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

Shock-Thriller Entertainment

‘Hysteria’ is one of Hammer’s psychological thriller films, and quite good it is too. It revolves around a man (visiting American star Robert Webber) who has lost his memory* after a car crash. After several weeks of recovery, and still not really knowing what happened, he is discharged from hospital and installed in a modernist penthouse apartment by a mystery benefactor. The apartment is great, all sculptures and plate glass and cockatoos in the hallway, but the rest of the apartment block is deserted and, at night, he can hear screaming. Is he going mad on his own, or is someone trying to help him? And who is the mysterious, beautiful, apparently dead woman whose picture was amongst his few personal effects? And who feeds the cockatoos, because he never does?

Stylish and occasionally quite dark in content, ‘Hysteria’ gets bogged down in implausibility long before the end but manages to slog on under the super-competent direction of Freddie Francis. Webber is okay (although apparently a pain to work with) and Leila Goldoni is very attractive, but the real star is dear old Maurice Denham, who plays a wily, slightly seedy private detective. The best moment in the film is when Webber tries to bully the older and much slighter Denham, who butts Webber in the gut, then effortlessly avoids his return blow before casually knocking the wind out of his sails with a swift punch to the solar plexus. It’s not much, but it feels like a triumph for the British underdog and that’s always nice to see, isn’t it? Well done, Maurice, well done.

* I wonder just how many books and films revolve around memory loss, and how that compares with actual cases? I suppose somebody might write in with the answer. I'd Goggle it myself, but my finger is tired from typing all this. 

Hysteria

Obviously

When you think about it, 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave' could have been the name of every Hammer Dracula film, as every Hammer Dracula film relies absolutely on Dracula doing just that. Oh, and being destroyed at the end. Well, semi-destroyed, waiting to rise from the grave again. That said, we would have missed such splendid titles as ‘Taste The Blood Of Dracula’ and ‘The Satanic Rites Of Dracula’, so, overall, I’m happy.

That pointless digression leads us to the actual ‘Dracula Has Risen From The Grave’, a singularly snappy and rather cool offering from 1968. Apart from a bit of a sag in the middle, it fairly whips along, chucking in some gruesome murders, a bit of vampiric folklore, plenty of bosoms (courtesy of Barbara Ewing and Veronica Carlson) and a bloody ending in which the Prince of Darkness ends up impaled on a huge golden cross.

One of my favourite Hammer Dracula films, it’s full of energy, and, in using the Bray Studio ‘city’ set, takes the Count into an urban setting, albeit a nice chocolate box-y one. Christopher Lee has a few lines, but spends most of his time smirking, as if he can’t quite get over how naughty he is. He reminds me of my ten year old nephew, who is also a bit of a twat.

Slaying duties eventually fall to gawky Barry Andrews (the hapless Ralph from ‘Blood On Satan’s Claw), although he is hampered by the fact that, as an atheist, he is unable to say the prayers required to seal the deal. In the end, Dracula’s unwilling and increasingly disgusted acolyte, a Priest, breaks the spell long enough to say the necessary incantations and send the bloodthirsty bewigged bastard to Hell. Again. For a bit, at least.

Dracula Has Risen From The Grave

Bred From A Dozen Corpses

After two excellent and highly successful films (and a six year break), Hammer decided to completely reboot their Frankenstein franchise but, strangely, ‘The Evil Of Frankenstein’ doesn’t go back to the beginning. Instead, it takes place ten years after the Baron (Peter Cushing, of course) created his original monster, with the back story eventually established via a lengthy and slightly unconvincing flashback. It doesn’t really work, but the film is not without merit, just all over the place and hard to love.

The story revolves around Frankenstein returning to his hometown as ‘it’s been ten years – no-one will remember me’. Of course not, Baron, the creation of a living creature from spare parts which then goes on the rampage is a fairly commonplace event in the life of a small village. When he gets back to his castle he finds that the greedy powers that be have snaffled all his stuff - apart from his beloved monster, which is stuck in a glacier in suspended animation.

Being frozen for a decade has affected the creature’s brain, however, so Frankenstein has to employ the services of an odious sideshow mesmerist, Professor Zoltan, to get the creature to do anything, but the nasty Zoltan takes the opportunity to use the reanimated man-beast to settle a few scores (with the same men who Frankenstein has a grudge against) and it all kicks off. There’s violence, chaos, murder, fire, and an explosion that destroys a castle. You know, the sort of thing that absolutely no-one will remember in ten years’ time…

Oddly structured, ‘Evil’ has its moments, but is definitely a lesser effort, being neither one thing nor another. On the plus side, Cushing is great, and we get a proper monster, played by wrestler Kiwi Kingston who sports the familiar and iconic square headed look of the classic universal films (Universal Studios were now in partnership with Hammer, so granted them the copyright). On the negative side, it’s slow and slightly confusing, and the characterisation of the Baron is skewed to fit with ultimately irrelevant plotlines (the proper Frankenstein lives only for his work and is prepared to accept any privation to continue with it – here, he’s upset because some bloke is wearing his old jewellery).

Oh well. I enjoyed it though, flaws and all - but then there is something slightly wrong with me.

The Evil Of Frankenstein

A Face Only A Mummy Could Love

Germany in the early 1910 is probably the last place you'd expect to find 'The Gorgon', but this is Hammer, and anything goes, especially when the sets have already been built for another production.

Writer John Gilling specialised for a short while in bringing something slightly different to Hammer - the superb and unusual 'Plague Of The Zombies' and 'The Reptile' were also his work, and 'The Gorgon', which marries the good old gothic to Ancient Greek mythology is an equally odd work, a true one off.

The film has a lot going for it: a small village haunted by ignorance and fear; a series of bizarre murders; a great cast, including Peter Cushing, Barbara Shelley and Patrick Troughton; some excellent effects; haunting music from James Bernard, and a brilliantly 'excuse me?' concept - that Medusa's sister Megaera survived Perseus' attack and moved to Bavaria...

Expertly directed by horror genius, Freddie Francis, 'The Gorgon' comes highly recommended, not least because of its superbly sustained atmosphere of dread, unique storyline and Peter Cushing's fantastic sidewhiskers. Good stuff!

The Gorgon

More Dreaded Than Dracula

Another decade, another Francis / Cushing / Lee collaboration. 'The Creeping Flesh' is an interesting little film, bringing together elements from all over the place and giving them a slight twist to create something offbeat and memorable. Mr. Cushing plays Professor Emmanuel Hildern, a sort of general scientist / egghead who returns from a field trip to Papua New Guinea with a massive skeleton. Horribly, when water is spilled onto the bones it begins to regenerate and then gets really nasty.

In a somewhat imagination stretching breakthrough, Cushing discovers that the creatures blood contains viral evil, and that it is a disease, like flu, or herpes, or that made up one when you just feel tired all the time. I'm not sure how science-y this all is, but I know that his next move, to inject his mentally unstable daughter with a mix of good and bad blood to stop her going crazy, is pretty much off the chart in terms of malpractice, and can only end in madness, murder and blood spattered bosoms.

More than a bit different, 'The Creeping Flesh' could have been a minor classic but for its infernally slow pacing. Shame, but well worth the time and effort if you can find it.

The Creeping Flesh

You'll Scream!

Lots of people collect things, don't they? Comics or snuff boxes or postcards or vases or cars or sugar sachets. In fact, if there is a thing, then there is usually someone who collects that thing. But evil skulls? Really?

Peter Cushing plays an evil skull collector in, yes, 'The Skull', a Freddie Francis film from 1965. The creepy cranium in question belonged to the Marquis de Sade and, naturally, has a troubled history, with several unexplained deaths being attached to its unsavoury legend. Within a few days of buying it at a bewitched bones auction, Cushing's ordered life is starting to spiral down the u-bend - he's having nightmares, experiencing hallucinations, standing over his sleeping wife with a big knife in his hand - the sort of things he never ever did before the malevolent noggin came into his world. Incredibly, it seems that the evil skull is bad news. Really bad news.

'The Skull' is pretty good, considering, with some nice out there fantasy sequences and some great skull pov photography. Cushing is always particularly interesting when his cool and calm demeanour breaks down and he starts to unravel, and he falls apart quickly and irrevocably here to great dramatic effect. Freddie Francis' direction is excellent and to the point as you would expect from a genre director of his quality. Even Christopher Lee is quite good (and not in it much) and there's a nice cameo role for 'Island of Terror' favourite, Michael Gough. I miss that guy. 

Right, I'm off to add 'evil skull' to my saved e-bay searches.   

The Skull