As I began my retrospectives of the 1960s horror era, part of my excitement centred on the Master of Italian Italian Horror and pioneer in the Giallo scene, film director Mario Bava. He led the way and inspired so many filmmakers with his visual style, particularly for his use of colour that would leave a lasting legacy on the genre. This all started in earnest with his solo directorial debut, the Gothic horror starring Barbara Steele, Black Sunday. That’s not to say he was a stranger to the celluloid art, having crafted a career since the late 30’s in many guises that would lead him to becoming a cinematographer to harness his voice and vision, come the release of Black Sunday.
Loosely based on the short story Viy by Nikolai Gogol, that was a passion project of Bava and one he had a close liking to having told the story numerous times to his own children before they went to bed. It’s little wonder that his own son Lamberto Bava would follow in his father’s footsteps and direct horror films.
Black Sunday is a tale of vengeance and retribution and is most predominantly remembered for its shocking opening scene. Asa (Steele) and her paramour, Javutich are accused of sorcery and sentenced to death. Part of their sentence involved being placed in bronze masks with spikes on the inside and having them hammered in place over their face.
Two centuries later her preserved corpse is reanimated and in order to be fully resurrected, Asa must possess the body of her look-alike descendant Katia. Will she succeed? Can love prevail?
Also starring John Richardson before he was cast in Hammer’s She, and One Million Years BC, as the love interest. Black Sunday is held in high esteem because of some of its imagery, such as the afore-mentioned opener and maggots crawling out of an eye socket in another scene, but it’s also the decision to shoot in black and white, monochrome with a richness to it that both arcs back to the films of Universal that had initially paved the way for horror on screen, but also bridges the gap to the future and how the genre would be shaped. It would launch Barbara Steele’s career, especially in horror for classic films such as The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Horrible Dr Hichcock. For Bava, he would mould his movies over the following decade and cement his name in history.
Mad by name, mad by nature. This film is off the dial crazy and we’re all the better for it. From the crazed masterminds and self-confessed film buffs hellbent on wanting to create the first ever Swiss exploitation movie. With no money they put forward one heck of a kickstarter campaign and like-minded individuals were hooked, wanting to see the feature brought to life.
Directors Johannes Hartmann, Sandro Klopfstein wanted to take a warped dystopian future take on the classic children’s novel Heidi by Johanna Spyri. Heidi (Alice Lucy) is all grown up and quite intent on spending her innocent-yet-sexually adventurous life with Goat Peter (Kel Matsena) the local goatherd who has a little sideline in an illegal cheese trade. Unfortunately, Switzerland is under tyrannical ruling by President Meili (Casper Van Dien) who is magnificently off-kilter in his pursuit for global domination and uniting the world with the ultimate Swiss cheese. This is bad news for the lactose intolerant as they are rounded up and eradicated through cheesification techniques and when Goat Peter’s trade is discovered, he is brutally murdered and Heidi’s world spins into turmoil. In order to right it once more, she must train up and be a kick-ass warrior and bring back the heart to the Motherland once more.
The Prognosis:
This is a swiss cheese on toast movie that wears its hyperbolic tendencies firmly on its sleeves. Hartmann and Klopfstein craft a meticulously over the top jibe at all the stereotypes of their homeland from chocolate, pocket knives, watches and of course cheese and unapologetically shoves these cliches down your throat until you burst.
Mad Heidi is so gloriously eccentric and unique that it is a welcome shift outside of the main cinematic beats, that it tempts you in and delivers all the gore, larger-than-life characters, absurdity and madcap mayhem to keep you entertained.
When you see Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr, and Udo Kier on the credits listmon a film and you’d be forgiven for presuming that it would be a half decent entry, but Skeletons In The Closet is like the visual equivalent of hitting the snooze button on an old analogue clock.
As the incredibly slow pace to the movie drags you desperately into its fold, we’re presented with a mother, Valentina (Valery M. Ortiz) and her husband, Mark (Howard) watch their lives fall apart, as if they were the combined metaphor of Job, continuously having their faith tested. Instead though, they are harbouring an evil presence that is sucking out the energy of their lives and inflicting a damning curse upon them. This starts with Mark losing his job after believing that he was actually up for a promotion, to their daughter Jenny (Appy Pratt) being diagnosed with terminal cancer. If that wasn’t bad enough Mark engages with a local crook based on ill advice from his brother (Gooding Jr). This inevitably leads to them putting the squeeze on the family and Mark’s logical leap to seek council from Madam Fortuna (Sally Kirkland), who just kicks the can down the road when she sees only disaster in the future. In steps the specialist Luc (Kier), who is even more mysterious and the potential threat or menace to what has been plaguing them for so long. All the while Valentina has been seeing visions of a pale woman dressed in white, haunting her every move.
Eventually we get to learn that one of them has a skeleton in their closet and must rid themselves of their curse with drastic consequences.
The Prognosis:
This is a slow and laborious possession that feels like we are shuffling off this mortal coil with the aid of a zimmer frame.
There’s one thing to establish character, but another to make us care about the character enough by going deeper into their psychological make up. It’s as though the creatives chose to do neither here and be content on going, here look at their hardship… isn’t it bad? I wonder what is the root cause of this evil?
Unfortunately, the film is pretty woeful, and the care factor is zero for this incredibly below par snoozefest.
Saul Muerte
Skeletons In The Closet is streaming on Shudder from 3 May.
Crocodiles are sometimes known for what is sometimes called collective hunting, swimming in numbers when circling large prey. In some cases they can rip their quarry apart while one of their basks holds the victim down.
With all this in mind, you can see why the notion of crocodiles moving en masse to hunt down and kill a group of humans. This is the premise posed by Director Tyler-James (The Loch Ness Horror; Deadly Waters; Monsternado) who is no stranger to low budget creature features. When a group of cave divers break into unknown terrain they encounter a nest of these reptiles, who are a little disgruntled about being disturbed and go on a killing spree. It is when Sam (Ella Starbuck) learns of her sister’s disappearance that she then forms a group of friends to go in search of the deadly caving system in the hopes of bringing her sister back home alive.
All of this may sound good on paper, but when you learn that the creative team behind this is feature are the team behind Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honeyand the whole upcoming Poohniverse franchise, with Scott Chambers (one of its stars who also appeared in Hammer Films latest Doctor Jekyll). On writing duties, you can imagine the kind of movie you’re in for.
It would be one thing if there was any merit to the narrative on display, but the acting is ropeable, and they chew through the weak dialogue without ever blinking once. Then there’s the effects which are so fake looking that it goes beyond throwing you out of the picture, you’re propelled back into your room or chosen place of viewing slamming back into the wall behind you. There was even one point in the vision on show that was so laughable when digitised crocs rips apart a mannequin.
The Prognosis:
To sum up, the most painful part of Crocodile Swarm was enduring the film and sitting through to the end for the sake of writing up this review. I’m pretty laid back when it comes to being forgiving when it comes to low budget features, always looking for the silver lining and wanting to praise where creativity is trying to flourish, but it’s hard to look for one here when it just comes across as lazy.
Saul Muerte
Crocodile Swarm is available on Home Entertainment from May through Eagle Entertainment.
Across the pond, Japan was also delivering on the genre scene in what would be known as their Golden Age of cinema. Part of the foundations of this era were the big 6 production houses of which Shintoho were significant in the make up. Unfortunately Jigoku would be the last to be released by the company having filed bankruptcy not long after it hit cinemas. Despite this, Shintoho would go out with a bang, producing one of the most compelling films from the country and one that went against the grain of popular cinema at the time to go on to be a cult film in its own right.
With its graphic depiction of hell Jigoku would follow a couple Shirō and Yukiko appear to have it all going for them until one tortuous night when Shirō gets a lift home with his friend Tamura when tragedy strikes. Tamura knocks down and kills a yakuza gang leader, Kyōichi. This incident was witnessed by Kyōichi’s mother and from here on out, the tragedy unfolds with macabre consequences, including the death of Yukiko and the vengeance of the yakuza gang still looking out for justice. And all this is before Shirō goes on a Dante’s Inferno style journey into limbo, fighting for his very soul among the damned and trying to steer him and his family towards enlightenment.
Perhaps it was because they had their backs up against the wall but with extras all pulling their weight to build the sets and complete the last picture for Shintoho, Jigoku was able to weave all these components together to tell a fractured tale of heartache, loss and the fight for purity. It’s the visual imagery that stands it apart from the crowd, with a narrative that leans into the heart and soul of spirituality among the darkness to expose the sinners of hell and make way for grace to shine through. For this, Jigoku deserves its place alongside the other classic films released in the 60s.
Up until now, American International Pictures had been overseeing black and white features shot on a low budget. House of Usher would prove a vital turning point for the film production company, marking it as the first that would be shot in colour. It would also be the first in seven collaborations between director Roger Corman and the enigmatic Vincent Price based on American Gothic writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe’s work. Although it strains a little from this well-known piece, one which modern audiences would be familiar with through Mike Flanagan’s love song to the artist, it is well crafted and stylised to have generated a worthy audience at the box office.
When Philip Winthrop embarks on a visit to the titular house in order to see his fiance Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey) is greeted by her brother, Roderick (Price) instead. Roderick is hellbent on encouraging Philip to leave for fear that the usher curse that has been placed on the family and its household should further bring ruin to the couple. Philip does not take on this warning and instead aims to steal Madeline from the house. This plan falls awry though when Madeline slips into a catatonic state, and her fiance resigns with a heavy heart that his betrothed has died. Roderick meanwhile ebbs further into a state of madness, believing the curse to have struck again and entombing Madeline in the family crypt. This act is enough to send poor Madeline into hysteria, and thus the two siblings are joined in their own pandemonium.
Madness and its frailty is certainly exposed here as the core theme to the film and Vincent Price’s amplified performance is never more on song than here. From a bumper year in 1959, turning out in horror classics such as House on Haunted Hill; The Tingler; and The Bat, Price would cement his name in the dark genre and take great strides in the sixties and early seventies. This is very much his movie, ably supported by the visual chemistry of set design, gore and the quality of special effects for its time.
As the horror scene began to ramp up in the 1960s and shake the genre to the core with the likes of Psycho and Peeping Tom, British Horror production company, Hammer Films who had made a significant mark during the mid-fifties reinventing classic Universal horror movies such as The Curse of Frankenstein; The Mummy; and Dracula were hardly resting on their laurels or cast to the shadows. At least not yet. Having already brought Baron Frankenstein to the screen with a sequel entitled The Revenge of Frankenstein, Hammer would inevitably turn their attention to the prince of darkness, although curiously, despite Christopher Lee still being attached to the Production company, and a script under the title Dracula the Damned in the works, this idea was shelved in favour of a whole new direction without Lee attached.
The sequel initially under the working title, Disciple of Dracula would centre around another vampire called Baron Meinster. At the outset this script would have another hero in mind called Latour to deal with the Baron but he would soon be curtailed in favour of bringing back Peter Cushing to play the infamous vampire hunter, Van Helsing. This was not an easy task however as Cushing was not immediately enlightened by the script on offer, so another writer, Edward Percy was called in to redraft it before he would sign on the dotted line.
The female lead, Marianne Danielle would be presented to Yvonne Monlaur to play opposite David Peel as Baron Meinster. Amongst the cast would be Freda Jackson (Henry V; David Lean’s Great Expectations) and Maritita Hunt (also Great Expectations as Miss Havisham) bringing an amount of gravitas to the presence on screen.
Once again the always reliable Terence Fisher was at the helm to call the shots and ensure that all things tied together neatly. It would be go-to editor James Needs though who would be congratulated for managing to ensure that the film would meet the deadline cast by Universal. The result would see huge success for TheBrides of Dracula, especially in Japan, UK and the States and the thirst for more Dracula stories would be requested, which Hammer was all too keen to oblige. The synergy of all those involved meant that Hammer were at the peak of their success and the 60s would only produce more Gothic-infused horror.
I have to admit to having a soft spot for this franchise in spite of its obvious misgivings.
Director Lawrence Fowler has spent considerable time working on the mythology surrounding the demonic possessed Jack-In-The-Box. In my recent review of The Jester, I spoke of pretenders to the silent killer crown, stating that no one so far has entered the arena with the same cut-throat appeal to match Art the Clown (Terrifier 3 can’t come soon enough in my eyes). While I still stand by this statement, I neglected to mention The Jack.
That’s not to say that it should be mentioned in the same breath as Art, as far as gore, or shock is concerned. The creature design still is a strong when and ably performed by Nicholas Anscombe (who played Doctor Clarke in The Jack in the Box: Awakening and can also be seen in Crocodile Swarm this month), replacing James Swanton who is starting to craft an impressive credit list appearing in Stopmotion; Lot 249 as The Mummy; and The First Omen.
This time around The Jack is resurrected once more to claim another six victims. The setting change here is within an exclusive girls boarding school, and with an overly elaborate set up, we finally follow Raven (Iasabella Colby Browne) having established that she is working for a cruel underground agency that are holding her father captive. Her only hope to save him is to do their bidding and retrieve the antique jack in the box from the afore-mentioned boarding school. Once arrived, we’re introduced to the would be victims, as they are slowly picked off one by one.
The hook here and one that places this feature marginally better than the previous sequel, is the choice to do a whodunit in the mix. We’re left to guess who is the wielder of the box and therefore protected against The Jack as he shuffles his way through the corridors to enact his next sacrifice. It is this component that keeps you connected but ultimately we’re still treading water in a franchise that could be so much better.
The Prognosis:
While I really want to see this succeed as The Jack once again takes victims from Britain’s privileged members, it still suffers under a poor script to ignite this premise.
Director Lawrence Fowler can’t keep resting on the one note that he serves up in his movies and if he does look to life beyond this trilogy, will need to up the ante in the gore stakes and breathe new life into his scriptwriting.
The competition is hot out there and there are filmmakers that have done better and smarter things on the same kind of budget.
Saul Muerte
The Jack In The Box Rises is available on Home Entertainment from May through Eagle Entertainment.
If ever there was a movie that defined horror films and launched the genre to a new level, it is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. So impactful was the film upon the popular consensus, that it would shift the perspective and inspire future filmmakers but upon its release it would not receive such high accolades, mainly directed at the melodramatic choices and these sensationalistic tendencies from Hitchcock were based purely on shock value, labelling Psycho as a gimmick.
The reason Psycho holds such a lofty position over 60 years since its release, is not just the shift in tone, whether it was the surprise murder of Marion (Janet Leigh) a third of the way through the movie, or the identity of Norman’s mother, but the psychological components that drive deep into the heart of the narrative. The stylised elements that Hitchcock adds to the film are the eloquent touches that allow these conceptual components to flourish.
Like Peeping Tom released earlier in the year, Psycho plays with the voyeuristic approach to the narrative, luring the viewer into the seemingly fragile Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a man traumatised by the emotional abuse of his mother. This is more noticeable when Bates removes the painting to look through a peephole at the unwitting Marion has she undressed. The male gaze and the seduction has never before been dallied with in a high-profile feature.
There are also strong symbolisms embedded throughout that entrench the foundations that it was built upon. Amongst the questionable character traits that keep the audience guessing, there are also twists and turns of vulnerability and exploitation that thread throughout. These executions on delivery would leave audiences feeling anxious or unease, daring to go where movies had feared or were unable to do so relaxed views on the Production Code; an act of self-censorship imposed by the industry. The fact that Psycho overshadowed Peeping Tom for broaching similar themes seems unjust, where one director would rise to prominence and be forever remembered for his film, whereas the other would be doomed to a fallen career as a result.
That’s not to say that Psycho doesn’t deserve to have the recognition bestowed upon it, The performances by the film’s leads, Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins and Vera Myles are at their most renowned and for good reason. Perkins’ flickers around with Bates’ personality casually swinging from likeable charm and gaining our sympathy to an unsettling picture of a man who is on the brink of reality.
I’ve yet to remark on the score by Bernard Herrmann, whose jarring strings punctuate the now infamous shower scene in stark contrast to the muted, darker and intense scenes. The use of tension as it slowly wrenches up though Arbogast’s (Martin Barlsam) investigations and the pursuit of truth from Marion’s sister Lila (Leigh) and Sam Loomis (John Gavin), Marion’s lover drive our own hopes that our suspected protagonist will prevail before the veil is firmly drawn from before our eyes.
There are countless areas that I could wax lyrical on but these have been discussed on other platforms before, Needless to say, it takes place here (rightfully) for its entry into the 1960s horror retrospective. With three sequels, a dubious remake, and a TV series all centred around Norman Bates have further cemented its status and will forever be immersed in our collective psyche.
“Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? It’s fear.”
The third entry into my 1960s Horror Retrospective is the simply majestic Peeping Tom, a film by a master of his craft, Michael Powell (The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus) but its controversial style would be torn apart by critics, leading to the downfall of Powell and his producer Nat Cohen.
Peeping Tom began life in the mind of Leo Marks, a cryptographer during the Second World War and described by people in the film industry as a deep thinker. His collaborative efforts with Powell for a script centred around Sigmund Freud fell through on the belief that Hollywood were also considering making a film about one of science’s greatest thinkers. It was then that Marks proposed a film on socophilia, where one’s sexual desires are aroused when observing or watching people. The single grain of thought would generate the genesis of Peeping Tom, the story of a man, Mark (Karl-Heinze Bohm) a sensitive, scarred individual who find satisfaction in filming women just at the point of death when he kills them with a bayonet that has been fitted to one of the legs to his cine-camera. What makes this act all the more disturbing is that Mark has also attached a mirror to the camera, forcing his victims to witness their last breath and thus capturing the true essence of fear.
There is more than meets the eye when initially watching this feature. Peeping Tom is a disturbing mix of sexuality at the hands of a repressed man, who has been reduced to the background of society, unable to mix with anyone due to his own inhibitions. We later learn that this was due to an overbearing, manipulative father, who would play psychologically and mentally disturbing mind games with Mark. This is the heart of Freudian theories, where the patriarch is the result of our own weaknesses, fuelling rage and anger and the want to destroy. This is demonstrated further by Powell casting himself as the father figure in the home movie, and casting his own son as the young Mark, a harrowing thought if you delve deeply into the psychosis of this. Powell though was no stranger to remonstrating his opinions and anger to stir up the film set, normally at the behest of the camera crew, but the cast equally felt the oppressive way that the director would conduct himself on set, providing an edge to the filmmaking. On one occasion, this was pushed to the extreme when Powell insisted on Otto Heller, the cameraman remove a protective lens from an arc light, the cameraman refused before Powell carried out the deed himself. The actions would cause blistering on actress Pamela Green’s skin and her eyes were swollen shut as a result. Allegedly if she had looked directly into the naked light, it could have caused blindness.
It is also a sweeping statement on society and how when individuals’ repress their own thoughts and feelings, they will manifest in dark and disturbing ways.
Furthermore, Powell would intensify the audience’s own portrayal in the murderous acts by placing them in the camera’s eye. We are voyeurs in these sadistic acts and willing participants throughout.These sexual subjugation would stem from the first killing of a prostitute, all from the viewer’s perspective, before working towards secretive, pornographic shoots from above a newsagency. The character of Milly (Pamela Green) would be the most voracious, and the scene in question would be Green claiming to be the first nude in a mainstream British feature film. There’s also the harrowing way in which Mark murders Vivian (Moira Shearer) on the set of a movie under the guise of shooting his own feature. It’s little wonder then that audiences and critics were shocked and appalled at the time, compelling cinemagoers away from the cinema and nearly burying the movie in the process.
One of its strongest advocates was Martin Scorsese who helped bring the movie to a modern audience and funded the restoration process. He would remark from his own observations and love of the film that ‘Peeping Tom shows the aggression of filmmaking), how the camera violates…’ It was clearly a feature that was progressive and hard hitting, which upon release proved too hard to handle for some viewers, but it still remains one of the most striking horror features to have been made, and perhaps misunderstood and judged on face value. Powell may have had his faults in his strides for perfectionism in the celluloid art, but his own words on the film sums up his interpretation, ‘I tried… to show why one human being should behave in this extraordinary way. It’s a story of a human being, first and foremost.’
This exercise in gazing into the soul of humanity and through the eyes of a tortured man, came at the cost of his career, but not thankfully at the sake of cinema, as Peeping Tom is a movie that captures the essence of depravity It has styled and inspired many other filmmakers since
and must not be suppressed again. For lovers of the genre must embrace this important part of horror film history.
Surgeons of Horror 