No Beautiful Woman Is Safe

‘Womaneater’ is an enjoyably daft tale of a mad scientist (George Coulouris) and his obsession with bringing the dead back to life. He hopes to achieve this morally equivocal task by using a huge, malevolent plant that he has transplanted from the Amazon jungle. He feeds it women, then, after it’s had time to digest its dinner, he milks it, puts the residue through some complicated looking scientific apparatus and the result is a drug which can (briefly) bring things back to life.

The obvious issue is an ethical one, i.e. is it worth taking a human life to be able to reinvigorate a dead heart for a few seconds? The answer is clearly ‘no, of course not, don’t be stupid’. Then there are other questions: why does the plant only eat women? And why do they have to be young and attractive? Only the savage misogynistic Plant-God knows, and he’s saying nothing, just waving his arms about and growling.

50’s starlet Vera Day makes for an attractive and down to earth heroine (elocution lessons haven't quite taken the edges from her working class accent) and the scene where her magnificent cantilevered bosom distracts her fiancée from fixing a car is priceless.

Relatively brisk at seventy minutes, I thoroughly and wholeheartedly recommend this ridiculous frippery, especially if you’re interested in gardening and/or reanimating corpses.

Womaneater

The Fatal Floor

‘Polish a floor, put a rug on it – 
you might as well set a man trap’

Native American Wisdom

‘...and to think he’d just come from the hospital’

‘The Fatal Floor’ has to be my favourite Public Information Film. It works on so many levels it makes Escher look like a one dimensional idiot.

There’s the relaxed, jolly ‘Man About The House’style music; the happy woman who thinks she is helping, but is actually putting everyone in mortal danger, including a new born Grandson. Then there's the technical virtuosity: the sublime dissolve as the rug turns into the trap; the freeze frame finale, the shocked faces and the strangled, slightly comical off-screen cry. It makes you gasp, laugh, think and, most importantly, it makes it simply impossible for you to polish a floor and put a rug on it without knowing exactly what sort of hell you’re getting into.

Finally, I particularly like the sheer level of micro-management that the powers that be are getting into here. Are they really going to tell us what to do in our own hallway? Yes, yes, they are. It’s rather sweet. Nowadays you’re lucky if they let you have somewhere to live, let alone give a shit about how you keep part of it tidy.  

Some Extra-terrestrials Aren't Friendly

Criticising ’Xtro’ for not being very cohesive is a bit like having a go at a bacon sandwich for not being kosher. In fact, the film barely registers as a narrative at all, instead operating as a surreal kaleidoscope of disturbing imagery and body horror, punctuated by death and decay and pulsating bags of offal.  Frame for frame, it’s one of the most startling British films ever made, and one of the nastiest.

Mainly about a rather understaffed alien invasion, it also operates as something of a domestic drama, and is remarkably well acted for something with such an obviously low budget. In fact, ‘Xtro’ may be cheap, but it does lots of things very well, especially in terms of make-up and effects, which are actually very good. Its intentions, however, are pure exploitation, so it’s also sleazy and tacky – and hugely entertaining.  

So, if you’ve ever wanted to see a malevolent dwarf doing mind magic, watch a  woman give birth to a full grown man, or see an Action Man come to life and bayonet Lou Beale from ‘Eastenders’ to death, then ‘Xtro’ is definitely the film for you. If, on the other hand, you faint at the thought of raw mince, I’d give it a pretty wide berth.

Xtro

 

Listen, Move and Dance

The last caption sends a shiver down my spine. Thank Christ for Zumba.

Sixty Second Nightmare

Everything about this advert creeps me out. Who'd have thought 'trousers that move with you' could be so sinister? Or is it the 'Rosemary's Baby' type music that someone coked up ad exec thought an appropriate musical accompaniment?

Watch the way the male model smoothes his flowing moustache: he means us harm, real harm - and if he ever gets out of that terrifying Giorgio de Chirico world he's been exiled to, we're all in the shit - unless we can get him to stand near a naked flame...

Grip Your Witch Deflector Tightly

'Witchcraft'  starts off with a bulldozer knocking down some ancient gravestones whilst Lon Chaney Junior bellows at the driver to stop, and ends with a resurrected 300 year old witch and some of her baby eating coven being incinerated. In between these two tasty slices, however, the sandwich filling is stodgy and generally bland, only sporadically seasoned by supernatural murder, miracle cures and a lot of bickering.

It isn't a bad film, especially considering how obviously cheap it is, but its problem is that after a quick burst of energy in the first fifteen minutes, nothing much happens very slowly, so the viewer makes their own amusement and, before you know it, everything seems funny, even the road signs.  

My favourite bit is when a wheelchair bound woman prays to Jesus for the ability to walk and, incredibly, is granted it. No sooner is she up on her feet than she has an unexpected visitor - no, not the DSS - but that bloody witch, who immediately pushes her down the stairs. I know Jesus is busy, but, you know, he could have hung around just a little bit longer.

Watch in the company of friends, with beer and cheese and onion Ringos. 

Witchcraft

The Art Of Universal #5

Some frames from Universal's 'House Of Dracula'(1945).  

The Two Faces Of Evil

'The Two Faces Of Evil' is a collaboration between myself and the notorious Fearlono of 'Cottage Of Electric Hell' and 'Mounds & Circles' fame. From the moment I first heard his warped audio mixes, I knew that this was a ghost train with a groovy guard and a gravy cargo and I wanted to stand on the footplate and help him shovel shit into the firebox.

We met for real, no shit, in person in Sheffield last year and got on like an orphanage on fire, so much so that for a few days afterwards I used to look at my wife and think 'you know, you don't really understand me at all'. Our bromance (there's nothing sexual, just touching) has culminated in this dark and fiendish mix of music, atmospheres and assorted spooky stuff.

Fearlono, of course, tells a far stranger and more disturbing origin story and, to be honest, he might be right. The fact is, every time I think about how the mix came about I black out, as if something within me doesn't want me to remember...my nose is bleeding as I type this.

Download it HERE.Do it NOW!

The Art Of Universal #4

It's quite a busy blog this, so sometimes occasional features get a bit left out. But I always remember them in the end. So, about fifteen months since the last instalment, here's part four of 'The Art Of Universal', now with slightly scruffy gif. technology!

If there's one thing I love more than the way Larry Talbot's face changes into The Wolfman, it's what happens to his feet.

Taken from the 1944 monster-fest 'House Of Frankenstein'.

Oddments

I don't know what this is, I don't want to know, but it makes me wonder if he's got anyone in there with him. 'The Great Egg Race' may have been infinitely darker than I remember it. Courtesy of a certain Mr. Jonny Trunk. Thanks for the nightmares, Jonny.

World Of Wax

More from the wacky 'World Of Wax'. Here, a redundant model is melted down. There's something unspeakably awful about its slow dissolution, especially as it is so realistic. I don't know who the model is, but I would guess at him being the leader of a fifties Communist country,  perhaps one who ended up being deposed and murdered, maybe beheaded and melted down. It would be chilling, if it obviously wasn't at such a high temperature, and the heads impassive expression throughout adds an extra layer of horror.