Island Of The Burning Damned

‘Night Of The Big Heat’ was known as ‘Island Of The Burning Damned’ in the USA, a ridiculously hyperbolic title for what is, unfortunately, a terribly tedious film.

Set on the remote Orkney Isle of Fara (actually uninhabited since the sixties), the premise is quite intriguing: the island is experiencing an incredible heat wave which has put all the phones out of order, killed all the sheep and left all the men with enormous sweat patches. That sort of weather is unusual enough for Scotland, of course, but it’s absolutely unheard of in November.

Stupefied from the heat, the villagers mainly gather around the local pub and bicker with each other. Peter Cushing is there, inexplicably wearing a jacket that looks like it’s just had a bucket of water thrown over (take it off, Peter, just take it off). Visiting rude twat scientist Christopher Lee is up to something strange, but is too rude and twattish to let the islanders in on it. The pub landlord (Patrick Allen, always good value) is also a writer, and his life is complicated by the arrival of his ex-lover, who is posing as his secretary and spends most of her time exposing parts of herself to him. As if it wasn’t bloody hot enough. It doesn't sound a lot on paper, but I had high hopes for it.

From here on in, however, the film very, very, very slowly degenerates into something extremely dull indeed. There are half a dozen deaths and, ultimately, a dynamite attack on an extraterrestial race who resemble rocks with lights in them but it’s all done at such a draggy pace that even the supposedly exciting climax is like watching the proverbial pigment grow parched. In the end,  it starts to rain and the hot rocks, having travelled thousands of light years to take over our world, are killed by it. Yes, that’s right, aliens who can be killed by rain decided to start their invasion of Earth in Scotland. Idiots.

From the same crazy fools who brought us the magnificently titled ‘Island of Terror’, ‘Night of The Big Heat’ has no particular real reason to be so dull, it just is. Perhaps the temperature got to them all.

Some notes on Patrick Allen:

Allen is a proper old school actor. He’s not particularly good at the dramatic stuff, but he has a wonderful, sonorous voice and a very expressive physiognomy. His straight face is so straight it’s almost funny, which is why he keeps it mobile. I never believe that he believes it, he's just glad to be there. In this film, there’s a scene where he’s driving along and he just seems full of childlike joy, as if he can’t quite believe that someone is paying him to kiss girls and attack aliens and pretend to be driving along. There’s no method for Patrick, his motivation is that it’s his job, and it's fun. He specialises in capable, rough hewn types who ladies like and men respect, the sort of man who can tie knots, rig up a generator, make a boat out of a fallen tree and smoke a hundred cigarettes and kill a dozen Germans before breakfast, all whilst wearing extremely tight trousers. I miss him.

Night Of The Big Heat

Monsterpiece

'The Revenge Of Frankenstein' is a direct sequel to 'The Curse Of Frankenstein', the mega successful macabre masterpiece that changed the direction of the Hammer studio forever. 'Revenge...' starts with Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) about to be guillotined for the various crimes he has commited in the name of science. Needless to say, Frankenstein escapes the chop in quite shockingly ruthless way, before moving to another city and setting up under the inspired pseudonym of Doctor Stein.

Herein lies the marvellous ambiguity of Hammer's Frankenstein character: he is a good physician and has set up a hospital where the poor can be treated free of charge, which is marvellous - but every now and again he will perform an unnecessary amputation or organ removal in order to continue with his pet project: the creation of a healthy body, cobbled together from spare parts, into which he will transplant the brain of his (quite willing) crippled and hunchbacked henchman, Karl. Which, again, is sort of nice when you think about it, or sort of horrible when you think about it bit longer.

The operation goes well, and Karl is given a fully functional body. Easy peasy, really, as (Franken)Stein has already transplanted the brain of an orangutan into the body of a chimp. Hybrid ape Otto is perfectly healthy, except that he now has a voracious appetite for meat, prompting this fantastically deadpan exchange between 'Stein' and his medical assistant, Dr. Kleve (Francis Matthews) --

Kleve: Did Otto eat flesh before you operated?

Stein: No, I discovered it soon after the operation. He ate his wife.

Kleve: Ate another monkey?

Stein: What else would he be married to? 

Kleve: You mean he turned into a cannibal?

Stein: Yes. I didn't attempt to correct it. He's perfectly happy and in good health.

Of course, this couldn't happen again, especially not to a human subject, well, not unless the patient received a bang on the head or something silly like that.

After having received a bang on the head, Karl becomes a hungry homicidal maniac and, to add insult to brain injury, his new body turns against him, becoming twisted and deformed. In the end, Frankenstein's true identity comes out and he is beaten to death by his own patients, who aren't exactly happy about having unknowingly donated bits of themselves to Stein's science project. That said, Frankenstein is a hard man to put down, so I expect he'll turn up again in another city under another name, Dr. Frank, or something cunning and unexpected like that. 

'The Revenge Of Frankenstein' is superb: shocking, unexpected, compelling, ridiculous, and all conducted at top speed. This is Hammer at its best, and Hammer at its best is absolutely brilliant.

The Revenge Of Frankenstein

Back To Screeching Life

'Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed!' was the fifth in Hammer’s Frankenstein cycle and, from its sensational title down, is one of the goriest and most glorious of all the sequels. Full of incident, packed with severed heads and brain operations, the film whizzes along brilliantly, and even gets by without having an obvious monster. The closest we get to a shambling, reanimated corpse is the ever amazing Freddie Jones, who gives a great performance under difficult circumstances – he’s playing a man trapped in another man’s body, a tortured being who has been saved from death but wishes they hadn’t bothered.

Cushing is brilliant, too, more of a ruthless and driven bastard than ever. In a scene added at the producers insistence, the Baron uncharacteristically deviates from his passion for anatomical DIY to rape Veronica Karlsen, an unseemly piece of action that doesn’t do anything for the film apart from giving it a flash of nipple for the distributors. Cushing, ever the gentleman, was decidedly not impressed.

Fast moving, shocking, exciting and, ultimately, very poignant, ‘Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed!’ is a fantastic use of eighty minutes, the embodiment of just how good Hammer films can be when they’re firing on all cylinders.

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed

Unleashed

'The Hound Of The Baskervilles' was the perfect Sherlock Holmes story for Hammer to adapt, the most gothic and bloodthirsty of Arthur Conan-Doyle's tales. Even so, the ante was upped with the introduction of deadly tarantulas, a female villain, lots of gunplay and a webbed hand.

Peter Cushing makes for a brilliant Holmes - waspish, good humoured, bright eyed - but perceptive and ready to act at all times. Andre Morell is a pretty good Doctor Watson, too, quiet, reliable, handy with a pistol. The film is directed by the supremely capable Terence Fisher, and moves along briskly and convincingly, and the story is adapted well and slightly sexed up without the need for a load of bullshit about hallucogenic gas and mind palaces that so marred the recent TV adaptation / reinterpretation.

The Hound Of The Baskervilles

The Return Of The Tall White Count

It took Hammer eight years to come up with a direct sequel to 'Dracula' (1958), mainly because star Christopher Lee decided that he didn't want to become typecast and refused to play the role again. Hammer went on making non-Dracula vampire films, of course, and Lee slowly realised that it was better to be a typecast starring actor than a non-typecast supporting actor and eventually decided to don the cape and the blood red contacts once again in the brilliantly titled 'Dracula, Prince Of Darkness'.  

The plot is simplicity itself. Dracula is dead, well, sort of, so his faithful servant Klove lures four British holiday makers to Carlsbad Castle where he immediately kills one of them, hangs him over a coffin full of Drac dust, and cuts his throat. The resulting transformation scene is superbly done, with bubbling blood turning into bone, then sinew, then flesh, then...well, have a look for yourself...

From here on in, it all kicks off: shrewish, frumpy Barbara Shelley is bitten and transformed into a slinky bite happy bat lady; crazy Thorley Walters starts hearing theremin music and receiving long distance transmissions from the Count, and shouty monk and beardy vampire hunter Father Shandor (Andrew Keir) loads his gun, saddles up and rides to the rescue with Francis 'Captain Scarlet' Matthews. It's all very exciting and fast moving, which actually makes up for the creaky hour of exposition that preceded it.

Dracula doesn't say a word throughout, and Christopher Lee claims that this is because the dialogue was so bad he simply refused to lower himself to say it. According to script writer Jimmy Sangster, however, he didn't give him any lines in the first place. I know who I believe.

So, how does Dracula cop it in the end of this one? He drowns. Apparently, vampires can be killed by running water. Fancy that. Mind you, I bet he'll be back, he's nothing if not persistent.         

Dracula, Prince Of Darkness

Hairy Noon & Nighty Night Night

For some reason, 'Classic British Horror' tended to steer away from films about werewolves, I don't know why, perhaps the make up is too expensive. It's a shame, as the few examples I can think of are pretty good, particularly 'Curse Of The Werewolf' (1961), which is absolutely terrific.

Set in 19th century Spain, a lengthy prologue shows us exactly how a werewolf is made: a crazy feral tramp rapes a buxom deaf mute and makes her pregnant. Sorry, if that's unnecessarily scientific for you. The result of this unholy union is Leon, a sweet little boy who kills sheep at full moon and grows into a young Oliver Reed. Reed is perfect in the role - likeable, but full of brooding intensity. When he flips, and flip he flipping well does, he makes one angry, bloody, white werewolf.

Excellent stuff, from Terence Fisher's fluid direction to the innovative look of the monster, it's a shame Hammer didn't follow this up with a series of sequels. They made four Mummy films, for instance, and everyone knows a werewolf is better than a mummy. You couldn't make it up.

Curse Of The Werewolf