A Horrifying Excursion

‘Paranoiac’ is one of those stylish, squiffy supporting feature thrillers that Hammer quietly excelled at in the sixties although, sports cars and Hush Puppies modernism aside, it could just as easily have formed part of their better known Gothic cycle. It’s about a haunted house, after all, and is as morbid as hell - choc-a-bloc with murder and madness and desiccated corpses and organ playing in the dark. Oh, and darts.

It’s also about the 25 year old Oliver Reed, excellent here as the febrile Simon, a bag of neuroses in a bruiser’s body– an overgrown, over-wrought child who drinks too much, drives too fast and has a dirty, nasty, nutty secret which has driven him around the bend. He’s in good company, though, as more or less everyone in the story is absolutely barking mad – except for the hero, who is a fraud and a criminal. It’s a wonderful advertisement for country living, and a nice summary of upper class values that still rings true today.

The story, which twists and turns before skidding through a hedge and hurtling off a cliff, is competently and cleanly directed in crisp black and white by Freddie Francis, perhaps the most interesting of all Hammer helmsmen. The dénouement is a thick, fat slice of Grand Guignol, and is absolutely delicious. I must have seen this film a dozen times. I never tire of it.

Paranoiac

TV minus 50

I've very much been enjoying Friend of The Island Ivan Kirby's new blog, TV minus 50. Brilliantly, Ivan is looking at what was on telly in 1963 and blogging about it. It sounds very simple, and it is, which makes it incredibly addictive. It's also superbly executed and very well written, and you need to go there now.

You Die Laughing

The only collaboration between British horror giants Hammer and US exploitation genius William Castle, ‘The Old Dark House’ is not quite as good as the sum of its parts, but provides an eccentric and occasionally amusing stab at a macabre black comedy with a great cast and some cheap but genuine laughs.

When American car salesman Tom Penderel is asked by his intense and enigmatic housemate Caspar to deliver a sports car to his ancestral seat in Dartmoor, Femm House, he inadvertantly wanders into a very strange situation indeed. Femm House is almost exactly as an American would expect it to be – old, dark, leaky, cold, and populated with a load of bonkers elderly upper class maniacs, the sort who build arks in their back garden. Unfortunately for Tom, he arrives on the night when family members start dying – murdered at the rate of one an hour by an unknown assailant who is clearly looking to thin out the opposition to inheriting the enormous fortune bequeathed by a piratical ancestor.

Often collapsing into farce, ‘The Old Dark House’ suffers from the same problem as 99% of horror comedies in that it is neither funny enough, nor horrific enough. That said, it’s pleasantly knock-about, and the cast have a lot of fun with their bizarre roles.

Robert Morley, Mervyn Johns, Joyce Grenfell and Danny Green play the older Femms, with Janette Scott, Fenella Fielding and Peter Bull (in a dual role) as the younger generation. Special consideration should be given to Fenella Fielding, who is stupidly sexy as the sinister Morgiana. Fielding could have had a long horror career if she’d taken her tongue out of cheek, but she is too twinkly and knowing to convince as a real threat – although she looks like she could have your trousers off in seconds. I like her.

Castle and Hammer didn’t join forces again, unfortunately, so ‘The Old Dark House’ remains a quaint, camp curio – not massively successful, but an interesting change of pace.

The Old Dark House

Clear Your Diary 2

Another Sunday, another dose of self promotion. After a very successful and hugely enjoyable first week, Subverse Britannia continues at the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield, and today, I'm proud to be introducing one of the finest sci fi horror films ever made, Joseph Losey's 'The Damned'. It all kicks off at 2 pm. I know it's snowing and all that, but it's worth the trip, honest. 

Clear Your Diary 1

Subverse Britannia is here. Today. Ulp. Kindly make your way to the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield where, at 2pm, you can hear Dr. David Forrest introduce the superb 'This Sporting Life', the best film ever made about Rugby League.

After that, Dr. Forrest, Dr. Matt Cheeseman and plain old Mister Me will be talking about the film and the 'Subverse Britannia' mini season and what it's all about. In particular, I will be called to give evidence on what British exploitation films have to say about post war Britain, so I'm hoping I will have a convincing answer by this afternoon.

I hope to see you there but, if you can't make it, there are two more opportunities for you to get on board, on the 23rd and the 27th, so get something organised, ffs, I've done everything I can do.

Kill-Lust

Produced by Herman Cohen, starring Michael Gough, ‘Black Zoo’ is superbly silly stuff, full of violence and shock and death by wild animal. In its quieter moments, it also creates a sickly, unhealthy atmosphere in which odd family units are formed, then broken apart. It also finds a use for the old ‘Konga’ monkey suit, which more or less guarantees a good time.

Gough plays Michael Conrad, a private zoo keeper in Los Angeles. Gough excels at playing uptight psychotic types, driven men who are so certain of their destiny that murder is simply a way of getting there quicker. In his spare time, he attends meetings of a bizarre animal worshipping cult, and although this thread doesn’t really go anywhere, it quickly establishes his priorities: human life is cheap, it’s the animals that count. In the evenings he and his mute teenage son gather the animals around them – a lion, a tiger, a puma, a leopard – and Conrad plays the organ to them all. It’s all pretty eerie, especially as he quite often ends the get togethers by issuing the creatures their orders, which normally involve taking out some busy body or land developer that is impinging on their weird way of life.

After a while, the mute son realises that he can’t speak because he was traumatised as a child by something awful Daddy did to Mummy and it all comes tumbling down, but only after several heads have been clamped in several sets of jaws, and a lady has her skull smashed by a swipe of a massive simian paw (this bit is brilliant: a man in the ‘Konga’ suit does the dirty deed and, when he hears a police siren, starts hopping from foot to foot, flapping his hands around like he’s trying to think what to do next. I’m sure David Attenborough would have something to say about it).

Full of energy and unsettling moments (midnight tiger funeral, anyone?), ‘Black Zoo’ is full pelt early sixties horror – dripping with sensationalism but, over fifty years on, endearingly innocent and quaint. It’s grrreat.

Black Zoo

Dr. Syn, Alias The Scarecrow

In strict contrast to Hammer's exciting and sensational approach to the Dr. Syn stories, Disney's version is, as you might expect, a bit milder and more anodyne. So mild and adonyne, in fact, that the screenshots presented here kind of sum up the production - a load of heads - no action, no death, no flaming skeletons, no blood crazed tongueless mulattos - just good old, dull old family entertainment - and the film was edited down from a three part television series (this is the production that, no doubt quite aggressively given Walt's track record, forced Hammer into the name change from 'Dr. Syn' to 'Captain Clegg').

On the plus side, good cast of great British actors, imperiously led by Patrick McGoohan. McGoohan dons a number of costumes and a number of voices, although his Dr. Syn is not particularly believable - McGoohan is far too steely eyed and firm of jaw to play a mild mannered country Parson - his Syn always looks about thirty seconds away from punching somebody in the face.

It's high time somebody made a new Dr. Syn film, all the elements are there to make a first class franchise. Possible casting? Well, Freddie Jones would have to be in it, of course, but I'm thinking of Gary Oldman for the title role. Yes, you're right, there is something slightly wrong with me.

Shocking! Horrifying! Macabre!

‘The Kiss Of The Vampire’ (1963) was Hammer’s second ‘no Dracula’ Dracula sequel, even dispensing this time with the Van Helsing character.

In this film, a honeymooning couple visit romantic Bavaria, only to fall under the baleful influence of a creepy patriarch and his equally odd kids who live in a scary castle. Make no mistake, this family are vampires, but they are also presented as decadents, devil worshippers and sexual perverts – the neck biting seems to have developed as a sideline.

Without Van Helsing, the vanquishing duties fall to the dour Professor Zimmer (Clifford Evans), a man who has made a lifetime study of the occult and is part professor, part magus. The scene where he interrupts a funeral to plunge a sharpened shovel into the coffin is brilliant, especially when the blood starts to seep out. It is Zimmer’s arcane knowledge that saves the day when he utters an incantation that turns the castle occupants evil against them and they are immediately engulfed in a cloud (the correct plural term, fact fans) of hungry bats. These bats, poorly animated for long shots, rubber and on strings for close ups, make the film’s climax a pretty silly affair but don’t mar the enjoyment of this minor but rather charming entry in the Hammer catalogue.

Kiss of the Vampire

Derren Nesbitt, Actor

Derren Nesbitt as the dastardly Netchideff in 'The Sporting Chance', a 1963 episode of 'The Saint'.

The Eyes That Paralyze

Three years after 'Village...' a (sort of) sequel arrived, this time written without a source novel, and grittier and even more downbeat in its approach. 'Children Of The Damned' concerns a group of six eerie, hyper-intelligent kids from around the world who are brought to London to be prodded, probed and generally mucked about with. Unsurprisingly, they don't like the thought of this much and, using telepathy and their massive brains, hatch a plan to get away...

The Children this time are fairly ordinary looking and not so obviously alien, although the silent conversations they hold are pretty unsettling. At times, you even feel sorry for them, caught up in the midst of Cold War games and an uncomprehending, fearful world. It's thoughtful stuff, and extremely well done.