Category Archives: retrospective

Retrospective: Twins of Evil

03 Sunday Oct 2021

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This movie will always have a strong place in my heart, and quite possibly in my loins if you’ll forgive me for being so crude. 

It would have been late night on BBC 2 or Channel 4 when I first began to discover Hammer Horror films in my adolescent years and my earliest memories were of Mary and Madeleine Collinson decked in the yellow dresses or their negligee that would reveal so much to this impressionable mind.

The Collinson’s would go on to become the first twin playmates to stir the sense of male youth and this was the perfect recipe for young horror fans that Hammer Film productions were hoping to lure into their cinematic fold. It clearly worked on this writer and I became enraptured and was intrigued by the whole virtuosity vs temptress component that these twins of evil were to portray.

It helped that this film would also feature Peter Cushing, who for those who know me well understand that I had developed some kind of man-crush on the dignified English Gent, Cushing alongside Christopher Lee would become synonymous with Hammer films and even though Lee would be absent in this feature, Cushing more than holds his own as the Matthew Hopkins inspired witchfinder, Gustav Weil. This tyrant of a figure, Weil is hellbent on steering everyone to his purtiancial ways and ridding the world of sinners and those who practice in the dark arts. Struck by his passionate beliefs, Weil with his Brotherhood will drive out the women fallen to sin and burn them at the stake. His main prize though is towards Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas), a man who is drawn to the dark arts and enticed by one of his ancestors, Mircalla (Katya Wyeth).

Twins of Evil also rounds out the Karnstein Trilogy (The Vampire Lovers, Lust of a Vampire) that Hammer had focused on through Mircalla and finding inspiration from the Camilla story by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.
What I particularly liked about this feature beneath the thinly-veiled sexual exploitation, is a story that paints its characters in grey rather than black and white. As puritanical as Weil is in his mission, he is conflicted by his own dedication to his cause and that of the notion that his nieces could have fallen prey to evil temptation. It is his blinded view of the world that leads him to his own ruin.
The twins would be the symbolic pendulum between what is deemed good and evil, each representing the yin and yang in this equation. Count Karnstein is deeply entrenched in sin but also shows signs of uncertainty when tempted by Mircalla before ultimately being consumed by darkness. And the local school teacher, Anton (David Warbeck) would also display signs of weakness, who despite his pure values is tempted by Frieda’s wilder streak before realising that it is Maria’s innocence that needs protecting.

There is a nice conclusion to the piece too which sets up mistaken identity, before pitting the two actual twins of evil in The Count and Weil against one another. Twins of Evil, directed by John Hough would mark an important step in Michael Carreras trying to reinvent Hammer Horror for a new generation and arguably succeeds in this instance. It would set up the tone for the 70s and the last great hurrah for the British film company that brought Dracula and Frankenstein onto the screens again in the 50s. 

There are certainly some misses more than hits during this time, but I at least enjoy succumbing to the visuals and narrative that is embedded throughout this feature and it is one that I find that I am drawn to time and time again.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Turkey Shoot (1982)

17 Friday Sep 2021

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On its initial release when Ozploitation was at its peak, Turkey Shoot was not received favourably especially from its homegrown audience in Australia. And yet it garnered a deeper appreciation under the title Blood Camp Thatcher, the name carrying a double edged meaning for its tyrannical camp commander, Charles Thatcher (Michael Craig), but probably more so for his namesake and a certain political leader in the UK who was not looked on in a kind light.

Since then, the film has picked up a cult following which in part is due to Quentin Tarantino who cited it as an influential movie. Personally I think that Turkey Shoot has a lot of charm, infusing a dystopian, totalitarian world with The Dangerous Game. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith also has a knack for producing stellar action flicks with a strong, entertaining beat.

Saul Muerte interviews Director Brian Trenchard-Smith

Trapped in a controlled Government with supreme views, those who oppose this ruling are gathered up and shepherded to a concentration camp to either be conformed to society or be subjected to Thatcher’s will. In some cases this involves the turkey shoot, a hunt set by Thatcher and his associates, including a horse-riding, crossbow wielding socialite, Jennifer (Carmen Duncan); Secretary Mallory (Noel Ferrier); Tito, a violent sadist and his beast-like man; and Roger Ward as the camp guard, who between pick out degenerates from the camp to offer a false illusion of freedom while they track them down and kill.

Our team of misfits contain Paul Anders (Steve Railsbeck) as the Steve McQueen-esque Cooler King who has escaped from numerous camps; Rita Daniels (Lynda Stoner) an accused prostitute; Griffin (Bill Young) another escapee of numerous camps; Dodge (John Ley) a bumbling, yet loyal prisoner; and Chris Walters (Olivia Hussey), a shopkeeper falsely accused of aiding a rebel.

It’s a simple enough story but with its outlandish methods of being tracked by their pursuers, the film carries a certain energy that keeps you gripped and entertained.

The Diagnosis:

For those unfamiliar with the Ozplotiation scene, Turkey Shoot is a great entry into the genre.

It carries some great set pieces that are of the extreme and tick the boxes of satisfaction when they come about.

The cast deserve recognition too, but this is Trenchard-Smith’s movie and its his vision that is on show and peppers the film with such vigour and the character of the film shines throughout as a result.

  • Saul Muerte

Turkey Shoot is currently available as a Blu-ray release as part of Umbrella Entertainment’s Ozploitation Classics collection.

Retrospective: Hell Night (1981)

28 Saturday Aug 2021

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Despite being released in arguably the biggest year in horror, Hell Night is one of those forgettable films that could easily be buried in the midst of the other dark genre movies of the time had it not boasted The Exorcist’s Linda Blair as its scream queen heroine.

The concept is a fairly simple one, casting four college students who have been drawn the short straw to spend the night in the local mansion, which previously housed the murder/suicide of a man named Raymond Garth, along with his wife and deformed children. Local legend talks of a fourth son, Andrew, who may have survived the ordeal and lurks within the mansion walls.
So why stay there at all? Apart from to spark life into the film’s narrative that is. For the four students, it’s to win the right to initiate their pledge into Alpha Sigma Rho.

The four students consist of Marti (Blair), a smart, yet poor girl; Jeff (Peter Barton), a boy of wealthy upbringing; Seth (Vincent Van Patten), a stoner/surfer; and Suki (Denise Dunsmore), the licentious and adventurous member of the group.

There are numerous scares that have been set up by the existing house members, to try and liven up their doomed night and scare them away, but this has a negative impact of ‘the boy who cried wolf’ proportions when the murders begin and the body count begins to rise.

Hell Night had enough ingredients to make this work, and with a strong production team behind it which included Chuck Russell (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) and Frank Darabont (The Mist), but ultimately it struggles to lift itself out of a mediocre plotline, that is essentially a haunted house, boogeyman set up. It has since picked up a cult following which I find a little baffling, but each to their own. Unfortunately Blair also delivers a pretty shoddy performance that garnered her a Razzie nomination for Worst Actress that year.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Nella stretta morsa del ragno aka Web of the Spider (1971)

27 Friday Aug 2021

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Web of the Spider is potentially an example of someone who is obsessed with a vision and is determined to fulfill their satisfaction to keep pushing an idea to make it work.
Director Antonio Margheriti (Cannibal Apocalypse) had already tried his hand at the tale of a man challenged to authenticate a story by Edgar Allan Poe by spending a night in a haunted castle and surviving, in 1964 with Castle of Blood starring Barbara Steele. Said film performed poorly at the box office but despite this Margheriti felt compelled to return once more to his source some seven years later, but this time in colour.

There is a part of me that kind of gets this, by having American writer Poe, known for the macabre with a lilt towards romanticism, tired of people judging the authenticity of his work. His claim is that all his fictional stories are based in truth, especially the spiritual or paranormal components. It is equally compelling having the eccentric performer Klaus Kinski take on this magnanimous personality to inject the strange yet driven nature that Poe possesses. In Castle of Blood, Poe was played by Silvano Tranquilli (Black Belly of the Tarantula) who appears this time around playing William Perkins, one of the “spectral” residents of the castle.

This time around, it’s a journalist, Alan Foster (Anthony Franciosca – Tenebrae) who takes up Poe’s bet to spend the dreaded night in the castle, where he meets a number of ghostly spirits of those who have been murdered in the castle walls, and throughout the night play out the moments leading to their deaths.
Curiously Foster becomes infatuated with one of the inhabitants, Elisabeth (Michèle Mercier), who equally appears to have fallen for him. As Foster begins to question his sanity and the events that are occurring around him, the big reveal turns out to be that these so-called spirits are in fact vampires, luring him to become their next victim. Foster must now try and fight his way out of the castle before he succumbs to their ways.

Web of the Spider has moments that could genuinely work well but I can’t help but feel that the storyline would serve best as a theatrical presentation where the location and sets can lend weight to the telling of the story using the tricks of the trade. It just doesn’t translate as well in celluloid form and hence why Margheriti falls short of accomplishing his vision for a second time. It would be one that he would openly admit to being a failure and a “stupid to remake it”.
I for one am inclined to agree and the less said about the ending the better.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971)

27 Friday Aug 2021

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Perhaps this was indicative of my mind not entirely being in tune with this movie at the time I viewed it, but I completely failed to see the vampiric element throughout until I read up about it afterwards. At which point, it thrust the point of the stake firmly into my cognitive mind, along with the inspirations of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla. What was more obvious to my mind was stimulus drawn from Robert Wise’s film The Haunting, along with the death of free love and the sixties hippy movement.

The theme of Let’s Scare Jessica To Death is one that seemed to have been prevalent in many movies of its time, tapping into the psychological paranoia embodied by its lead. In this instance, Jessica (Zohra Lampert) is the victim. We learn through discussions among the central characters that Jessica has been through some kind of psychotic episode, and that she has only just returned back into society, albeit in the smallest sense, with her husband Duncan (Barton Heyman); a man who has given up his career as a string bassist for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to be with her during this time; and their close friend Woody (Kevin O’Connor). The aim is to have a quiet life building up a rundown farmhouse near a lake in Connecticut. They are surprised however to find a drifter, Emily (Mariclare Costello) squatting in their new abode. As this is the era of free spirits and tranquility though, rather than turf her out, the group decide to allow her to stay with them some time. A decision they would come to regret as there is more to Emily than meets the eye.

Throughout the narrative Jessica’s state of mind is always in doubt as she witnesses a strange blond haired lady in the nearby woods, which no one can support her claims, and bears a sparkling resemblance to Abigail, a lady supposedly murdered back in the late 1800’s. 

Slowly, all those around Jessica, from the townsfolk, to Emily, and to Woody and Duncan, start to pull away from her, growing distant, or in Emily’s case, trying to attack her by biting her neck.
Is this some kind of hallucination or is there something sinister at play?

The atmosphere and dark tension created by Director John Hancock and the Cinematography by Robert M. Baldwin is slowly built up and excellently executed, it’s little wonder that it would generate cult status. This film may not be for everyone, as its style is subjective, but it definitely warrants its place in the horror vault through the eerie narrative and haunting nature that it projects into the celluloid universe.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco aka The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (1971)

24 Tuesday Aug 2021

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Almost a decade prior to L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco aka The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire was released, Director Ricardo Freda had already proved a hard hitting director with The Horrible Dr. Hichcock starring Barbara Steele and Robert Flemyng.  

Where he strode to great lengths in producing a horrifying tale in the 60’s, the idea of Freda turning his head to the popular sensational Italian thrillers of the 70s called Giallo seemed like a logical one, but somewhere between pen and film a huge misfire took place.

Lost was the gloriously stylised visuals that the genre had become synonymous with and in its place was this hard-edged, brutal portrayal of murder.

The tone of the movie was set from the beginning when a woman is killed when acid is thrown into her face by an unknown assailant before having her throat slit by a razor. Her body is then discovered in the boot of a Swiss Ambassador (Anton Diffring – The Man Who Cheated Death), who it turns out was her lover and prime suspect, especially as he is unwilling to help the law in their investigations.

In comes Detective John Norton (Luigi Pistilli), a brutal cop who stops at nothing to get results, but is soon seduced by the Ambassador’s daughter, Helen (Dagmar Lassander).
The film then disintegrates through a messy script twists and turns towards a highly unsatisfying conclusion.

It’s a shame that it didn’t make the grade as on paper, it showed signs of potential, but by the film’s release even Freda had distanced himself from the production, unhappy with the result and replacing his name with a pseudonym.
Perhaps Freda had lost any enthusiasm to the material, especially as he was disappointed in the cast attached. Who knows if this would have been different, had Freda won his first choice to play Detective Norton, a certain Roger Moore. As it stands, L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco is a poor representation of the giallo movement.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Nightmares (1980)

17 Tuesday Aug 2021

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Nightmares is one of the pioneer movies from the Ozploitation scene, released in 1980 by director John D. Lamond who had set out to make the most gratuitous movie that he could.
The auteur of the genre would openly admit that it’s by far from being the perfect film and had room to be better.
Provided with the opportunity to make a low-budget, quick feature was in his grasp and the weaknesses are clearly on show here, but this is also part of its appeal.
A gritty, voyeuristic journey from the mind of a deeply psychologically scarred antagonist, a product of her environment, where it is little wonder that she would become unhinged. 

As a young girl, Cathy (Jenny Neumann) tries to prevent her mother from copulating in promiscuous behaviour with a strange man, but a car accident results in her mother’s fatality and her father is more intent on blaming her for the outcome than on the reasons behind his wife’s infidelity.

The story is possibly one of the weaker components without much drive for Cathy to enact her episodic killing sprees which centre on an acting troupe for a theatre production that she is one of the cast members of called Comedy of Blood. Among her fellow cast members is a certain Gary Sweet (Police Rescue) in his feature debut and possible love interest. It’s not all doom and gloom however as there are whispers of promise from screenwriter Colin Eggleston, who had notably directed another Australian classic two years earlier with Long Weekend.

The film trudges along to its own drum, and despite the misbeats, the kills are relentless and exposes humanity at its most vulnerable, and with the full frontal deaths doesn’t shy away from brutality.
It also throws in some interesting characters ripe for the kill into the mix, which you just hope will meet their due comeuppance, a hook that keeps you engaged to the end.

The Diagnosis:

The literal meaning of the words in this piece is unimportant… the beauty and the drama is contained within the drama and the opposite nature of the juxtaposition of the words . That and the comedy of death.

George D’alberg

The words of the theatre director in the movie sums Nightmares up nicely.

It’s the thin line between comedy and horror that blends in a gratuitous way, cementing the film firmly in the Ozploitation scene.

It’s either your thing or not, but for me, a solid night’s entertainment, especially if you take it for what it is, and not scrutinise too deeply.

Nightmares is currently available as a Blu-ray release as part of Umbrella Entertainment’s Ozploitation Classics collection.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Saturday the 14th (1981)

14 Saturday Aug 2021

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There’s woeful. And then there’s Saturday the 14th.

This strange attempt at comedy horror belongs in the film vault with every attempt that it tries to project with humour either falling into try hard, over the top camp, or simply dreadful.

With a cast that includes Richard Benjamin (Westworld), Paula Prentiss (The Stepford Wives) and Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), the film is not short in talent in front of the camera, but when you have a script that is this poor, there’s no hope for the greatest of actors being able to breathe life into lamented script.

Speaking of, the premise of the film follows a family, father John (Benjamin), mother Mary (Prentiss), daughter Debbie, and son Billy, move into their deceased Uncle’s house. Meanwhile, a vampire called Waldemar (Tambor) and his wife Yolanda are trying to get into the house because it supposedly contains a book of evil… No, unfortunately not that book.

From here on in the movie goes through the motions of using every trope going and lifting off the monsters from yester-year to subject the supposed frights to the screen. It even resurrects a Van Helsing into the fold, who is also on the hunt for the book of evil, and tries to do a mediocre attempt at turning the tables of what or who we expect villainy to appear from.

To say that I found this film a struggle is a gross understatement. A shameful attempt at marrying comedy and horror whilst being trapped in an archaic form of humour, leaves you wishing you had your last 76 minutes back.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971)

12 Thursday Aug 2021

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The more I delve into the giallo film scene, the deeper I fall in love with the sub-genre. Black Belly of the Tarantula has all the hallmarks of a classic example of the movement with a complex thriller and mystery populated with stylised murders that keeps you guessing to the film’s conclusion. It’s added benefit is that it has a beautiful score from the great Ennio Morricone, providing further substance to the drama as it unfolds.

Italian director Paulo Cavara weaves a cracking tale following Detective Tellini (Giancarlo Giannini) charged with the muder case. The murder in question is centred on Maria, who is killed by an unknown assailant, who is dressed in black and wearign surgical gloves. The killer injects Maria with a chemical that leaves her parlaysed but still conscious while they carry out their deathly needs. Our chief suspect is Maria, husband Paolo, who recently discovered her infidelity

Throughout the film we see Tellini at home discussing the job with his wife and admits that he feels not cut out for the job. This vulnerability that Tellini discloses is part of the film’s appeal, willing to show our protagonist at his weakest and most open allows the audience closer to his character in the process. 

It is when another murder is commited however, that bears no connection to Maria’s death that the case is thrown wide open, and the complexity begins. We also get another insight into the film’s title when Tellini visits a scientist who informs him of a species of wasp that paralyzes tarantulas before eviscerating them.

As the film snakes its way to a satisfying, yet brutal conclusion, the audience is dealt with some highly charged investigation that isn’t afraid to throw a few dead ends into the mix. And like most giallos, BBOTT manages to deliver sublime stylised deaths. Marcello Gatti’s cinematographer captures the visual energy of the piece, lifting the quality of the movie and for me, is one of the better films of its genre and I could happily revisit it again. 

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

12 Thursday Aug 2021

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When Roger Corman and Vincent Price teamed up to work on an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation of The House of Usher in 1960, it ignited a series of films inspired by the American writer of the macabre, such was the success of the film. The second venture however, entitled The Pit and the Pendulum would bear little resemblance to Poe’s short novella with the exception of the final act which featured the titular pendulum and pit.

Price would as usual bring another of his deliciously macabre and melodramatic performances that he had become known for. In this instance Price plays Nicholas Medina, whose wife Elizabeth (Barbara Steele) has mysteriously disappeared. It is through Elizabeth’s brother Francis (John Kerr) from which the story is told when he travels to Medina’s abode in Spain to find out what has become of his sister. Upon arrival he learns from Medina and through a local physician, Dr. Leon (Antony Carbone) that his sister has supposedly died of fright, due to her morbid fascination with the torture chamber beneath the castle, a leftover from the days of the Spanish Inquisition. The story does not ring true however and Francis becomes hellbent on uncovering the truth.

Corman with the aid of screenwriter Richard Matheson (I Am Legend) weave together a delightfully melancholic tale that embodies Poe’s unconsciousness through a psychological disintegration of the human psyche. The destruction of Medina’s mind and the mask of sanity that slowly falls is maginficientally portrayed by Price. And the supporting cast lift this larger than life fantasy to deliver an apt climax, ticking all the boxes that makes this era of filmmaking so great to revisit.

The effect would prove a financial success for American International Pictures (AIP) and would carve the formula for Corman and Price with further adaptations of Poe’s work. The Pit and the Pendulum would also have a significant impact on future filmmakers, most notably Antonio Marghereti’s Web of the Spider and Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body, as such it’s an important keystone in the realms of gothic horror films.

  • Saul Muerte