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The Monster Club, Part Two (Or Is It Three?)

Story two is ‘The Vampires’. It’s played for laughs, which is never good in films like this, but the central idea is quite interesting in the way it places the supernatural into a banal, everyday setting. 

Basically, it’s about a family where the father happens to be a cape wearing, slick backed hair Transylvanian vampire. His wife and son are fully supportive of this, and live a fairly ordinary life, aside from the fact that Dad is under constant threat from a gang of bowler hatted bureaucrats (Anthony Valentine, Neil McCarthy and leader Donald Pleasence) who want to bang a stake into him. 

It’s a nice idea to combine suburbia with vampirism (Dad’s trips out for blood are treated as if he were commuting to work), but the relentlessly smug execution soon becomes very tiresome. If it’s funny, it’s funny, you don’t have to leave gaps for laughter or keep mugging to the camera. Yes, I mean you, Donald. 

Finally, we come to ‘The Ghouls’. Ostensibly the scariest of the stories, it features a secluded village of ghouls in crisis because, after hundreds of years, they have finally run out of corpses to eat. When a film director (Stuart Whitman, sucking in his gut a la Robert Mitchum) turns up scouting for locations, he quickly finds himself in very deep shit. The story is too busy and confusing to really grip you, although the mass of ravenous villagers pressing in does evoke some mild claustrophobia. In Italian hands, it would have been grisly and gory and oppressively unpleasant, in British hands it just looks like the queue for the lunch van and, no matter what else you try and do, having a crowd of ghouls with Nana from ‘The Royle Family’ in it is never going to be terrifying.

In the end analysis, for all its faults (B.A Robertson), ‘The Monster Club’ is the last of its brilliant kind and is worthy of respect if not adulation. It ends with the revelation that man is the most monstrous monster of all and two iconic figures dancing and making tits of themselves. And I like that in a film, I really do.

Interesting People

‘The Monster Club’ was the last in Amicus’ superlative series of horror portmanteau films, neatly putting a full stop to their most productive decade with its release in 1980. I’ll start by saying that I don’t like it as much as their other films in the same line but, even so, I like it well enough. It’s main issue for me is that the stories are simply not strong enough – nor are they aren’t particularly well-executed. There’s also not enough of them. Oh, and the music, by The Pretty Things and B.A Robertson among others, is fucking awful. On the plus side, Vincent Price is in it, which almost makes up for B.A Robertson but not quite. Actually, it in no way makes up for B.A Robertson.

The stories are all from the Welsh writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes, a horror author I’m not overly familiar with but who seems to be well regarded by people who are familiar with him. The linking sequences, in which the writer himself (played by John Carradine, his poor hands gnarled by arthritis) is introduced to the delights of a disco for supernatural beings by vampire Vincent Price has a fair few amusing moments - and some cold sweat ones. If you have ever wanted to see two elderly horror stalwarts awkwardly grooving to cod-reggae, before copping off with a couple of fat birds, however, then this is the film for you.

Story one is ‘The Shadmock’. According to Chetwynd-Hayes, a Shadmock is a fairly low grade monster, a bit of a mongrel. It’s one defining feature is that it can emit a piercing whistle in times of stress, and the whistle is powerful enough to kill.

 

Our Shadmock is a bit of a nerdy fellow who lives in a big house with nothing but loads of money to keep him company. When a ‘normal’ young woman comes into his life he dares to dream that they could marry and that his solitude could be over. She’s just after the cash, of course, so when he finds her robbing the safe on their wedding night he whistles at her and melts her face.

Atmospheric in parts, especially the ballroom dancing and plastic masks of the wedding reception, this story is probably the best of the three, although it delivers little in the way of real chills. The main issue for me is that I kept thinking that most of the Shadmock’s problems were of his own making: he has plenty of readies, a great big house, so why not get himself a decent haircut and a sun bed? Put a Hawaiian shirt on, for fuck’s sake, buy a helicopter, get a big telly and a little dog. And open a window, let some fresh air in. Then, when you’ve done all that, go out and get a girlfriend – and aim up, so get a vampire or something, or at least a Vamgoo (a vampire-ghoul cross). That's what I did, anyway.

PART TWO TOMORROW!

The Monster Club

 

Asylum: Mannikins of Horror

‘Mannikins of Horror’ (their spelling, please don’t write in) rounds off the film in an interesting but slightly frustrating way. This segment is in real time, no flashbacks, and is rather brief which is a shame, as the premise is intriguing.

Doctor Byron (Herbert Lom, intense) is a celebrated neuro-surgeon who has gone crackers and now spends his time making models of his ex-colleagues who he believes are responsible for his current condition. These aren’t just bits of plastic and a load of matchsticks glued together, however, indeed Byron claims that he has imbued them with life: organic parts, a fully functioning brain, a soul. We never quite find out how he has achieved this miracle (I have long suspected that this segment is so brief because it pointedly avoids any kind of rational explanation), but he is clear about one thing: they do his bidding, and his bidding is revenge.

After a very short interview, Martin sort of shrugs his shoulders and goes downstairs to discuss his findings with Doctor Rutherford. In the meantime, and over an uncertain timescale (it’s now late at night), Byron stares and stares at a doll that has his own face, seemingly transferring consciousness and the will to kill into it. As Martin and Rutherford rhubarb about methods and treatments, the funny little doll walks across the floor, out into the hall, climbs into the dumb waiter and hitches a ride directly into Rutherford’s office, where it stabs him in the back of the head and kills him.

The whole sequence is extraordinary for a number of reasons, firstly for the fact that the Mannikin traverses the equivalent of several miles of ground whilst travelling at a steady third of a mile an hour; secondly that, despite having a clearly solid and inflexible body it can, apparently, bend and climb stuff and quite easily escape from a locked down secure unit and, finally, that it goes to Rutherford’s office without a weapon of any sort, only coincidentally picking up a discarded  scalpel en route, thereby saving the manikin the crushing embarrassment of travelling all that bloody way simply to gently poke the back of Rutherford’s head with his plastic finger.

Anyway, before you can say ‘Jesus of Nazareth, Doctor Martin has dashed the homicidal homunculus to the floor and crushed it with his foot at which point everyone goes ‘urrggh’ because the little model is full of real life wet, red guts.

Finally, it is revealed that Doctor Starr is not either of the two young girls, the Jewish tailor or even the bonkers Doctor Byron (who ‘burst open’ at the same time that Martin stamped on his dolly), but the kindly man that Martin believes is Max, the Orderly (the Crowman, remember). Starr / Max wastes no time in strangling Doctor Martin with a stethoscope, before bending over his corpse and emitting the most horrible sound, a breathy, scraping kind of maniacal laughter with rises in pitch and intensity and volume: it’s a terrible and terrifying noise, and may be the scariest thing in the film.

As a coda, we see another young man arriving for a job interview. He is met by Doctor Starr and shown inside…

As you might have guessed from the amount of verbiage on the subject, ‘Asylum’ is a firm favourite of mine, a film that I have watched and enjoyed many, many times. For the most part, it’s well written, well directed (by genre stalwart Roy Ward Baker) and, with the exception of Charlotte and Britt, well-acted. It zips along nicely, and doesn’t let ridiculous things like logic get in the way.  Like all portmanteau horror films it can be patchy but, on the plus side, there isn’t time for the dodgy comic story that mars so many of these types of productions. Ultimately, I suppose I’m saying that watching ‘Asylum’ is a very good idea so, although I’ve probably spoiled it all* for you by giving everything away, you should probably get that sorted as soon as.  

* I’m not apologising for the spoilers, by the way, the film is 42 years old, after all.

Asylum: Lucy Comes To Stay

In the third segment, Doctor Martin is introduced to Barbara (Charlotte Rampling), a pretty but vacuous looking and petulant girl in her early twenties (i.e. Charlotte Rampling).  It’s at this stage that you remember the challenge: this is the second patient who is far too young to be Doctor Starr, and there are only four in all, so, you may well shout out 'Oh for Christ's sake, what’s the point? Why not just do a role playing exercise or a basic numeracy test or something?' before settling down to watch what is, by a mile, the weakest of all the stories.

Terribly tedious, the narrative concerns troubled young woman Barbara and her mysterious best friend, Lucy (Britt Ekland), a decidedly bad influence who does very naughty things, like drugging tea or stabbing Barbara’s brother with a pair of scissors, and murdering Megs Jenkins with a kitchen knife, stuff like that. Trouble is, Lucy doesn’t really exist,  she’s just a mini-skirted maniacal figment of Barbara’s broken brain. The End.

Dull to say the least, the story is hugely predictable and, from the pen of Bloch, often runs far too close into ‘Psycho’ territory for comfort. The main issue, however, is in the disastrous pairing of Rampling and Ekland, two terrible actresses who are totally unable to direct the drama anywhere vaguely believable, let alone carry the story anywhere interesting. Disappointing.    

That's the beauty of the portmanteau, though: even though one story may be shit, there's usually a better one on its way. Onwards and upwards...   

Asylum: The Weird Tailor

‘The Weird Tailor’ is the best of the episodes, full of atmosphere and dread. It’s also terribly sad, but we’ll get to that. Max (Barry Morse) is a tailor, and a good one – but one that can’t make a living. His problems seem to be over when the prosperous looking ‘Mister Smith’ (Peter Cushing) walks into his shop with a special order he is willing to pay £200 for. Using a strange irridescent material that Smith has provided, Max is to make a suit for Smith’s son, but can only work between the hours of midnight and five am, and to a very exact set of specifications.

After several long shifts, Max completes the suit and delivers it to Smith’s large townhouse. Smith is not quite what he seems, however: his home is in darkness and disarray, and he readily admits that he cannot pay for the suit now, but still desperately needs it – for his son. Max discovers that Smith has spent all of his money on obtaining a rare, ancient book of magic, and that the design for the suit has been taken from its pages. His much loved son is in the next room, dead and decomposing in an open coffin.

A gun is produced, a scuffle takes place and Smith is accidentally shot and killed. Max takes the book and the suit back to the shop, asking his wife to burn them. Instead, she puts the suit on the shop dummy, Otto, hoping the unusual design and material will bring in some trade. Horribly, Otto comes to life and goes on the rampage before escaping out into the night. According to Max, Otto is still out there somewhere so, if you see someone that looks like Nigel Mansell in a flashy two tone suit lumbering towards you, leg it.

An excellent story with a genuinely frightening finale, ‘The Weird Tailor’ again benefits from brevity and from good writing, with a weight of ideas conveyed beyond the sparse dialogue and compact running time. Peter Cushing’s performance is full of an overwhelming sense of loss and desperation, but is achieved without histrionics or showboating, conveyed simply with a modulation of his finely tuned voice and a haunted, tragic look in his expressive eyes. It’s tempting to link Peter’s obvious feeling for the role with the loss of his wife, Helen, a few years earlier, a tragic event that he never fully recovered from, but that would be conjecture. What is quite clear, however, is that he was a wonderful actor.