eyes; he is our anchor of 'normality' as the bizarre occurrences unfold, and although he is a bit of a prig, we mistakenly assume that he holds the moral upper hand as he effectively represents us in this foreign landscape. Howie's horrible death is quasi-tragic in the way that he brings it upon himself - which is not to say that the islanders are right and that he's wrong, but that his bluff moralising and starchy Christian preaching mask an ignorance of the culture he has walked in upon. It is his unwillingness to learn that proves his downfall.

This is one of the few films that I'd actually label flawless. The acting is marvellous across the board, with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee hitting all the right notes. It looks both bizarre and gorgeous, the music's lovely, and the iconic ending stays with you long after the credits have rolled. Probably one of the best British films full stop, it deserves a wider appreciation than its cult status allows.

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

2005-06-28T20:23:00.000+01:00

This is a really difficult film to review, mainly because several weeks after watching it I still have absolutely no idea what to make of it all. Another of Roger Corman's spare-change affairs, made this time in one week, it's a knockabout comedy of errors which also has a few occasional pretensions at being a serious horror film. The plot goes something like this: crook Sparks Moran sees an opportunity to make a fortune when revolution breaks out on a Caribbean island by helping loyalists escape on his boat, killing them and then blaming their deaths on a legendary sea monster supposed to inhabit the area. Unfortunately for Moran, the monster exists, and sets about attacking his boat.

But this summary doesn't even begin to cover the bizarre and disconnected oddess that fills this film's 77 minutes. Somehow, there's also a man who does animal impressions who falls in love with a much older islander who impersonates animals as well. There's an opening chase and a secret rendezvous in a cafe that bears no relation to anything that follows. And the film screeches to a halt to let a woman sing on the boat for what seems like an eternity. Frankly, it's utter madness, and right in the middle of it all is the monster itself, a hilariously ramshackle concoction that resembles a fat version of the Pepperami monster.

I suppose my problems with this film stem from how unclear Corman's aims are. He simultaneously asks us to laugh with and at the film, both poking fun at its own shortcomings but also carrying some rather laboured gags. It's not consistently funny enough to be good comedy, but it's got a knowing, self-conscious edge which makes it difficult to love in an Ed Wood fashion. Moran's proto-Frank Drebin voiceover raises the odd laugh, but most of the time it mocks the film instead of being funny, making the whole thing rather hard to swallow. Asking for greatness from a Corman movie is never a good idea, but a bad movie can't be redeemed simply by admitting it and trying to laugh its failings off.

The monster is of course fab and pretty much saves the entire picture. Whether it's deliberately hopeless or not, this low-rent Creature from the Black Lagoon really livens things up, partly because of the sheer audacity of putting something SO rubbish on screen and partly because it's a genuinely funny design. It's just a shame that the rest of the movie drags so much; if he'd used the monster a lot more and kept the comic momentum going it'd be a great film to watch over a bottle of wine. As it is, it's a hard movie to love, but quite good fun if you're really drunk.

Dracula (1931)

2005-06-22T17:58:00.000+01:00

There have been numerous attempts to adapt Bram Stoker's landmark work to the big screen but the one that still stands above all others is Universal's 1931 offering. That is not to say that Todd Browning didn't make mistakes-he did-but the end result is perhaps the definitive telling of the perennial tale of Count Dracula.

There is no need to go over the story beyond noting that Browning sticks pretty faithfully to the original text. The cuttings he did make are generally positive, for example totally omitting the annoying bits in the book with the Whitby simpletons, and the overly draw-out convalescence of Lucy. Unlike many later adaptations 'Dracula' steers clear of trying to impose its own agenda or interpretations onto Stoker's story and tells the tale simply and with clear direction. At times it does come across as a little stunted but as they only had an hour or so to play with it holds together very well.

What Browning does exceptionally well is capture the sinisterly captivating persona of Count Dracula and here he is helped along by the two things that really make the film stand out; the cinematography and Bela Lugosi in the lead role. The first twenty minutes of 'Dracula' are stunningly executed, from the spellbinding atmospherics of Harker's journey to Castle Dracula to the Gothic-ally dark aura of the Count himself. Browning and Karl Fruend (his cinematographer) capture the audience after the first few frames, with an irresistible combination of stunning sets and flawless camerawork which are more than enough to compensate for the disappointing turn the film takes in the second half, when it reverts almost to the stage show which inspired Universal to take it into production. There is a real feeling of dislocation between the first and second halves of the film as we're forced from the liberating panorama of Transylvania and the roaming adventure of the Count in London into a claustrophobic drawing-room drama.

Without doubt, Bela Lugosi was born to play this role and in 'Dracula' we see him at the apogee of his career. His interpretation of the role-seductive yet distant, suave yet primevally brutal-set the standards for most subsequent portrayals of the Count and it is impossible having watched 'Dracula' to think of anyone coming close to putting in such an outstanding performance. Tragically, Lugosi himself realised this which is why he turned down the role of Frankenstein that same year (it being beneath such a fine actor) and thus started along the path of obscurity and eventual ruin. Though clearly the outstanding talent in the film it must be pointed out that the supporting cast complement Lugosi perfectly, with David Manners and Edward Van Sloan particularly worthy of praise.

I haven't managed to watch the Spanish language version of 'Dracula' that was filmed alongside this one, which is considered by many to be technically a far better movie. Even when I do get around to it I doubt that it would do enough to knock this version off its pedestal as the finest Dracula movie of them all. Though it tails off a little towards the end Browning does more than enough to grab the viewer in the first half of the movie to retain their loyalty and in doing so has produced the definitive telling of the Dracula story. Lugosi never escaped from his role as Count Dracula (he was actually buried in the costume) which is perhaps fitting because this film leaves such a lasting impression that viewers will forever equate him-and Browning’s effort-as the finest telling of the Bram Stoker's tale.

Buy Dracula on DVD

The Spiral (aka Rasen) (1998)

2005-06-19T15:47:00.000+01:00

The Spiral's reputation seems to rest more on the film's status - or lack of - than anything to do with the movie itself. Based on the second of Koji Suzuki's Ring novels, Joji Iida shot the film almost back to back with Hideo Nakata's peerless adaption of the first novel, and the results were released in Japanese cinemas simultaneously. But whereas Ring sparked what can only be described as an international phenomenon, The Spiral bombed, and was later overwritten by Nakata's own Ring 2. Effectively exiled from the Ring saga - in cinema terms at least - the film has only recently been made available on DVD in the West,but remains relatively unknown.

I'm not going to add to the acres of critical analysis that already surround Nakata's Ring, but in essence the film success lies in the way it lifts the haunting imagery from Suzuki's novels and translates it into a compelling ghost story, junking all of the pseudo-science that drags the novels down. Suzuki often seems like he's embarrassed to be writing horror, and so every fantastical element like a killer videotape has a rather dodgy scientific explanation that's neither good science nor dramatically necessary. Iida's problem is that he works far more slavishly to Suzuki's novel than Nakata, making The Spiral more of a medical thriller than a horror. In an astonishingly boring interview on the DVD, Iida explains that he was far more interesting in treating the story as science fiction rather than horror and it shows. The book's problems are magnified on the screen; "science gone mad" rather than scares is the order of the day, but it comes across as contrived rather than interesting, with characters in lab coats making leaps of logic that even the 60s Batman series would have winced at. And ultimately, it's not all that interesting; revealing the video virus to be a mutation of smallpox may be more credible, but it hardly as arresting as a scraggy black-haired woman lurching out of the television.

But despite this, The Spiral is not a bad film. Put aside the silly science and there's an interesting human drama that's played out; Andou's guilt over the death of his son leads him to a terrible moral dilemma, but interestingly, the implications of his decision don't become clear until the end of the film, long after he has made his choice. In a nice nod to Ring's conclusion, the ending is quietly devastating, and beautifully played out. The performances are solid if unspectacular, and there's some great Sadako stuff, even if her appearance and use here is entirely at odds with how she appears in Ring. In fact, despite The Spiral following directly on from Ring, there's very little continuity between the two films; one suspects that Nakata and Iida never compared notes during filming, and unfortunately for the latter, it's made his film all the easier to drop from from the 'Ring Cycle'.

Ultimately though, as someone who approached the film having been wowed by Nakata's film and the power of the overall concept, it's hard not to be disappointed by The Spiral, and although in itself it's nowhere near as bad as its history would suggest, it's still a very minor film. Nakata's own Ring 2 is a whole lot better - although basically a rather messy remix of the first film's imagery, he at least realised that the imagery is the centre of the story's appeal, and the key to translating the novels successfully onto the screen. Frankly, after the legendary conclusion to Ring, talking heads in a lab simply doesn't cut it.

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Horror Hotel (1960)

2005-06-17T17:57:00.000+01:00

Horror Hotel-or 'The City of the Dead' to give it it's U.S. video title-is a superb occult thriller which overcomes a clearly limited budget and some occasionally hit-and-miss acting and delivers a real classic.

A beautiful young woman (Venetia Stevenson) with an academic passion for witchcraft is encouraged by her course tutor, Professor Driscoll (Christopher Lee), to visit the small New England town of Whitewood and research its history of witch-burning. All is not well though, for 400 years previous a particularly nasty witch (Patricia Jessel) managed to curse the town just before she was turned to ashes and she and her army of loyal followers now terrorise the few remaining inhabitants. Naturally this web of sorcery is concentrated on the hotel-The Raven's Inn-which Driscoll recommended to our intrepid student and when she disappears her brother and boyfriend make haste to the town and discover its dark secret....

The atmospherics on this film are stunning, from the well-placed opening scenes depicting the hysteria that surrounded 17th century witch-scares right through to the debilitating eeriness of modern day Whitewood. Though the continuation of actors as the same characters is an obvious indicator of the eternal presence of evil in the town, Horror Hotel never relies on this overt symbolism to tell the story for it and instead heaps upon us a slow and steady accretion of discomfort. Even when it becomes clear what is happening and going to happen (Stevenson doesn't give the most subtle of performances) we are still shocked with the provocative and dramatic ending. The small budget meant that director John Moxey had to shroud the set in fog to disguise it's tiny size but this adds wonderfully to the claustrophobic sense of terror the student must be feeling once she arrives in Whitewood.

In many ways Horror Hotel resembles The Wicker Man, most especially in harnessing the notion of a tragically unavoidable fate yet still managing to leave the viewer with just enough room to hope for a happier ending. Christopher Lee puts in a star turn here (very ably supported by Jessel, Tom Naylor and Dennis Lotis) which more than compensates for the wooden efforts of Stevenson in the lead role.

Horror Hotel is a real gem. Atmospheric, engaging and still scary after over 40 years; it puts few steps wrong and, if nothing else, reminds us why Christopher Lee can be forgiven for camping it up in the new Star Wars films.

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Scared to Death (1947)

2005-06-14T14:56:00.000+01:00

Though billed as a ‘Lugosi’ movie, William Christy Cabanne’s ‘Scared to Death’ makes very little use of its only valuable asset and suffers badly for it. Actually, that’s not quite fair as even Bela couldn't be expected to do much with this terrible little film.

The premise is a promising one; from her slab in the morgue a dead woman tells the tale of how she got there. We are told to expect a ‘maze of murder involving a hypnotist, a midget and a mysterious figure in a blue mask’. However, with such promising material to play with Cabanne gives us a turgid and confused tale which never fulfils its potential and leaves the viewer dazed, confused and thoroughly disappointed. Any suspense or drama is flagged up way in advance by a sloppy (though commendably pioneering I suppose) use of narration from the dead girl. Carl Hoefle’s insipid and relentless score does nothing to help and quickly becomes irritating and distracting, especially whenever the ‘mask’ appears at the window.

Also, what might have been promising characters are never fully developed and integrated with the plot. There are usually far too many people on screen at any one time which, because of the plodding script, has the effect of making you feel as though you’re stuck in a crowded airport terminal waiting for a flight that’s already 30 hours late; cranky, wondering why you decided to bother in the first place and looking for any possibility of escape.

Lugosi is completely wasted as the sinister hypnotist Leonide, which is a real shame as the character is much more interesting than many of the ‘red herring’ roles he was given during this period. Bringing a real sense of menace to the part, he deftly plays off the ‘comical’ character and acts as the only thread in the film. It’s also only one of two appearances in colour that he made, and even in 1941 (the film was released several years after production) the consequences of his troubled lifestyle choices are clearly visible.

This is one of the rare movies that I found so bad that I had to turn it off before the end and thus, alas, I do not even have the ability to tell you how our girl died for my troubles. I can’t see how it would be worth hanging on to see what happens as I can promise that you won’t care.

One last note; don’t let this put you off buying the '3 Classic Bela Lugosi Films of the Silver Screen' as it’s the only dud on there.

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A Bucket of Blood (1960)

2005-06-13T19:13:00.000+01:00

Director Roger Corman is fast becoming a bit of a hero of mine. Whilst it would be a stretch to consider him a great director, it would appear that his great talent was being able to stitch together something fairly enjoyable from the most slender of resources. A Bucket of Blood, like much of his output, was made using the small change he found down the back of the sofa; apparently it was shot over a three day weekend because the rain meant that he couldn't play tennis. His directorial style is probably best described as "efficient"; there's no imagery or shots in this film that strike you as being particularly bad or good - Corman gets in, does what he has to do and gets out again.

I love the film's lurid premise; Dick Miller plays Walter Paisley, a clumsy busboy who worships the beatnik poets that populate the club where he works. When he accidentally kills a cat, he covers it in clay to hide the evidence; when the result is hailed by the beatniks as a masterpiece, he is forced to kill again to keep up with demand for more work. As the plot would suggest, there's a certain amount of satire aimed at beatnik culture, but I wasn't prepared for just how savage that satire would be; Corman doesn't just send up the art enthusiasts, he spits venom at them, and as the film goes on they degenerate into increasingly grotesque and ridiculous caricatures. Paisley doesn't look any better; his adulation of the horrendous Maxwell Brock (who eats "soy and wheat-germ pancakes, organic guava nectar, calcium lactate and tomato juice and garbanzo omelettes sprinkled with smoked yeast" for breakfast) makes him look foolish - an accomplice to the inane pretension that surrounds him, as well as, more obviously, a murderer.

What would otherwise be a lightweight comedy of errors is made quite gripping by Corman's obvious, barely disguised hatred of beatniks. Had it lasted longer than its 64 minutes A Bucket of Blood would probably have outstayed its welcome, but as it stands, it's short, angry and pretty funny. Definitely worth a look.

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