One Step Beyond Horror

‘Terror’ is absolutely brilliant from start to finish. Although there is a plot (something about a foxy witches curse), it mainly concerns itself with introducing (occasionally attractive) people before almost immediately putting them in perilous situations, racking up the tension with horror signifiers familiar from nightmares and other horror films and then summarily disposing of them in inventive, gruesome and bloody ways.  

What most of them have to do with the curse is anyone’s guess, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they die: beheaded by falling glass, smashed on the head by a falling spotlight that then catches fire, garrotted and then impaled on some railings. Most of all, there’s a whole lot of stabbing going on, and in really painful places, like the foot, and the crotch, and the mouth. I don’t suppose there is a nice place to get stabbed, but these attacks look particularly ‘ouch-y’ (if that is a word), and you can imagine contemporary audiences cringing as the blade plunges in.

Ostensibly a straightforward slasher, you keep expecting a ‘Scooby Doo’ dénouement where the killer is revealed - until the film climaxes in a full on supernatural assault in which that pesky, foxy witch turns up and wreaks her bloody final revenge which reminded me of ’Suspira’ on a shoestring budget, lots of dry ice and a wind machine.

Extremely enjoyable, and it features Milton Reid in a supporting role! It’s a classic, and the sort of film this blog is all about.