Winter Chills - Part Four: Scream and Scream Again (1970)

I’ve been left on my own for five-and-a-half weeks...
What to do, what to do?  Well, for a start: I’m going to watch all those horror/fantasy/sci-fi films I’ve always been meaning to get to
… and write about them here!

From the sublime: last time's Cat People, to the ridiculous. I knew what to expect this time as I had seen it before when I was very young, with my favourite horror film fan: my Mum.

I think the violence disturbed me a little then, and to be honest, it still does. Many of the perpetrators are essentially synthetic which both nullifies the brutality a little - but also makes the acts even colder.

But lets not get too serious - this has Uncle Vinny, Sir Chris and The Cush all in the same Amicus film! That's got to be fun, right?

Well it might be if they shared more scenes. Lee really only pops in at the beginning, middle and end for some exposition, and Cushing is a mere cameo which appears to be a very early audition for Grand Moff Tarkin.

Needless to say, any bit of screen-time these gentlemen have is brilliant, but kudos must go to comedian Alfred Marks who crashes through the film as the most intentionally hilarious Bull-in-a-China-shop London Copper I've ever seen.

The main leads are the films' definite strengths - but the script seems to be three completely separate stories until they finally collide messily at the very end  - where various characters disappear into the same vat of acid.

Elsewhere, an endless chase involving what seems to be a superhuman Mick Jagger in a purple pirate shirt will test most people's patience, but now that I've written about this film I realise that I probably had a better time watching than it felt at the time.

I still can't decide what is the most disturbing thing about the random jogger, though: what happens to him in Price's hospital, or the length of his shorts and bewilderingly effeminate running style...

Winter Chills- Part Three: Cat People (1942)

I’ve been left on my own for five-and-a-half weeks...
What to do, what to do?  Well, for a start: I’m going to watch all those horror/fantasy/sci-fi films I’ve always been meaning to get to
… and write about them here!

Long before David Bowie was 'putting out the fire - with gasoliiiine', a man called Val Lewton was tasked with producing horror films for RKO pictures on literally a fraction of what studios like Universal were spending.

A sensitive intellectual, as Martin Scorsese says in his documentary on Lewton, he was "lacking the temperament for the film industry but had the perfect temperament for film". Lewton took a drop in income to take on this challenge and his first film for RKO became Cat People. Sady, I can still barely claim to have seen it because the quality of the You Tube upload I endured is awful. But despite the cropped picture and constantly dropping-out audio, I can see this is a masterpiece.

Like The Damned this is the second time in a week I've wished more films were still made in black and white - the photography is exquisite and the direction flawless.

It's for good reason that the two stand-out scenes: the infamous 'Lewton bus' (a far more sophisticated fore-runner to the modern 'jump scare'), and the night-time swimming pool stalking are mainstay clips in almost every documentary about horror cinema.

But it's the sequences I hadn't seen before which really got to me, including the wedding dinner in the Serbian restaurant where a mysterious cat-like woman stops conversation by fixing a terrified Irena with her gaze and addressing her as "my sister?".  

Well aware of his budget constraints, Lewton turns it to his advantage - everything is subtle shapes in the shadows, hints and implication. Even the beginnings of Irena's transformation are terrifying in their subtlety - her darkening face and hardening stare seen over Dr Judd's shoulder as she suddenly drops out of view and he screams.

From my far-from reliable research, this was the film which kicked off New Zealand's very long running Sunday Horrors, back in 1981, although I missed it then (it was probably passed my bedtime on a Sunday night).

I've also never seen the 1982 remake but don't doubt I'll be repulsed by its apparent reversal of everything which is merely suggested in this beautiful film. 

I don't just want to see this original version again - I want to own it, in 'pin-sharp crikey-vision'. This one's a keeper!

Winter Chills - Part Two: The Creeping Flesh (1973)

I’ve been left on my own for five-and-a-half weeks...
What to do, what to do?  Well, for a start: I’m going to watch all those horror/fantasy/sci-fi films I’ve always been meaning to get to
… and write about them here!

A Cushing and Lee team up which I hadn’t seen yet!  Neither Hammer nor Amicus, this is Tigon Production’s The Creeping Flesh.

And it almost does what it says on the tin. The giant inhuman skeleton Cushing brings back from New Guinea is not something any sane person would ever want in their house - and it’s much more terrifying than a Gremlin when it comes into contact with water.

Meanwhile Lee plays one of his most genuinely hate-able characters ever - and given his back catalogue that’s really saying something.

There’s a lot of genuinely good stuff here - particularly Freddie Jones’ direction - particularly in a very spooky sequence when the cloaked thing from New Guinea throws a huge Shadow across the house it is implacably approaching. 

The story elements of diagnosing evil as a pathogen, and the creepy ‘Elder gods’ vibe of the fossil’s origins are both fascinating, and either would flesh out (pun intended) a lesser film on their own. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t really capitalise on these strengths and spends far too much of it’s running time pursuing extras pursuing mentally-disturbed supporting characters through the town set.

Unfulfilled potential is always disappointing, but Cushing and Lee are as solidly dependable as ever here, in slightly different roles than we’re used to seeing them in. And we even get a brilliantly set up twist ending…

OK - if even he's scared it must be bad...

Winter Chills - Part One: The Damned (1962)

I’ve been left on my own for five-and-a-half weeks...
What to do, what to do?  Well, for a start: I’m going to watch all those horror/fantasy/sci-fi films I’ve always been meaning to get to
… and write about them here!

 

The Damned (1962)

Definitely in the ‘what did I just watch?’ category.

A heady mix of Brighton Rock and Village of the Damned, flavoured with Kubrick and Orwell, with the result looking a little like a bleak Avengers episode (an oxymoron if there ever was one).

Whatever memorable elements this film contains - and any scene with Oliver Reed in it is always one of them - everything seems to have been secondary to the director Joseph Losey’s exacting vision.

And so, on his insistence,  the final script was rewritten two weeks before filming began and costs quickly spiralled out of control from there.  Helicopters, a spectacular crash into a river, costly reshoots...

The finished film is undoubtedly great to look at and disturbing to contemplate, but Hammer and Columbia were left with such a difficult-to-define mash-up that no-one knew how to market the finished product.  

The black and white photography makes me wish more films were still made this way, and I enjoyed the performances. It’s hard to know if Hammer were exploiting Reed or whether it was the other way around - as if he was always aware of his talent and simply using them to get his screen ‘flying hours’ up.

Few ever saw this film, but critics recognised that there was cinematic mastery somewhere beneath the surface.

A challenging watch which expects you to keep up as the tone and genre abruptly shifts gear several times, then back again. But also a film which might prove difficult to forget.  Special thanks to Zac and Bill who went to great lengths to procure this for me - well worth the effort!

Star Wars (1977)

The original , you might say. I bought the unspecial-ed version of this 1977 life-changer on disc many years ago, but was always shallowly drawn to the extra bells and whistles of the new release whenever I felt like a rewatch. This time I resisted and I’m so glad I did.

The 1977 version has a rawness and urgency about it, almost a desperation, which smoothed- over (and now hideously outdated) CGI effects only clash with. It’s fascinating to see actors and technicians sometimes working counter to Lucas’s aims (he certainly didn’t have the obsessive control then that he would have in later years) and creating something all the better for it.

I’m not ungrateful for all you’ve done, George, but this is my Star Wars. Han shoots (first) and scores!