So what YOU need to do is email me: killfinger (@) hotmail.com the following THREE answers to be in the draw.
(Don't post in the comments as this won't count and I'll have to remove it as not to give the answers away - note that there are brackets that you need to remove if you go copy paste on the mail address - I don't need more spam, my dick is hard enough without medication and I have no use for business propositions from unknown stooges in countries I can't pronounce.)
I need an ALBUM TITLE, a GROUP NAME and a YEAR of release before midnight Monday the 30th of November 2009, and this little oddity could be playing on your TV before Christmas is upon us.
Good luck and have fun... google yourself a treat why don't you.
Footprints on the Moon is a strange little oddity which at first plays out like a well crafted mystery movie with a dash of sci-fi, courtesy of a sub plot where the main character, Alice, keeps having strange dreams of an astronaut being left on the moon. Who are the astronauts and who is Alice are the main questions you will ask yourself while enjoying Luigi Bazzoni’s surreal “lost” movie Footprints on the Moon.
Florinda Bolkan [star of Lucio Fulci’s magnificent Lizard in a Woman’s Skin 1971, Don’t Torture a Duckling 1972, and the nunsploitation classic Flavia the Heretic 1974] pouts and sulks her way through the movie as she tries to understand how she has lost three days of her life. At start Footprints holds a fascinating plot that takes on grand proportions, but is somewhat fumbled at the finale. Alice is a translator and when she gets to work one day in the early stages of the movie, her bosses tell her that she’s been replaced because she’s been missing for several days. Alice can’t for the life of her understand and is completely confused by the claims that she’s been missing. It’s almost Giallo territory as she starts her inquiries to her whereabouts during those three days. After finding a torn up postcard on her kitchen floor, and having a good old chat with her friend Mary [Ida Galli, aka Evelyn Stewart from Mario Bava’sThe Whip and the Body 1963, Duccio Tessari’sThe Bloodstained Butterfly 1971 and Lucio Fulci’sThe Psychic 1977] her search takes her to the mysterious and abandoned resort referred to as Garma.
At Garma, Alice encounters the gallery of odd characters that will be leading her along on her quest, but almost everyone of them give the impression of recognising her, even though she has never seen them before… or has she? At first Alice cannot understand how the people at Garma talk to her with familiarity, until she meets the sinister little girl Paola…
Alongside with Bolkan is one of the most recognisable child actors of Italian genre movies from the seventies/eighties - the wonderful Nicoletta Elmi. Anyone who’s seen a handful of the classic Italian genre pieces will recognise her on sight, her burning red hair, her freckled face and those deep deep blue eyes make her appearance a memorable one to say the least. Elmi featured in her first film when she was four years old and already two years later 1971, she was in Luchino Visconti’sDeath in Venice (although uncredited you can’t miss her appearance). The same year she made her entrance in the genre that she’ll forever be associated with, the Italian horror flick. Again uncredited, Elmi plays an important part in Mario Bava’sTwitch of the Death Nerve 1971, in 1972 she’s George Lazenby and Anita Strindberg’s murdered daughter in Aldo Lado’s splendid Who Saw Her Die?, and from there on you can see her in such epics as Flesh for Frankenstein 1973 (Directed by Paul Morrissey or Antonio Margheritti depending on who’s story of the production you want to believe) Dario Argento’s landmark Giallo Profondo Rosso 1975, and Massimo Dallamano’sThe Cursed Medallion also from 1975 where Nicoletta gives her best performance as a possessed evil child. A year later Elmi vanished off the screen for several years but when she made her “comeback” it was with Lamberto Bava’s highly entertaining monster/possession classic Demons 1985. Gone were the childlike features so often associated with her previous characters and instead was a beautiful woman with red burning hair, freckled face and deep deep blue eyes. After two TV movies in the back half of the 80’s Elmi gave up acting and completed her studies and became a doctor instead. It’s an amusing though of arriving at the hospital and your doctor turns up and it’s Nicoletta Elmi who you have seen as the sinister child (and as an adult in Demons), it would definitely spook me if it ever happened.
Anyway, back to Footprints. Alice goes about her quest - where did those days go, who is the Nicola character that so many people at Garma keep referring to her as, what is the meaning of the yellow dress and the red wig, and what are those strange dreams all about. As the intrigue tightens, more questions are posed. And the key seems to be held by the mysterious Henry [Peter McEnry]. Henry who at first keeps safe distance to Alice, not revealing that they have know each other for many many years (yet another sub-plot of confusion) eventually comes out of his shell and explains that he and Alice where childhood lovers many years ago and he’s held his distance as not to scare or confuse Alice.
Then there’s the top billed name on most of the marketing materials for this little gem, Klaus Kinski. Now I’d be quite disappointed if I where a Kinski completist searching out Kinski movies and stumble upon Footprints, because of that false marketing with Kinski at the top billing. Kinski as Blackman, the strange leader of the scientific experiment on the moon, is just in the movie for a few minutes and only in flashback sequences, so I don’t really feel that he brings anything to the movie, more than his presence. So don’t expect to see good old Klaus freak out and act sinister as he did in so many other great Italian genre pieces as his part in Footprints is almost on a cameo level. Which is a shame, with some more freaky Kinski in here and perhaps bringing his character into the real world I’m sure that Footprints wouldn’t have stayed lost for so long.
The movie comes to a climax and all of Alice paranoia, confusion and mental illness drive her to devastating conclusions which have her taking terrible and fatal actions against the characters Alice see as her antagonists. It’s a dark ending with a simple, but haunting reveal in the last moments to show what is reality and what is not before Bazzoni takes it to the limit with a very surreal and bizarre final sequence. It’s also here that I feel the ending leaves more to demand s the climax isn’t satisfactory – even though it is very eerie and fitting for the flick – but the easy way out with an explanatory text as the movie comes to an end annoys me. Just imagine how that fascinating insanity thread could have been used so much more. Think of a last reel with Alice in the psychiatric ward after she’s confronted the spacemen, Blackman, now that would have been terrifying exploration of mental illness. What clarity would she reach? What would happen when she realizes her mistakes and what she has done in her state of mental disorder? It would have made for a great ending, and a more effective way of showing Alice time in the institution.
A quick afterthought on the movie and I ’d say that the movie is almost a inverted Fight Club 1999, where Alice sickness breaks her down and leaves her a wreck where Jack [Edward Norton] uses his insanity to develop and emerge a stronger person with insight into his temporary madness. Obviously Bazzari and co-screen writer Mario Fanelli (who supposedly co-directed Footprints and also co-wrote the 1971 Giallo The Fifth Cord with Bazzoni) are after some sort of pseudo psychoanalytical thread here but it unfortunately never really reaches the screen, apart from in several small nods during the movie. Alice employers who accuse her of being “ill” when she can’t recall being missing from work for three days; the Alice charm that she wears is, as told to Alice by the old woman [Lila Kedrova] made by a local craftsman who died several years ago (although as Alice obviously has spent some of her childhood here – she realises later – she may have received it then); after Harry has called his friend the doctor (whom Alice in her state thinks is the Blackman character and thinks that Harry is in on the big conspiracy) and the final text somewhat daft text explaining what the heck has been going on. It’s not really there and it leaves me wanting something more satisfying, even though I finally have clarity on what has happened during the movie. Looking at the overall structure Footprints is all about ambiguity, the lack of insight and uncertainty as each encounter pushes the mystery deeper and awakens more questions, there are no half mark answers here, it’s all one big mystery up till the final reel.
The score by Nicola Piovani is fragile, gentle and haunting when necessary and it’s a great complement to Vittori Storano’s splendid cinematography. Yeah that’s Vittorio Storano, the cinematographer of Dario Argento’s debut feature The Bird With the Crystal Plumage 1970, Guiseppe Patroni Griffi’s sleazy‘Tis Pitty She’s a Whore 1971, and Bazzoni’s previous Giallo The Fifth Cord 1971. The same Storano who also won Academy Awards for his work on Francis Ford Coppola‘sApocalypse Now 1979, Warren Beatty’sReds 1981 and Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor 1987 – who said that exploitation cinema leads to nothing?
Their combo of sensory elements really makes the strange atmosphere that ponders the movie. Now on a side note there is an strange but amusing little story about Nicola Piovani that is fitting to tell in the context of Footprints and not knowing who is who… There was and sometimes is an enduring rumour that has been spinning for many years that Piovani is a pseudonym name of Ennio Morricone. Now with the 140 and still counting titles that Piovani has composed (for the likes of Federico Fellini, The Taviani Brothers’, Nanni Moretti, Gianfranco Mingozzi, Marco Bellocchio, and Bigas Lunas), the award winning scores for among others Fellini’sGinger and Fred 1986, Moretti’sCaro diario 1993 and The Son’s Room 2001, and definitely the 1999 Academy Award for best Dramatic Score for Roberto Benigni’sLife is Beautiful, I’d think it pretty convincing that Ennio Morricone would have come and said that he is Piovani if this was the case. It’s a strange and sad little story, but Piovani is a good sport and tells it with joy and a twinkle in his eye during the lectures and talks he sometimes gives around the world.
Footprints on the Moon is a difficult movie to slot it into any definitive category as it would be out of place in the Giallo niche as it lacks the traditional traits that define that genre, i.e. red herring plots, nudity, sexy soundtracks and gloved killer. (I use the word Gialli niche as Shameless released Footprints as the last title in their 20 title series that also features several other Gialli) I wouldn’t place it in the Science Fiction genre either as there really isn’t any science fiction in it, apart from the cover artwork and flashbacks which actually are re-imaging’s of Alice’s memories of a movie she saw as a child, hence the Footprints on the Moon title. And it is definitely not a horror film, as there is no value of life at stake. One killing doesn’t make a horror flick, but I’d say that Footprints n the Moon fits nicely into the psychological drama niche with a healthy dose of thriller plot, which is why I used the Fight Club reference earlier. It’s a drama about a woman trying to answer what happened during her three day black out which leads the viewer to understand that her mental health is in question, and an amateur diagnosis comes up with the suggestion of Schizophrenia. This drama is driven by a quest/puzzle that the lead protagonist is trying to solve. In other words a psychological drama with thriller traits.
So if you are up for some superb camera work, delicate soundtracks, confused narratives and a great portrayal of a seriously bewildered woman by Florinda Bolkan with the added value of an ominous chid as played by the one and only Nicoletta Elmi and a sprinkle of Klaus Kinski then Luigi Bazzoni’sFootprints on the Moon is something that you may want to check out.
Image:
Remastered to 16x9 anamorphic widescreen. Although there are a number of varied source materials, the print looks grand.
Audio:
Dolby Digital 2.0 English or Italian dialogue available, with optional English subtitles.
Extras:
The Theatrical Trailer, English credit sequence, a promotional gallery and the US video teaser for the film under the moniker Primal Rage and the marketing scam that the film features Klaus Kinski… Being the last of the 20 titles released by Shameless, they have generously added trailers for the entire back catalogue that makes for quite an entertaining session if you are up for trailer shows. But be warned, there’s a lot of spoilers in those trailers especially the Footprints trailer.
Dead Set Directed by: Yann Demange England, 2008 Horror /Drama / TV Serial, 141 min Distributed by: Channel 4
I wanted to avoid posting on TV Serials that I have been watching over the past thirty odd years, as there are way to many (but still they are fantastic one hour studies of storytelling and the magic of small screen narrative) but the TV show Dead Set has to go up here. It’s unlike anything that I have seen before, well sort of, as it reminds me of the classic Day of the Triffids directed by Ken Hannam in 1981 or Martin Campbell's haunting Edge of Darkness from 1986 with the great Bob Peck in the lead, where each episode had me gasping in fear as the apocalypse was apparently looming just around the corner. As an adult I’ve spent many a hour in front of the tube watching great TV serials, but not too many have drawn me in like Dead Set did.
Dead Set drew me in with a vengeance and it makes for great entertainment. As I work with TV production myself, I’ve been in those reality show backrooms that are so wonderfully displayed during the first episode (and featured throughout the show), and they have got it down to speck. I't as realistic as it could ever be. The obnoxious producer barking orders, the crew staffer reading the paper instead of doing his job, the camera crews who sluggishly pull on through as long as you feed them coffee and snacks, and the assistant that does what they are told to with out openly objecting. Just like Kelly [Jamie Winstone] in the show. There’s a wonderful eye for detail going on here as the women are dressed in different ways the higher up the hierarchy they are. Kelly the runner is all t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, the producer’s assistant is dressed in a more fashionable, trendy way and the blokes, well they look just like all blokes in TV produciton do. Ironic t-shirts, baggy pants, unshaven and with a self-image of being hipper than they are. (It takes one to know one right!) . The producer is the tyrant of the operation; he thinks the world revolves round him and his show, and objects loudly when the global catastrophe threatens his show from going on the air, after all His production is the centre of the universe. However unreal this scene may seem to you, it is a very real scenario. I’ve been there, I’ve heard those discussions, I'v seen producers huff at external realism and complain that "that had to happen today when we go on air didn't it!". And it was just as surreal as it is portrayed on Dead Set. After 9/11 we had the discussion whether to air or not air a pig getting slaughtered for food on the reality farm show that I was working with back then. Needless to say the discussion was bizarre and unreal in the context that some three thousand people just died in the largest terrorist attack on the US since Pearl Harbour. But our little show had to go on, it still had to be the centre of attention… a strange situation indeed. Like said, it does happen. And just for the record, I have enough self insight to acknowledge that I’ve been quite a bastard myself when I used to produce reality for TV, so in some ways I can empathise with Patrick the bastard producer [Andy Nyman] after all, and the opening episode of Dead Set is a great presentation of a world that I know ever so well, which definitely helps sell the illusion to me when the shit hit’s the fan - although I never dissected a reality show cast member or rammed a rod through the head of the host.
Created and written by Charlie Brooker, Dead Set was broadcast on UK television for five consecutive nights (yeah, five like the number of shows, no waiting the whole week with this one…) on Channel 4’s pay-TV site E4 and was such a success that the show was later rerun in three one hour instalments on Channel 4 in early 2009. A few weeks ago, during Halloween the show was shown in a marathon screening where all five episodes aired back to back. Director Yann Demange has only been directing TV for a few years, but has several hip and successful serials to his record proving that this is a guy who knows what he is doing. It’s also from these hip and modern serials that the majority of the cast have been taken.
The tension takes a grip after the initial set up of main characters and shifts into horror territory quite fast. Each episode weaves its own impressive narrative forward with several arches being started and ended in each show, with nothing being left to chance or wanting more explanation. You won’t find yourself asking, “What about those fucking polar bears mate?” in this show. The first episode is almost a school book example of how you present you archetypes in the most effective way; the final episode is quite unpredictable and has been built-up to with major skill. Episode four with the boat ride on the river is among one of the most intense I’ve seen on a TV show, it’s really powerful stuff that will keep you on the edge of your seat as you never know what is lurking round the next bend.
Dead Set has several things going for it that makes it such an entertaining little horror fest. The characters are well written, Patrick the horrendous producer is obviously a polarization of what people think producers are like, and believe me some are very much like the character Andy Nyman plays to perfection. Floating on a cloud of make believe with an arrogant tone against all mortals who don’t work in TV.Sinister but true. Obviously his character is exaggerated which makes up for a great persona that you will love to hate. Even as he stares death in the greyish eye, he has a full arsenal of snide, degrading remarks towards everything and everyone.
Jamie Winstone [who you may have seen in the disturbing Donkey Punch 2008 and also the daughter of the Ray Winstone] Kelly is adorable, and definitely the person who carries this series on her shoulders. She’s set up from the start as an optimistic and ambitious. She doesn’t question her many small tasks, go for coffees, get the producer’s nicorettes, running errands, She does her job, she’s polite and is ambitious. You can’t not like that. I like her even more as I know how important those seemingly small and unimportant tasks are on a shoot. The runners are incredibly important as they are the ones that keep everyone else happy and on their feet during production. Without them things would certainly come to a grinding halt pretty fast. So this adds to her value in my eyes.
During the coarse of the narrative she develops, her character grows, and the backbone of her ambition comes to full power, as she becomes the fighting force of the show. Then there’s the personal and more complex side of her that lures us into liking her. She’s just spent a night of carnal joy with one of the other staffers, which makes us like her as we are always suckers for a love story, but then her relationship with Riq [Riz Ahmed] is exposed and her guilt towards him after her little slip. It would be easy to frown upon Kelly here, but we don’t even though she’s been unfaithful to Riq we stay with her. This because she obviously regrets her little mistake, she does still love Riq and this is very apparent in her second encounter with the guys from the crew after Kelly has talked to Riq on the phone. She is almost rejects him and pets Riq's image on her mobile phone at each given opportunity. Kelly is having regrets, she's feeling guilt and this makes her an empathetic character that we can relate to. It set's her up for the big journey she has affront of her and we root for her as she takes on the task.
Remember the back bone of great characters (or participants in your reality programme if you like) is identification + empathy = engaging characters.
The Riq character is great. His fighting spirit is awesome, he fights for Kelly before the outbreak, he questions what happened between them, why the space, which indicates that he too still loves Kelly and wants’ things to be as they where before she started her new line of work. The interrupted phone call motivates him to go on a search after Kelly as he want' to finish the valuable discussion. Riq is obviously threatened by her new workspace, but puts all shallow emotions to one side when he realises that Kelly is still alive and sets out to save her. A line from the The Smiths song There is a Light that Never Goes Out comes to mind ”To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die…” which in some ways sums up Riq’s journey. He knows that the ordinary world is lost, there is nothing left out there but death, destruction and the zombies, so he seeks out the one thing he holds closest to his heart; Kelly.
The supporting cast is grand and many of them do have smaller arches during the series, all on larger and smaller levels. One brilliant detail is the common centrefold dolly bird Veronica played by Beth Cordongly. As soon as she realises that there’s nobody watching her on the telly, the skimpy provocative clothing goes back in her suitcase and she starts wearing normal clothes. It’s a great little detail that is in there, and the show is filled with these smaller but splendid little details that work like a charm.
You can never underestimate star value, and the choice of using the real host of Big Brother UK, Davina McColl (and other former BB cast members), as herself is brilliant. Davina brings a certain authenticity to the show that can’t be caught with an actor portraying someone in her shoes. This together with Pippa [Kathleen McDermott] being evicted during a real Big Brother eviction night and the vey realistic ”behind the scenes” opening really set the realism of the story firmly and solid. The craftsmanship sells me the illusion and I believe in the story.
Logic gaps, yeah there are few, not many, but a few, the biggest being the Big Brother live feed… I would think that if all mobile communication and TV broadcasts had gone off the air, even the emergency broadcasts, then I’d doubt that the BB live feed would still be online. But then again it does have a purpose and it gives Riq that motivation he needs for that suspenseful pursuit after Kelly.
Now you can’t have a zombie movie without gore drenched special effects. People need to be torn apart, head’s need to be shot open, entrails need to be yanked out of screaming bodies and you need to drown the screen in blood and guts. Dead Set showcases an highly impressive amount of high-end effects courtesy of Neal Champion and his crew who has worked on a multitude of UK TV shows and films and noteworthy worked on one of my all-time faves Richard Stanley’sHardware back in 1990. The effects are definitely top notch, and even surpass most of the classic eighties zombie stuff by far. It’s realistic, gory and very disturbing. This definitely adds to the charm of this fantastic series.
Yes, these zombies move fast, and I’m not even going to get in on the debate over slow vs. Fast zombies, because it’s not important. Sure in some ways the slow shuffling of the dead in the Romero universe is great, but the Zombies loose some of their threat when you can just walk past them at ease.There’s a great scene in Tom Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead 1990, where Barbara [Patricia Tallman] in a surprise twist to the original suits up and walks through the field easily shooting off the zombies one at a time which kind of proves my point. They just don’t really impend that much of a threat if you watch your step. Being a man of stern traditions, I want stuff to be what they are. Vampires avoid crosses and can’t stand garlic, Werewolves only turn at the new moon, and zombies are dead meat and can’t run. But if you bring your own twist to that, Vampires say they made up the Crosses and Garlic bit to fool us humans into believing they have a weakness, Werewolves can change at any given time due to special UV lamps, Zombies run because they like the thrill of the chase, then that’s fine with me. But keep in mind that all great antagonists need a really fragile Achilles heel. There has to be that on glimmer of chance that we can beat it. But fast zombies scare the heck out of me, because where my physical condition will allow me to run for a certain while, my body will eventually say stop, as lactic acid will become an obstacle. But a dead being that only wants to devour my flesh won’t, as its only impulses are EAT! So yeah they do scare me more than the common shuffler, but I feel that you have to use the right variety and twist on the monster that suits your project the best and if you use them right then who am I to complain.
Zombies and a world taken over by the dead is a very bleak prospect and leave a harrowing state of mind behind. Just imagine yourself in a world where you are being constantly targeted as something’s dinner, and the constant threat of one simple bite ending your life. It’s dark, sinister and nihilistic. If there’s one thing I dislike about zombie flicks it’s the happy go lucky endings that sometimes are pinned onto them. Sure it’s heart-warming to see Shaun and Ed reunited at the end of Edgar Wright’sShaun of the Dead 2004, the jet’s spotting Selena, Hannah and Jim’s HELP sign at the end of Danny Boyle’s masterful 28 Days Later 2002, still brings tears to my eyes and I still draw a sigh of relief at the end of Romero’sDawn of the Dead 1979 as the helicopter pulls away from the Monroeville Mall. But they still leave so much questions hanging in limbo with their partial endings. Even the ”everything’s going to be all right” endings of films like Night of the Living Dead 1968 and Day of the Dead 1985 are somewhat insufficient as nothing really has changed, the zombies, the virus, the threat is still out there. In many ways this is what makes Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic series The Walking Dead such an amazing piece of pop culture, as it goes on for ever, after each overcome obstacle there’s a new threat/problem presented, and just as you thought you could relax he has all hell break loose killing of characters that you never thought would die, characters who have been important to the storyline, characters you thought would be there till the very end. It’s harsh, unpredictable and haunting which makes it a required read for fans of the zombie genre.
So yeah, there is definitely a dark tone to zombie universe and perhaps it’s my pessimism and melancholic views on life that draw me to the genre, I don’t know, and after seeing the interviews with creator Brooker on the DVD, I feel that we have more than one trait in common. But the ending to Dead Set, without revealing or spoiling anything for you is very fitting. It makes sense and is so very effective only because of the character arches woven through out the narrative. There has been so much value at stake throughout the series that this ending works. And it will stay with you because you identified with the characters.
Dead Set proves once again that impressive, effect full and really good productions can be made on minimal budgets. You don’t need to have the full backing of a major studio, you can tell your story and make an impact with the most powerful tool that you have at hand - A great story.
Image: 1.78:1 - Anamorphic 16x9. If you have any knowledge of TV production, you will enjoy how the series starts up being shot on Digibeta and then gradually becomes more filmic as the D-20 kicks in. Watch Kelly during the first episode and see if you can spot where it goes from TV reality to movie magic.
Audio: English dialogue, Dolby Surround 2.0 and Dolby Digital 5.1, Subtitles in Englsh for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Extras: Loads of small but bite size extras are available, commentary tracks, featurettes, interviews and several deleted scenes. All in all there’s quite a lot of information on the way TV magic is made that is well worth checking out.
Sending out a plug for the fantastic constructinghorror.com site, make sure to keep an eye on that space as they are about to publish an documentation/interview with Dr Robert Smith? (yeah with a question mark) on the mathematical calculations for what would happen when the zombie plague arrives. Fascinating stuff that will send shivers down your spine.
Original Title: Alucarda, la hijas de las tinieblas
Aka: Sisters of Satan
Directed by: Juan López Moctezuma
Mexico, 1978
Satanism / Occult / Possession, 85min
Distributed by: Mondo Macabro
Last week I discussed the heritage of Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, and the phenomenon of El Santo, but don’t for a second think that Mexican genre cinema is all about Lucha Libre and masked heroes saving the day. Even though that specific niche may be the one most associated with Mexican sub-genres, there is still a goldmine of highly explosive movies come out of Mexico if you know where to search.
Juan López Moctezuma’sAlucarda is one of, if not the best, demonic possession, movie ever made. It’s creepy, disturbing, gory, loads of fun and holds extremely high production values that all add up to make it one of the most entertaining movies to come out of Mexico during the seventies.
I would be wrong to slot this film into the nunsploitation genre even if this would seem fitting: Yes there’s certainly a whole lot of nuns engaging in battle with the evil forces at bay. Also it takes place in an orphanage/church where daily prayers and religious artefacts fill every scene. But there’s none of the backroom sleaze activity from the nuns, which usually characterizes the nunsploitation genre. It’s not the nuns that are sinful, but the poesies young women. (If you feel that taking your kit off and lesbian desires are sinful that is) Instead this is a good old possession movie where the devil corrupts the minds of young innocent women in his quest for world domination, with a healthy dose of exploitation traits at play.
The mood, tone and atmosphere of this movie is firmly set from the very start of the film. A young mother [Tina Romero in a double role as she later plays the grown up Alucarda too] gives birth to a little girl who, after being named Alucarda, is quickly taken by a strange old woman leaving the mother to face the strange entity that obviously is lurking the strange crypt like place she has chosen to give birth in…
Many years later, Justine [Susana Kamini, who starred in all of Moctezuma’s movies but the last one.] arrives at an orphanage where Sister Angélica [Tina French] greets her and shows Justine her new home. Justine is introduced to her roommate Alucarda [Tina Romero again] who comes right out and makes an impression of being quite eccentric and intense as she shows Justine her collection of secrets that she’s found out in the woods surrounding the orphanage. In reality it’s all pieces of twigs, dead beetles’ and small pebbles, but it set’s a naïve character trait that will be necessary to build the Alucarda persona. We understand that our impression of this peculiar young girl is the same as the other girls in the orphanage and realise that Alucarda is a loner without friends, which is why she so early on attaches herself to Justine, the new girl, so instantly. The new girl is a clean slate and holds no prejudice towards Alucarda.
They two friends run out into the woods to find more secrets and meet a hunchbacked Gypsy [Claudio Brook who you may recall from Guillermo Del Toro’sCronos 1993, Robert Fuest’s satanic turkey The Devil’s Rain 1975 or one of the many Luis Buñuel movies he starred in. He also held the lead role in Moctezuma’sThe Mansion of Madness (La mansión de la locura) 1973, and just like Romero holds double roles in Alucarda, as you soon will see.] Anyhow, the gypsy hunchback tries to sell the girls more “Secrets”, but his secrets are much more sinister than simple woodland titbits, and after running away from the creepy hunchback they find themselves in the crypt, or abandoned chapel from the opening birth sequence. Filled with adolescent curiosity they initiate a blood rite promising to be BFF’s and open one of the graves that they find there (possibly Alucarda’s mothers?) and the demonic forces start to arise. The audio is exhilarating here as the feeling is almost as if the sound producer has grabbed a mike and started growling and snarling into it right on top of the soundtrack. At first it is quite annoying, but the longer it goes on for the more profoundly it disturbed me. This trick is used throughout the rest of the movie, acting as a haunting audio key to indicate that the satanic forces at work are even larger than the movies narrative.
From here on the movie definitely goes into psychotronic land, safely back at the orphanage the girls undress and engage in a blood pact to stay friends for ever and never to walk the earth with out each other, and guess who shows up to interfere and lure them further into the darkness, yes it’s the hunchback. Inducting them into the pleasures of Satanism and blood rituals the heavens open up and blood pours from the skies. The Hunchback takes the girls with him out to the gypsy camp where a full-fledged satanic ritual is in progress. Nothing is held back as the naked participants engage in a huge orgy as Justine and Alucarda watch on in anticipation until the horned one makes his impressive entrance welcoming the girls into his dark world. At the same time Sister Angelica prays for her ward Justine, call upon the saviour the hardest she can, crying blood, sweating blood, levitating and begging the lord for Justine’s salvation. And would you believe it, in some kind of synchronized dance/possession Sister Angelica and the gypsy high priestess fight it out ever so elegantly, leaving Sister Angelica a crying mess, but successful and the high priestess dead in a pool of blood. The entire sequence is further propelled in surrealism as the before mentioned growling and snarling right in the front of the audio is right there adding to the visual wildness on screen.
Back at school the girls taunt their nun teachers and recite long passages of biblical texts only to blaspheme them and evoke the name of Beelzebub. The nuns are terrified and call in Mother Superior [Birgitta Segerskog obviously a Swede who I cant’ find anything more info on] who after talks with Father Lázaro [David Silva who also starred in several Moctezuma and Alejandro Jodorowsky movies] decides that the two girls need to be exorcised and bring all his religious gusto to the exorcism session where the girls are tied up to crosses and Justine stripped bare. I never quite understand why the church always have to tear the clothes of the poor lasses to go though exorcism, but still that’s what they always do and it creates a creepy feeling of hypocrisy as the nuns are all wrapped up in their habits and the poor young, fresh girls are exposed. Finally the monks get to see some skin. But you need that nudity in there or it wouldn’t be called exploitation cinema would it.
The local doctor, Dr. Oszek [Brook in his second part] arrives just in time to witness Justine die at the hands of the Father Lázaro, or is it the evil forces that take her life as they have other plans for Justine… He damns Father Lázaro and the church for this outrageous act, but Father Lázaro defends himself by claiming that the girls are possessed by the devil and need to be set free, hence drastic action is demanded. Dr. Oszek takes Alucarda and his blind daughter out of the school and back to the safety of his own home. But have no fear for the movie is defiantly not over yet... As Sister Angelica prays by Justine’s body it starts to twitch, and the movie cranks it up to a higher level as it begins the build towards the coming fifteen minutes of climax that makes this one of the most amazing movies of cult cinema. Demons are fought, Justine bathes in blood, Nuns have their throats torn out, Fireballs are thrown, Monks are engulfed in flames, crucifixes burn, Alucarda brings hell to the ordinary world in an inferno of damnation. It’s good vs. evil in a battle older than mankind, and it is stuff that will blow your mind.
Upon watching Alucarda one could easily feel that this movie, in many ways like the Italian nunsploitation flicks, is anti clerical and a protest against the church, therefore choosing exposing their sinister sides and dark secrets, but I feel that the movie actually is more pro than against. For even though the clergy do kill Justine (in some ways she’s all ready lost due to the possession) Father Làzaro is right. The girls are possessed by the devil, and even the goody two shoes Dr. Oszek joins the church in the fight against the demons once his daughter is threatened. It’s splendid to see how easily lead on we are as an audience, and just how easy we are to manipulate. As Moctezuma has built the characters of Justine and Alucarda as young, naïve and innocent, we obviously take sides with them during the movie, hence directing us to root for the antagonists if you like. Yes antagonists. Justine and Alucarda are the evil forces of the movie, and the church; Sister Angelica, Father Lázaro and Dr. Oszek are the protagonists. It’s a wonderful trick when it works and Moctezuma pulls it off with bravura, as we don’t want the girls to be punished and want them to come out victorious against the forces of the church.
Finding his inspiration in Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu’sCarmilla text, Moctezuma and his co writers, among them his wife Yolanda, come up with a splendid story. It’s safe to say that Moctezuma makes the source material his own and uses the source material as an inspiration not a template. Although the gothic setting is preserved, the vampire element of Carmilla is abandoned; keeping the core - yearning for companionship and the extent you will go to for this camaraderie. Not to forget the controversial, well at least in 1872 when Fanu wrote it, homoeroticism especially the lesbian girl on girl elements. Exploring daring themes and using them in your text isn’t simply a ploy of seventies - eighties exploitation cinema; it’s been used since mankind started putting words on paper, and for some unexplained reason it provokes e heck out of certain people. Also Justine's name is a reference to De Sade’sJustine text, where the themes of good and evil, opposing oneself against accepted tradition, the corruption of the church and a young woman's coming of age are key elements.
Alucarda is a fascinating movie, the acting is splendid, the story is highly entertaining, Xavier Cruz's cinematography is marvellous, the compositions are stunning and at some times it’s almost like watching a theatrical presentation of the material. The movie is disturbing in many ways, one of the most effective is reminiscent of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and that’s the deafening audio track, screaming girls and growling demons make up a truly disturbing soundtrack. It’s a bold and innovative gamble that the sound crew and editors have taken, but in it’s own strange way it works in favour of the movie. Romero and Kamini scream as if their lives really where on the line, and the demonic growling placed up front make it impossible to escape the threat presented.
I’d say that the movie feels theatrical because of Moctezuma’s background in the theatre and radio. After working with radio, creating Panoama de Jazz in 1959, a show which aired for almost 35 years, Moctezuma set his eyes on the area that had always inspired and enticed him, Cinema. His road there went via several TV shows, a number of short movies and his assistant work with theatre legend Seki Sano.
Seki Sano was an exiled Japanese director and writer of theatre who spent time in prison after being accused of spreading socialist ideas through his work. Sano spent some years in the then USSR where he associated and worked with the likes of Stanislavski and Meyerhold, before moving on to America. But even there his “radical and socialist” ideas where criticized and he ventured further south ending up in Mexico during 1939. Here he would become somewhat of a key figure for the next generation of belligerent players on the Mexican scene. It is probably during his time as an assistant to Sano that Moctezuma picked up his method of writing, acting, directing and the theatrical grandeur that comes with his movies. It's also during this time that he befriended the Chilean multiartist and creative shaman Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Teaming up with his new friend Jodorowsky, Moctezuma worked with him on Fando y lis 1967 and the midnight classic El Topo 1970, for which he both received producer credits on. It was only a question of time before Moctezuma himself would direct his own full length features, and in 1973 Moctezuma wrote and directed The Mansion of Madness loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe’sThe System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether. Just like Jodorowsky, Moctezuma regarded his art passionately and held it close to himself on a personal level which had him refuse compromising with his principles and, again just like Jodorowsky, he was quite rigid, which is one of the reasons why he only directed a few movies during his career. It’s all about quality and not quantity for visual directors of Mocetezuma's stature.
But those five movies still hold up today as the surreal art house horror crossovers that they where intended to be. Themes, style and elements of the fantastic played for real in some of the most fascinating movies you will ever see.
Image:
Full screen 4:3, which presumably is the OAR.
Audio:
Dolby Digital Stereo with English or Spanish dialogue options.
Extras:
Juan Lopez Moctezuma – A Cultured Maverick: A short documentary on the director and his movies, Theatrical Trailer, a gallery of stills and photos. Interview with Guillermo del Toro on the legacy of Moctezuma. There’s also a text interview with Moctezuma and cast and crew biographies.
Santo & Blue Demon vs. Doctor Frankenstein. Original title: Santo y Blue Demon contra el doctor Frankenstein Directed by: Miguel M. Delgado Mexico 1974 Lucha Libre/Horror, 95min
Distributed by: Rise Above Entertainment.
Every country has their own little niche that works its way into its national cinematic heritage in one way or another. The UK has it’s gritty working-class realism, Sweden has it’s obligatory skinny-dipping flicks of the sixties and Swedish Sin of the seventies, Finnish cinema has that wonderful drinking in silence whilst in the sauna melancholy, the Germans have their strict global angst, Italy has the wild twisted world of their Spaghetti remakes, Brazil has the surrealism of Coffin Joe, Japan has the wonderful mayhem of Godzilla, and the Mexicans have El Santo!
Young girls are going astray, and the cops are clueless in front of the many reported missing persons. The mastermind behind all the kidnappings, Dr. Irving Frankenstein [Jorge Russek] is trying to transplant a human brain into a young female body so that he can bring his wife back to life after he put her on "ice" eighty years ago to prevent a disease in her brain killing her. Yeah eighty years ago. His failed experiments roam the streets, often returning to their loved ones and killing them! The mad professor, not only a Frankenstein by name, but also the grandchild of the legendary Victor Frankenstein, has also invented an amazing regeneration potion that keeps him young until he's managed to transplant the brain with out the unfortunate streak of errors that have been tormenting his research. You would think that the youth potion would be enough to keep him happy, but nay, this potion is only used for his sinister uses. His love for the ice cold wife, and lust for reunification drives him into dark territory and the potion is only a tool to reach his goal. For some strange, unexplained reason wants to transplant Lucha Libre superstar El Santo's brain into his latest creature Wrestler fiend Mortis, but before that he has his foul henchmen kidnap El Santo's scientist girlfriend to lure him right into the trap. Obviously El Santo’s tag team mate (at least in the movies) Blue Demon comes to El Santo's aid as they dropkick and slam dunk their way through Frankenstein's thugs in their quest to rescue the girlfriend before annihilating and de-masking Dr Frankenstein’s and his fiendish monster in a grand wrestle-fest up on the rafters of the arena.
Santo & Blue Demon vs. Doctor Frankenstein is a great movie. It’s one of those wonderful pieces of world cinema that, like many other Santo movies, can easily help the most tedious hours of the night just sweep by. Just sit down and enjoy the show; bizarre stories, weird scenes, illogical narrative, crap acting, poor sets, and not so special effects make this a great way to waste an hour and a half, but for the love of god, it's EL SANTO and that makes up for a lot. You don't watch Godzilla movies for the dialogue and plot do you? You just want to see that 50Ft tyrant cause mayhem and kick ass, just like you want to see Santo pile drive the antagonists into the floor rescuing a few cute Latinas on the way and grooving out to those grinding scores by Gustao Cesar Carrión don’t you! In some ways you could think of Santo & Blue Demon vs. Doctor Frankenstein as an obscure Mexican cocktail of James Whale's1931 classic Frankenstein, Franju'sEyes Without A Face 1960, Jess Franco's The Awfull Dr. Orloff 1962 and Faceless 1987 with a fair amount of Wrestlemania chucked in to add to the action scenes. Absolutely Stunning in other words!
Director Miguel M. Delgado directed an impressive amount of movies, somewhere close to 160 films in almost every genre that was in demand. Mostly comedies and dramas where his big passion, but he did direct some of the more memorable Santo movies too; Santo vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter 1972, Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolfman 1973, Vengeance of the Crying Woman and this one, Santo & Blue Demon vs. Doctor Frankenstein, both 1974. As you see many of the movies utilise good old fantastic elements and on more than one occasion, even outside the few Delgado titles, El Santo went up against foes from the classic gothic world, made famous by all those Universal horrors of the thirties… Two things come to mind, first the political subtext of a national hero conquering the iconic American monsters; second the brilliance of using already established protagonists. The characters Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and The Wolfman, need no explanation as everyone knows how evil and bad they are which let’s the story kick right in and El Santo can get to work beating the crap out of the villains.
Most of the Santo films hold the same narrative form as those fabulous Godzilla movies. Present a problem, send in Santo/Godzilla, overcome some obstacles, and solve the problem. Nice and easy, grateful matinee entertainment for the whole family. But it is fair to say that the movies are perhaps not the primary thing of concern in this strange niche. What I find the most fascinating is that real life Lucha Libre star Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta portrayed the masked hero “THESAINT” in fifty-four Mexican Wrestlemania movies. He took on Evil Brains, Zombies, Vampire women, Martian invasions, Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummies, Aztec Women, Karate Killer, Death, Wolf Women, and even the Bermuda Triangle.
Back in the thirties, at the start of his Lucha Libre career after, Huerta wrestled as one of the bad guys before making the choice to wrestle on the good side. Having stepped over to the good side, this is where he stayed for the next fifty years. During the early forties, Huerta was offered a part in the silver masked wrestling team, and offered the part of The Devil, The Angel or The Saint, Huerta made the choice to be The Saint, El Santo.
1952 was a big year in Santo’s now legendary life. The magnificent wrestling trio spawned it’s own comic book, the first Lucha Libre movie to star El Santo was announced (although Santo turned down the opportunity to appear in the movie because of his fear that the movie would bomb) and he had his first bout against another superstar of the ring, Blue Demon. Going up against the Los Hermandos Shadow tag team consisting of Black Shadow and Blue Demon proved a terrible mistake as after El Santo beat and unmasked Black Shadow, Blue Demon in a rage of fury wrestled El Santo to the ground defeating the long reining champion. This defeat ignited a rivalry that never ended, and until the end of his career El Santo remembered his humiliating defeat by Blue Demon. Outside the ring, in the wonderful world of cinema, it’s quite obvious that the two characters put their indifferences and feud to one side as movie makers couldn’t resist the prosperity of bringing the two most popular Lucha Libre stars together in their action packed narratives. Just like his fellow wrestler, Blue Demon, or Alejandro Muñoz Moreno as he was called underneath the mask also took the step into movies, but nowhere near as many as El Santo.
A few years later, in 1958, Santo made his screen debut with the two flicks The Evil Brain (El Cerebro del Mal) 1961 and The Infernal Men (Hombres Infernales) 1961, although Santo was not the leading star, he was more of a superhero side kick to El Incognito, and as Huerta had feared, the movies did miserably, even though they later where retitled to Santo vs. The Infernal Men. Although this was soon to change in 1961 when Santo took top billing for real and starred in Benito Alazraki’sSanto vs. the Zombies (Santo Contra los Zombis) 1962. The rest is what we refer to as history, Huerta went on to star in over fifty more Santo movies, both as a single hero taking on foes and in tag team combo’s with Blue Demon, and still today years after his retirement El Santo is paid tribute to as the pop-culture icon he is. Cartoons, Comics, Animated serial’s Rock’n’roll bands and who can forget that Turkish gem Three Mighty Men (3 dev adam)from 1973 directed by T. Fikret Uçak where Captain America and El Santo team up in a bizarre twist to fight off a villainous Spiderman. Wild stuff and definitely a must see if you have missed it. (It is still available on limited release from Onar Films webpage)
Staying true to his fans in the arena, Huerta stayed active on the wrestling scene and at the same times starred in the movies, he was a family man and also spawned ten children, which in turn gave him twenty-five grand children. From Huerta’s offspring both “The Son of Santo” and “The Grandson of Santo” have made their debuts on the Lucha Libre scene. Family is everything as you can see!
Late 1982 Huerta decided that it was time to step down El Santo’s activities in the ring and announced that it would be Santo’s last season in the ring. In the final brawl El Santo conquered ALL his opponents in the ring and retired the anonymous masked hero that the public had loved for so long on both the silver screen and the packed sports arenas of Mexico. During an appearance on the Mexican TV Show Contrapunto, Huerta surprisingly removed his mask revealing the true face of the masked hero once and for all. An action reserved for conquered Lucha Libre actors, the de-masking was definitive statement that Santo was retired once and for all. On the 5th of February 1984, merely a week later Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta died from a heart attack. Just as Bela Lugosi always was and will be Dracula, Huerta identified so strongly with his beloved character that his last request was to be buried wearing his infamous mask, the silver saint.
So now that you know the impressive story of Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta and the legacy that is Santo, I recommend that you seek out one of the many movies and spend an evening in the company of a legend larger than life. VIVA EL SANTO!
Image: Full frame 4:3
Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0, Spanish Dialogue, optional English subtitles.
Extras: The Best of El Santo - a two-minute reel of highlights from various Santo movies, Santo Collection Trailers, and a wonderful photo gallery
Distributed by: Njuta Films / Another World Entertainment.
Often referred to as one of Jean Rollin’s few Zombie movies together with Zombie Lake 1981, and The Living Dead Girl 1982, it's fair to say that Grapes of Death is by far the best of the three movies. Although I feel that Grapes of Death has more in common with Romero’s psychological horror The Crazies 1973, than his zombie classic Night of the Living Dead 1968, because there are really no zombies in the movie! There are buss loads (well a dozen at least) of degenerated psychos that want to kill everyone that they lay eyes on dragging themselves slowly through the movie, with the intent to kill people, but they don’t eat them and they turn before they die.
Grapes of Death has a rather straightforward narrative without any specific complications making it an enjoyable film to wind down to. After a title sequence where we see farmhands spraying the crops at the Roublés vineyard, we are set upon a train where Élisabeth [Marie-Georges Pascal] is on her way to the vineyard run by her boyfriend Michel. The same guy who just told the workers of the title sequence to get back out in the fields as one of them returns to the farm complaining that the pesticide is making him ill. Élisabeth and her travelling companion soon encounter the same worker on the train and he now transforming into a murdering beast due to the insecticide. From this initial kill, Élisabeth’s friend, it’s all about survival, reaching the destination the farmyard and Michel. For as you will realise after the climax, this movie is in a sinister way all about the things you will do for love.
Smaller and larger obstacles are encountered and overcome, with a, for Rollin measures quite small amount of nudity thrown in to keep the audience happy. Élisabeth is constantly surrounded by death and carnage as she sweeps through the wonderful landscapes of Southern France, trying to stay one foot ahead of the infected. She arrives at a farm only to be confronted by the manic farmer, she finds a car and is attacked once again. Up on the woodlands, Élisabeth runs into the blind Lucie [Mirella Rancelot] who is trying to make her way back to the village she comes from. Together they find their way to the village… …only to be learn that the entire village is infected by the strange virus and death comes knocking big time in a really violent sequence which possibly makes this movie the first French splatter flick.
As the infected close in on Élisabeth, she’s saved in the nick of time by a strange ally; Brigitte Lahaie. French adult film star Brigitte Lahaie makes her debut as part of Rollin’s stable of actors with Grapes of Death, and you could consider this movie the breaking point where Lahaie started to shift into movies outside the pornographic sphere. But ironically most parts she ever played after her career in the adult industry where still heavily dependent on her erotic image and saw her on more than one occasion acting in the nude. (Even Fabrice Du Welz has her play on her eroticism in his evocative and disturbing psychological thriller The Ordeal 2004) Jean Rollin at least tried to motivate why she needs to get her clothes of in Grapes of Death as she does it in a semi-seductive manner to prove that she is not infected and has no marks of the disease. Well in reality she has the infection, but no visual scars or gooey boils. But just wait, as she will be hideously disfigured before the scene is over.
After making and loosing new allies along the way, Élisabeth finally reaches the farm, and is reunited with her lover Michel, but in a last twist of fate, tables are turned friends turn into foes, and after the violent climax you find yourself wondering which monster/killer is the most vicious, the ones who do it due to the infection, or the ones who kill for revenge?
With today’s infectious outbreak/zombie flicks, think Zack Snyder’sDawn of the Dead 2004, Danny Boyle’s28 Days Later 2002, and Juan Carlos Fresnadillio’s28 Weeks Later 2007, the movie is rather slow, but that’s what you would expect from a Jean Rollin movie, a slow pace that relies more on the hypnotic imagery and atmosphere than dark, menacing urban locations with speedy monsters chasing protagonists down narrow hallways.
Considering that more than thirty years have passed since Rollin shot this flick, it’s fair to point out that this could possibly be the first movie with ”fast” zombies/infected, as there is no slow Romero-esque dragging of the legs here. The infection victims are plain people trying to cope with their new state of being. And this is one of the finer points of the movie, up till Élisabeth reaches the village; everyone she meets is torn between their polarised emotions. On one side the lust to kill, on the other a deep regret and frustration over loosing control. This reaches it’s peak as the infected Lucas, decapitates Lucie and crying begs for forgiveness as he snogs the head. It’s a wonderful little detail that isn’t too common in the genre, as you rarely encounter an antagonist with remorse and sorrow of being the monster.
If you boil this flick down to a concentrated form it is a brilliant idea that Jean Rollin with co-writers Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (yes the actor from several Rollin and Jesus Franco movies) and Christian Meunier (who did sod all after writing and shooting for second unit on this movie) have come up with. If you wanted an infection to spread rapidly and aggressively, how best to transport it but through wine, the national drink of France. At the same time there is a smart critique towards the use of toxins in modern agriculture, much like the themes used by Jorge Grau in the superb Let Sleeping Corpses Lie 1974.
Just like the Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Grapes of Death has a very interesting and mezmerising score. This one composed by Philippe Sissman, who only ever scored one more film, much later in 1991, but his score to Grapes of Death is interesting because of its minimalistic use of electronica. The almost avant-garde keyboard beep and blips suit the movie perfectly and really bring a futuristic and eerie mood to the film.
Grapes of Death is unlike any other Jean Rollin film, mostly because of the storyline and narrative, that is zombies/infected instead of the usual sexy vampires, and it would be unfair to say that he temporarily shifted away from his usual slow pace and poetic imagery, because in all honesty Grapes of Death is still quite slow, almost meditatively slow, which I why I’m so fond of it. The imagery is still very Rollin-ish, over grown woodlands and castle ruins as the camera almost hovers through the landscapes that he so often returned to. The movie was shot in the Cevennes National Park in Southern France, witch had Rollin and cinematographer Claude Bécognée use the landscapes to the maximum. Shooting under severe cold is never an easy task, and I’m’ sure that you have heard the story of Lahaie being so cold during her nude scene that she couldn’t speak her lines.
You have to keep in mind when you watch Jean Rollin movies, that this is a director that was so terribly shy that he instead chose to focus on themes, imagery and atmosphere in his movies over the acting. Not to say that the actors are bad, but in some way I guess that's why most of his actors are seen in his film only and never again, and the ones he managed to work with, like Lahaie, the twins Catherine and Marie-Pierre Castel to name a few, where used repeatedly in his films. He spent ages researching his movies and drafting the best possible people around him. During the shoots was said to be so shy that he didn't dare direct the actors. Instead he preferred to hide behind the camera, sometimes leaving the set, and letting second unit step in during the adult sequences of his films. There's something in that fragile delicacy and I see a strange paradox to the casts and shyness that fascinates me, as many of Rollin's leading ladies where former adult movie actors whom he offered roles outside of their usual parts in pornography. You wouldn't expect shyness and tenderness from a director so strongly associated with erotic imagery.
The suspense elements are very well composed. Working with great balance Rollin frequently presents the threat, isolates the key characters and keeps the audience in anticipation as he builds the suspense ever so gently, before having it erupt in a gory, gooey and emotional finale in each case. Grapes of Death, is one of my favourite Rollin movies because of this, the threat-build-release schematic works wonders and he really never stays in them long enough for them to grow tiresome, there’s always a new twist or turn as Élisabeth makes new companions that may, or not, help her in her quest to reach her goal and live through it. A wonderful film that definitely should be checked out if you are into that brooding Eurohorror scene of the 70-80’s.
Image:
Anamorphic Widescreen 1.66:1
Audio:
French Dialogue, Dolby Digital Stereo. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish subtitles optional.
Extras:
The original trailer for Grapes of Death, trailers for Rollin'sThe Living Dead Girl, Demoniacs, Requiem for a Vampire and the fantastic Lips of Blood, and a slideshow of stills from the movie and even a few scenes not featured in the movie.
Aka: Jungle Holocaust, The Last Survivor, Cannibal.
Original Title: Ultimo mondo cannibale
Directed by: Ruggero Deodato
Drama/Horror/Cannibals, 92 min
Italy, 1977
Distributed by: Noble Entertainment
Among all the strange and bizarre sub-genres ever to come out of the wonderful world of Italian cinema, the brief, but impactful cannibal genre must be among the most provocative and disturbing. Perhaps the genre itself isn’t such a strange niche as it in many ways is a progressive evolution of the previous Mondo genre perfected by directors like Franco Prosperi, Gualtiero Jacopetti. Gianni Proia and Luigi Scattini.
Say the words cannibal film and two definitive movies come to mind, Umberto Lenzi’sCannibal Ferox (aka Make them Die Slowly) 1981 and Ruggero Deodato's landmark gut-muncher Cannibal Holocaust 1980 come to mind. Both landmark movies that stand out and still are considered quite offensive and provocative.
Where the nazisploitation traits are sleazy Germans tormenting naked women in their bordello concentration camps, the nunsploitation has sinful nuns engaging in lesbian romps and hailing the forces of darkness, no cannibal movie is complete without loin clothed savages tearing open the stomachs of their victims, cultural clashes between modern and primitive worlds and a fair deal of violent animal deaths. The killing of animals in the genre is still today a sensitive subject, which the directors still are at unease talking about. But in it’s own unique way it’s part of the genre, and it is within here that the movies have their historic debt to the Mondo genre. It’s only a natural progression of the re-enacted rituals and lifestyles of exotic cultures once showcased as documentary footage in the Mondo genre would be brought to life as part of dramatic narrative. This is also what director's of the genre fall back on. I was only showing the primitives everyday hunt and preparation of food, and all animals killed in front of the camera where eaten by the primitives. A rather pale excuse as these scenes of barbaric slaying is still what makes these movies disturbing, but then again so is any footage of slaughter, be it by primitives in the jungle or in your nearest processing plant. Death is a bitch to watch whey you know it’s for real. But no matter how haunting the real animal deaths are there is a vital point to why they are such an important part of the genre’s traits and narrative. The real violence enhances the illusionary violence that the characters are put in front of. We know that the monkey/crocodile/turtle snuffed it for real, there’s nothing but my common sense retaining me from believing that the human deaths on screen are fake. Which is most likely why the cannibal genre was surrounded in controversy and frequently banned as audiences where fooled into believing that the movies could have been snuff films. But for those still in doubt, actors Me Me Lai, Ivan Rassimov and Robert Kerman starred in many more cannibal movies pre and post Last Cannibal World.
Deodato’sLast Cannibal World wasn’t the first of the strange niche, as Umberto Lenzi beat him to it with five years when he directed his Man From Deep River in 1972 which is considered to be the one that set it all in motion. Although Deodato will forever be associated to the genre because of his classic masterpiece Cannibal Holocaust from 1980, a truly disturbing and impactful movie, which leaves no one untouched after a viewing. Directors like Sergio Martino, Mario Gariazzo and Michele Massimo Tarantini also jumped in on the genre, well jumped on isn’t really fair as the majority of these fantastic directors where all “directors for hire” guys, which is why they all followed each others leads when the genre demands turned, but still they all got in to their elbows and went with the flow churning out some savage movies in the obscure niche. Even Jesus Franco, and Joe D’Amato got in on it and brought all their sexploitation traits with the, producing some really weird entries in the subgenre. Who could ever have thought up the movie Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals 1978 but good old Joe D’Amato. During the eighties, the themes once again changed, the cannibal genre was abandoned in favour of the undead zombies, and slasher hybrids which dominated the ever inspirational American scene. A few years ago the late Bruno Mattei tried re-vitalising the cannibal niche with a few low budget attempts, but considering that nobody really noticed, it's fair to say that the genres time has passed long ago.
The producers of Man from Deep River approached Lenzi with a proposal to direct Last Cannibal World, in some ways a sequel to his previous movie, but when Lenzi demanded to much pay, producer Giorgio Carlo Rossi went after the second name on his list, Ruggero Deodato.
Staying with the idea of dramatised realism, Deodato starts his movie by proclaiming that it is based on true events, that this is the true story of Robert Harper and his terrifying ordeal. A group of people Harper [Massimo Foschi], Rolf [Ivan Rassimov who held the leading role in Lenzi’sMan From Deep River 1972 and Eaten Alive 1980], Charlie the pilot and Swan find themselves stranded in the middle of a god awful jungle on the island of Mindano after landing their small airplane on an overgrown landing strip. Charlie sets about repairing the landing gear as Robert and Rolf shoot into the jungle looking for the team supposed to meet them there. In a few minutes they find the remains of the previous teams’ radio, and set off towards the camp location. Obviously it’s abandoned and Ubaldo Continiello’s rather bleak score set’s the tone as flutes taunt us and bring us into a mood of mystery. After finding bloody weapons apparently made by primitives Robert rushes into the jungle and witnesses the first animal death as an anaconda wrestles and chomps down on a large monitor lizard. Nature at work, survival of the fittest, and it is shocking as the snake swallows the giant lizard, which definitely set’s a tone for the movie.
Back at the plane Charlie the pilot starts to curse the two men as it will soon be too late to take off. With this said Robert and Rolf find the rotting remains of the other team… and as night falls the fight for survival begins. Forced to spend the night in the hazardous jungle with the knowledge that the “last cannibals left in the world” are most likely watching them as they speak, taking shelter inside the small airplane. Going out to retrieve herself, Anna is snatched by something sneaking in the rough terrain surrounding the craft. The next morning, the men venture out into the jungle to look for Swan. Charlie finds her dress and grabbing it triggers a deadly trap. Charlie is skewered and dies in front of Robert and Rolf who scramble deeper into the jungle only to come upon a group of primitives enjoying a barbeque. You don’t need any previous knowledge of genre to understand that it’s the remains of the well-done Swan that they are chomping down.
For the next ten minutes Robert and Ralph build themselves as tiny raft and set of towards salvation down the river. But where there are rivers, there’s bound to be rapids and once again the forces of nature strike down man. Climbing ashore on the riverbank Robert tries to come to terms with the fact that he’s the only survivor of their small assemblage. Obviously Robert never watched any nature programmes and is really ignorant as he hungrily binges on some strange mushrooms he finds. After fainting he’s rudely awakened by the savages who drag him along to their amazing camp inside a cave. This is where the movie gets really interesting, as modern man meets primitive culture in a wonderful clash of cultures.
The first thing the cannibals do is humiliate him and reduce him to their level, tearing off his strange clothes leaving him naked just as they are. Screaming and objecting to their treatment of him Robert sees Pulan [Me Me Lai who also starred in Lenzi’sMan From Deep River and Eaten Alive] make her entrance as she pokes his strange white flesh, yanking the elastic in his underwear and finally ripping them off. Robert is now equal to the savages. As the savages saw Robert arrive by plane, they want to see this strange god like entity fly and hoist him up by a rope to the top of the cave. Needless to say Robert can’t fly and as they repeatedly rise and drop him towards the ground he passes out. This scene is reminiscent of the coming of age ritual that Richard Harris goes through in Elliot Silverstein’sA Man Called Horse from 1970. A Man Called Horse is very much the same template and definitely an inspiration upon the cannibal genre, as it deals with the same topic. The savage rituals and crashes between primitive and modern worlds.
The primitives go about their everyday life, as Robert sits starving in his primitive cage but for some strange reason Pulan takes pity, or perhaps it’s fascination, upon Robert and starts befriending him. As we reach half point Deodato reminds us of the cruel and harsh reality of nature as we are shown how the cannibals capture and kill not only a huge snake, but also a crocodile which is sliced open to reveal it’s still beating heart. The obligatory nature documentary footage is here too, as yet another snake snares and swallows a bat whole. The footage acts as reminder of the carnage gone before, and also an effective tool to sell the illusion of reality in the scenes about to come.
Finally Robert get’s his big break, he manages to escape after his cage door is left unsecured and snatching Pulan by the arm the two set off towards the deep deep jungle. The tables are turned in more than one way as Robert is now the predator and Pulan the victim, after all he has kidnapped her. Civilized man plummets deeper and deeper into his repressed primal instincts and as he almost reaches the bottom he rapes Pulan. Robert is now the alpha male and Pulan his subordinate, which is enhanced in the next scene where Pulan hunts for food and serves Robert a delicious meal of fresh caught fish, fruit and berries.
While seeking shelter from a monsoon rainstorm the couple take refuge in a cave, a cave that reveals itself as the hiding place of Ralph! He also survived the ordeal on the rapids, but has a gangrenous knee injury after his bout with the forces of nature. The two friends and Pulan make the most of their safe place as they plan their route out of the jungle. But in any self respecting script, there has to be downfall after joy and happiness, and the script writers of Last Cannibal World [Gianfranco Cleric, Tito Carpi, Renzo Genta and Giorgio Carlo Rossi, yeah the producer] are well aware of this as they unleash the final reel of savagery upon us. Pulan attempts to lead the two men back to their aircraft and obviously they run straight into the cannibals. If you where waiting for mayhem, this is where you will find it in the most disturbing scene of the movie as Pulan is captured, decapitated, gutted and finally roasted before the cannibals consume her freshly grilled flesh.
Coming to it's climax, the movie sees Robert going head to head with the cannibal leader and becomes what he has been fighting against all this time, the civilized man becomes a savage. After beating the leader to death Robert embowels him and frantically gobbles down the tribe leaders innards. Seeing him eating the flesh of their leader, the cannibal let Robert escape and they finally get to see their strange visitor fly off into the skies.
For an early entry into this bizarre subgenre, Last Cannibal World is still an entertaining movie. Its ferocious, disturbing and packs a punch even though it a times is somwhat tedious. Unfortunately the movie was to be overshadowed by the movie magnificent Cannibal Holocaust that Deodato would make a few years later. Daniele Alabasio’s editing is worth pointing out, as instead of focusing on the onscreen violence, he edits his way through the violence towards the cast with such ferocity that the images are almost impossible to see clearly; hence creating mental images that surpass what really was shown. I also have to comment on Paolo Ricci’s special effects, because they are top notch. Keep in mind that in 1976 this harsh violence wasn’t as common as it is in the horror genre these days. It was only a few years previously that George A. Romero showed zombies eating human flesh in Night of the Living Dead 1968, and two years before he unleashed his Dawn of the Dead 1978, setting the guide lines for the splatter genre. People hadn’t really seen stuff like this, and packaged with all that real animal violence, there’s no wonder that the films where controversial. After creating special effects for many of the infamous Cannibal flicks, Ricci later worked with the special effects on Andrei Tarkovsky’sNostalghia 1983. For Deodato and screenwriter Gianfranco Clerici it’s quite apparent that they planted the seeds which they three years later would reap with the masterpiece Cannibal Holocaust, where instead of observing the carnage, they would turn the cameras on themselves and question the genre and it’s origins the Mondo genre in a remarkable way. But Cannibal Holocaust is a completely different movie which apart from being extremely gruesome, also holds a lot of social and political criticism that makes up part of the legacy it brought with it. Although that is a completely different story.
Image: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1
Audio: Optional English or Italian dialogue, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian or Danish subtitles are available.
Extras: Well unfortunately there are no extras at all apart from the theatrical trailers for each individual film. The trailer for Last Cannibal World is by far the most spectacular as it sees Deodato and Crew paying homage to those great Alfred Hitchcock walking through the set trailers, as they talk about the shoot and the perils they have encountered during it. But considering that this is a rather price worthy collection “The Cannibal Collection” packaged with Lenzi’s Man From Deep River and Mario Gariazzo’sAmazonia: The Catherine Miles Story, I feel that you are getting to great genre pieces and one lesser (Amazonia, which focuses more on Elvire Audray getting her kit off than the horrors of confronting the cannibals) which makes up for the lack of extras.
If I ever had to single out a bunch of Swedish Exploitation flicks for an uninitiated fellow cineaste, then this would be among the few selected. The movies of Arne Mattson and Bo A. Vibenius in all respect, but Torgny Wickman’sSkräcken har 1000 Ögon (literally, Fear has 1000 Eyes) is one of my favourite Swedish exploitation flicks. Not because it ‘s very scary, neither is it especially erotic either, (there’s more nudity on the TV these days) but I dig it because it holds a magnificent ambience, it is a great document of a very special time in cinematic history and is pretty dammed near the witchcraft/occult/ exploitation flicks that directors like Renato Polselli and Luigi Batazella where churning out a few years later. Perhaps mostly recognised for his 1969 shock/documentary/educational/explicit study Kärlekens Språk (The Language of Love) 1969, Wickman'sSkräcken har 1000 Ögon is something completely different, and the first ever attempt at combing eroticism with horror produced in Sweden.
Starting with a close up of dripping blood and the words “I hereby dedicate myself to the devil!” being written with the blood there’s a tone set for the movie which gets right to the point, there’s no need fiddling about and wondering what the heck this movie is going to be about, as it’s all there in an awesome opening sequence. The movie contains a fair deal of witchcraft, occult references and the complementary nudity to go with pagan rituals is all there. But for the most of the time there is more to be asked for, like a short scene where the village doctor’s x-ray plates show one of the villagers wearing an inverted cross. We already know who it is, Hedvig, and there’s nothing made of the find but a shallow “Do you see what I see? An inverted cross!” And there’s no name on the plates…” remarked by the Doctor and his staff. It’s opportunities like this that make the story feel somewhat wasted. Never the less the movie is quite fun anyhow, and sometimes you don’t need a perfect story to enjoy a movie. Especially if the movie holds a great atmosphere, has a splendid cast and a fabulous score to keep the mood flowing.
Sven [Hans Wahlgren] is a vicar in a small village in Sweden, he and his pregnant wife Anna [Anita Sanders, who had a short career in Italy and held both smaller and larger roles in movies by Fellini, Pasolini, Tinto Brass, Alberto De Martino and Pupi Avati] return home from a trip to Spain to be greeted by Sven’s aunt, Barbro [Barbro Hjort af Ornäs, who not only stared in many Swedish erotica movies (keeping her clothes on of course) but also acted in several Bergman movies too] Shortly after, their friend and maid Hedwig [the stunning Solveig Andersson] moves in with them. Andersson who you may have seen in the leading role of Wickman’s previous film Eva – den utstötta 1969 (Eva: Swedish and Underage), which also featured Wahlgren, and Hjort af Ornäs. She can also be seen as Christina Lindberg’s bordello mate in Bo A. Vibenius extraordinary Thriller – En Grym Film 1974 (Thriller - A Cruel Picture, Aka They Call Her One Eye)
Anna is suffering from her pregnancy, she can’t sleep and she’s having strange visions, and hasn’t slept for ages. She can’t stand lying next to Sven who sleeps like a baby all through the night. Hedwig starts her manipulation on a small scale suggesting that Sven could sleep in the library as to let Anna rest in peace. Obviously Anna suggests this to Sven who without any major objections gathers up his stuff and shuffles into the guestroom. Needless to say Anna turns up in her sexiest nightgown (definitely a Jean Rollin moment if ever there was one...) and after seductively slipping it off glides into his bed for a hefty session of lovemaking… but is it really Anna?
The movie ponders on; Hedwig seduces both Anna and Sven. In between sessions of seduction she’s tormenting Anna with fake visions, like the great scene where she exchanges the ordinary baby leggings that Anna is knitting for a three legged version! Anna find’s it screams and faints. The sinister Hedwig, switches back to he ordinary pair and claims that Anna imagined it all. To make things worse Hedwig keeps a bunch of self crafted Voodoo dolls that she uses to torment Anna, and even drives Barbro to her untimely death as she discovers Hedvig’s hidden past. Even the warm homely bread gets used as an ominous tool of Hedvig’s witchcraft. The seduction/mind games progresses until the threesome have a full-blown orgy after Barbro’s funeral where Hedwig going all in makes Sven smash a crucifix and then carves an inverted cross on the naked torso of Anna.
Plot wise the movie is in shambles. In at nutshell the problem is that there is never any real value at stake, Hedwig has no apparent agenda. She just sells her soul to the devil, seduces Anna and Sven the Vicar and goes about corrupting them, which also kind of fails, Anna leaves the house by her own free will with out any major obstacles but crawling up on the kitchen sink. Sure Sven smashes a crucifix and chucks it on the fire to keep them warm during the final orgy, and he’s already been unfaithful to his wife with the Seductive witch, but it’s not of free will as he’s put under Hedvig’s spell and has no recollection of the incidents at all when the firemen pull him from the burning vicarage. There’s never a conscious decision to abandon his faith as its all Hedvig’s doing. The same goes for Hedwig, she never really has that agenda written out, apart from selling herself to do the devils work. But opportunity is there, even though it is completely ignored by Wickman in his script. Was she planning on taking Anna’s child? Did she want to corrupt the vicar? Or what? We never know as the movie ends with the naked Hedwig laughing at the fire brigade and police officers outside the burning rectory, during their feeble efforts. It’s a strange and confusing ending. Neither do any of Hedvig's foes really make any honest threat to her, she easily manipulates Anna into believing that she’s going insane, and every other major threat is taken care of in the next scene. Sure she kills off her antagonists, but that’s all she does, there’s no build or suspense created around it.
Supposedly Wickman based his screenplay on a series of events that happened in a small rural village where he spent his childhood, and that could be the case, there’s nothing to prove the opposite.
Now perhaps the movie doesn’t make much of an impression with today’s standards, as it solemnly finds a spot somewhere in between the nudie-cuties/ roughies of Doris Wishman, Russ Meyer, George Harrison Marks and the wave of innovative porno chic movies that where to be produced a few years later, both in Sweden and outside it. The novelty of porno chic decimated the demand for soft erotic imagery; especially as full hardcore could be seen on the big screen in almost every major city. But there is a certain charming innocence to these movies of the past as they explore how far they can go without crossing the border. Ironically they could have gone much further with the events about to take place.
Skräcken har 1000 Ögon was one of the first really genre specific movies out of Sweden that I saw many years ago after a dear friend gave me a few VHS tapes with Swedish titles he demanded that I watch. (This guy was amazing at locating former starlets of the seventies and getting interviews with them for the magazine we used to work for back then. Christina Lindberg was one of them he profiled in the magazine. He’s still a, finger on the pulse guy, currently working for one of the leading Swedish movie magazines.)
I had always ignored Swedish film, apart from the mandatory; Ingmar Bergman, Vilgot Sjöman and Victor Sjöström, so these tapes really blew me away! Watching stuff like Bo A. VibeniusThriller – En Grym Film 1974, Arne Mattson’sSmutsiga Fingrar 1973 (Dirty Fingers) and Wickman’sSkräcken har 1000 Ögon 1970, opened my eyes to a complete new world in my own backyard. Yes backyard, as these movies where shot in and around Stockholm, and a ten-minute walk from where I lived at the time. And the basic fact that these movies where shot in the same studios as Bergman used is exhilarating. I’ve said before that a whole bunch of Swedish directors vanished under the shadow of Bergman’s marvel, and that’s where you find these guys.
Although I’m sure that VHS version of Skräcken har 1000 Ögon was longer and contained more nudity, and it’s often rumoured that there was a longer print, which could partially be responsible for the erroneously quoted 99 minute run time. But for there to be an additional almost half-hour there has to be a whole load of stuff missing, I’m only missing a few longer scenes of seduction, especially the one where Sven pulls the wig of Anna only to reveal Hedvig. Then again there could be a whole lot of shagging in 26 minutes of missing footage so perhaps that rumoured longer version could have contained the sex Wickman was accustomed to directing. It’s a teasing thought, but producer Inge Ivarsson says in the interview featured on the disc that he had to hold Wickman on a short leash so that the “erotic” elements didn’t get out of hand. So presumably the longer print is a figment of wishful thinking, and if there were an extra half hour of skin and smut, the movie probably wouldn’t have faded into oblivion shortly after it’s release.
What I find so fascinating about the movie is how obvious the Sweden + Nudity + Horror epithet worked so well as a marketing banner. According to producer Inge Ivarsson the movie regained all it’s costs on the international market alone, which he also claims was the prime target audience for these flicks and the two words Swedish Erotica will even today receive a joyful grin from people acquainted with the genre. There was a huge market for Swedish erotica overseas, and recently this retro niche has been rediscovered with the advent of DVD. I think it would be fair to claim that starlet’s of the seventies, like Christina Lindberg for an instance, have a larger fan base now then all those years ago. Well perhaps not the same kind of fan base at least.
Yeah, in many ways The movie is a kind of cute and innocent flick, and all credit has to go to Wickman and Ivarsson who at least tried to create the first erotic horror ever produced in Sweden, and I say cute in the context to Wickman’s previous movies like Kärlekens Språk and Eva - Den Utstötta and his later ones, as he just like so many other directors that had been dabbling in erotica, ended up directing full blown porno’s at the end of his career. Also to that discussion there’s the fact of the casts of these movies. There are many really great well known and recognizable actors seen through out these movies, many beloved Swedish faces and names, even though there’s some nudity and erotic subplots going on. Even a few international Swedish stars, Stellan Skarsgård to name the most renown of them all, participated in these movies. There’s almost the same type of mentality as the Japanese actors took when they where only offered pinku roles during the pinku era of Japanese Cinema. They took it at face value, a job is a job and you do the work that is requested of you as an actor. This is quite an admirable approach to your acting career, as a few years later actors in movies containing eroticism and sexually graphic imagery where considered porn actors and that brings a complete different set of luggage with it. Eroticism to enhance your story, and a story to motivate your eroticism is one thing, but when fuck scenes after fuck scenes are all that your movie is about it’s no longer interesting
Finally the biggest surprise of the film comes with the soundtrack! The score that Mats Olsson put together for this one is a fantastically suave new-Jazz groove strut that definitely could have been found on Italian Giallo and Poliziceotti flicks of the time. Great stuff that someone should re-release some day, it’s a winner to say the least.
Image: Originally shot in 1,66:1, but brought into some kind of semi 4:3 full screen in the scan.
Audio: Swedish dialogue, Mono. Unfortunately as I have whined about before no subtitles at all are available on the KlubbSuper8 DVD’s.
Extras: Bolmört i mitt öra (Henbane in My Ear - the intended original title), a nine minute short interview with producer IngeIvarsson and Klinga Wickman about he movie and the actors. A few deleted scenes (once again perhaps from that legendary longer version?) unfortunately without any audio, a whole load of still from the movie and behind the scenes, Biographies for cast and crew and theatrical trailers for Fear has 1000 Eyes 1970, Anita 1973, and Kärlekens XYZ 1971 also available from KlubbSuper8.com
Original Title: Kyôfu ikei ningen: Edogawa Rampo zenshû
Directed by: Teruo Ishii
Euo guro (Erotic/Grotesque), 99 min
Japan, 1969
Distributed by: Synapse Films
There’s a popular misconception that Japanese horror movies are a recent novelty that starts with the success of Hideo Nakata’sRingu 1998. Yes, it’s true, several people recently looked completely puzzled when I noted that J-Horror is in no way a new entry into the horror genre, although the name may be new as we have an anal need to categorize themes and topics into one definable slot, the Japanese horror scene has always been an item. J-Horror and Ringu as we know it, based on Koji Suzuki’s splendid book Ringu, was already shot in two different versions before the international success had genre fans looking to Japan and Asia for the next big thing. In 1995, director Chisu Takigawa directed a TV movie based on Suzuki’s book. The TV movie opted to focus on the sexual relations of the kids instead of the profound terror found in the source material and it comes off more like an episode of O.C., The Hills or even Beverly Hills with a supernatural element thrown in. Following this there was even a sequel produced Rasen, directed by Jôji Iida in 1998, the same year that Nakata revisited the original text only to end up with an international hit on his hands which opened the floodgates for Japanese and Asian horror in the same way directors like Ringo Lam and John Woo shot their way to fame with their ballistic ballets during the late eighties.
J-Horror isn’t new in any way and the tales told within the J-Horror sphere are really folktales modernized for a new audience. The origins of the J-horror iconography, themes and style have their foundation in the Kabuki and Noh theatre of feudal Japan. During the sixties, directors like Nobuo Nakagawa, Kaneto Shindô and Masaki Kobayashi where shooting movies that relied heavily on their ancestors folktales, and just like the J–Horror wave, the antagonist was more than often a bloated woman with long hair hanging over her face out to claim revenge from her frequent male wrongdoers.
It would be a far stretch to say Teuro Ishii’s once banned for decades, Horror of Malformed Men is a horror movie, as it in all honesty won’t scare anyone these days. It is more of a thriller, whodunit movie with elements of horror aesthetics interwoven in the narrative. But that can’t really be discussed without first talking about Edogawa Rampo first. Rampo was the pseudonym of Japanese writer Tarô Hira, who mainly wrote "pulpy" detective stories in the fashion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Maurice Leblanc. Many of these detective stories incorporated themes and elements of the fantastic, the erotic and on many occasion saw lead character super detective Kogorô Akechi go up against a varied assortment of mastermind criminals set out to succeed with the perfect crime, such as the antagonist in Kenji Fukasaku’s campy pop-art masterpiece Black Lizard1968. But Rampo also frequented the fantastic and horror scenes, where the influences of the gothic and Edgar Allen Poe are obvious, his pen name; Edogawa Rampo is a Japanese rendering of Poe’s name. (Painfully obvious when you see it isn’t it) These stories often saw disfigured or seriously wounded characters in key roles; the monsters taking command. It is from his original text Panorama-tô kitan (The Strange Tale of Paranormal Island) that the main source to Ishii’sHorror’s of Malformed Men can be found, but Ishii knew his Rampo and used several other stories of Rampo’s to bump the script up several notches. Among them The Twins that later was shot as Gemini 1999 by Shinya Tsukamoto.
Teuro Ishii was no stranger to the genre either, and just like Takashi Miike in later years, Ishii could direct up to ten movies a year! After a few years of working for the Shintoho studio, Ishii moved to Toei Studios, and with declining cinema vsitors due to the novelty of TV, he quickly became the right man in the right spot as the Pinky Violence movies hit the silver screens. With a couple of successful Pinku flicks to his name (The Joy of Torture 1968 and Orgies of Edo 1969 to name two) he finally got to make the movie that all those Edogawa Rampo stories had influenced, Horrors of Malformed Men. But instead of becoming the success that he expected, it soon vanished from the screens banned from being shown and plummeted into oblivion.
Still there's the question why was Teuro Ishii’sHorrors of Malformed Men banned in Japan? It isn’t more sexually explicit than other movies of the time, neither is it more visually violent than contemporary movies… But still it was banned never the less, hence becoming one of Japanese cinemas’ most notorious oddities.
Sure by today’s standards it is quite a gentle movie, but the ban was not due to a public outcry, there where no fainting and vomiting in the aisles, there was no audience fleeing from the theatres disgusted with what they saw on screen… They left the cinemas confused and dazed. Where the title, Horrors of Malformed Men may have led the paying blue-collar audience to believe that they where going to be in for a damned good freak show with loads of smut, gore and violence, they got a suggestive, mystic movie with performer Tatsumi Hijakata’s Butoh dance spastically strutting around on screen. Instead the ban came from the studio itself as Toei, worked up about the movie and the lacking results at the box-office, in their panic that the movie would offend someone put it on the shelf and banned it.
Being a land of stern rules, ethics and strictness, the cultural elite turned their backs on Tatsumi Hijakata’s Butoh during the fifties considering it ridiculous, embarrassing, scandalous an definitely not Japanese dancing. Luckily the western world embraced Butoh and today it is definitely a dance that is strongly associated with Japan. There’s a sweet irony in the fact that western worlds took to too Hijakata’s Butoh, as he initially invented the dance as a protest to the way western dance had evolved.
Tapping into the collective fear of nuclear holocaust that traumatized Japan after the war, showing disfigured characters would in one way or another be provocative then, but with today’s standards it probably wouldn’t create the same reaction… but there are other topics in this grand movie that still today will provoke an audience. Try grave robbing, two gender Siamese twins, incest and necrophillic relations for a starter!
Starting off with a superb collage of some awesome spiders to get your flesh creeping during the opening sequence, Ishii next slings us into pitch black as we hear Hirosuke Hitomi [Teruo Yoshida, the leading man from Hajime Sato’s excellent GOKE – The Bodysnatcher from Hell 1968] tell us that this tale starts in a gray room, an unusual room… The camera pans down from the eyes of a woman, eyes that will get those Asian horror references going trough your mind, it continues down revealing the woman’s naked breasts before finally landing on the protruding blade of a knife aimed at us the audience. A great mix of emotional signals evoked, curiosity, lust and fear.
The knife is a fake and this somewhat summarizes the movie, as the theatrics of the prop knife metaphorically refer to things not being as real as they may seem, something that will be revealed in great magnitude at the end of the movie. Hitomi is in prison for reasons untold, and in his cell he keeps having visions of a strange island, an island he also has drawn perfectly from his confusing memories of the place.
This is where Rampo’s Detective plot comes into action with the horror/grotesque. Hitomi goes about his task to solve the questions concerning the strange island, and at the same time is drawn into a murder mystery after fleeing the prison and meeting Hatsuyo [Teruko Yumi in her only acting part]. Hatsuyo is a trapeze artist at the travelling circus, and she also knows of the strange island Hitomi is trying to find for she has memories of the location too
A knife that is thrown from out of nowhere strikes down Hatsuyo and Hitomi takes to the run. During this escape he reads in the paper about the death of Genzaburô Komoda, a wealthy businessman who looks to be Hitomi’s doppelganger. This is later confirmed twice as the blind masseuse identifies the swastika scar Hitomi has on his sole as identical to one Komoda had, and shortly thereafter as Hitomi plunders Komoda’s grave to check the scar and switch identities with the deceased mirror image.
The switch of identities gives place for some really out of place slapstick tomfoolery that comes across as ridiculous in the context. If I wanted screwball monks reacting to ”ghosts” I’d have chosen a Ricky Lau or Samo Hung Kam-Bo Kung Fu horror comedy instead. But it’s only there for a few moments and then the story straightens out again, as Chiyoko [Michiko Kobata, also in her only movie role], the wife of Komodo tends to her seriously misdiagnosed, now inexplicably resurrected husband. But pulling off his plan isn’t easy as Hitomi thought, as he is constantly near to being exposed as he tries to get away with the masquerade. The traits of Komodo’s everyday life, Chiyodo the wife, Shizuko the lover, [Yukie Kagawa from Nobuo Nakagawa’sGhost Story of the Snake Woman 1968, and Shunya Ito’sFemale Convict Scorpion Jailhouse 41, the sequel to his Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion both 1972 with the magnificent Kaji Meiko] all become obstacles on his way.
Settling into his new persona he continues his investigations, but very now and then weird things happen, snakes attack the maids, disfigured beings sneak around the house, and Chiyodo dies under strange circumstances once again leaving Hitomi with a mysterious murder on his trail.
He has to make a move fast and at midpoint, Hitomi makes the decision that they have to make a trip to the island… On the beach he realizes that his visions have not been dreams, he has been there before. And this is where the movie if possible gets even more cryptic and bizarre, as the enigmatic Jôgorô [here's the splendid Tatsumi Hijikata] greets him on the shore. Hitomi is treated to a grand tour that shows him the strange beings living there, beings that Jôgorô has created. During this first night on the island Hitomi comes upon a strange house where he finds Hideko, a woman that looks just like the dead Hatsuyo! As his lust for her draws him closer he realises that she is intact a Siamese twin, joined at the hip with a hideously disfigured monster.
Eventually the terrifying secret of Hitomi’s background is exposed creating a spiral of emotions, as his world is shook to the foundations. Let me just say that the twist is family oriented! Hitomi’s bond to the horrific island and it’s inhabitants force him to take actions he never thought possible, and to put a terrific spin on the final act, guess who has come along for the ride in a sudden subplot about the investigations into where all the missing girls of Tokyo have gone? Yes, you may have guessed it, Rampo’s infamous detective Kogorô Akechi! The Komodo family manservant Shinhichi [Minoru Ohki who also starred as Akechi in Fukasaku’sBlack Lizard] and through as series of flashbacks he renders the mystery, reveals the plot, exposes the culprits and brings light to the story. It’s cunning, unexpected and wonderful twist, as Rampo and Ishii don’t even give the lead protagonist Hiromi the satisfaction of explaining or solving his quest. But he does go out with a bang; I’ll give him that. (There’s even a nod at Akechi’s nemesis Back Lizard in the flashbacks) Now how’s that for a surprising use of sub plot in the last fifteen minutes!
So there you go, a bizarre, disturbing, trippy, stunningly visual, and very enigmatic movie that comes highly recommended. Obviously you should take the banned labelling with a pinch of salt now that you know the origins of that story, but at the same time you will for sure find that the movie is a magnificent piece of film to be finally enjoyed once again in the leisure of your own home. Every now and again you will find yourself thinking of the imagery of Jodorowsky’sHoly Mountain 1973 or Hyeon-il Kang’sMago 2002 to name a few, tantalising and haunting images that you will struggle to make sense of, but that’s part of the reason we watch these trippy movies isn’t it! For those crazy plots, shocking revelations and mind-expanding imagery.
Image:
2.35: Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio:
Dolby Digital Mono2.0, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles, or a commentary track by film critic Mark Schilling
Extras:
A fascinating half-hour documentary on Teuro Ishii featuring Shinya Tsukamoto (who starred in Ishii’sBlind Beast vs. Dwarf 2001 as Kogorô Akechi, based on a story by Rampo) and Minoru Kawasaki, the director of The Calamari Wrestler 2004. Ishii at the 2003 Far East Film Festival, the Original Theatrical Trailer, a poster gallery of Ishii movies and biographies on Ishii and Rampo.
For more on the iconography of J-Horror check out my article on the ConstructingHorror.com website.
Of all the movies Mario Bava directed, this shelved, “lost” movie is ironically enough one of my top five Bava flicks. Sure his early Gialli are great, his Euro Goth flicks, filled with those masterful compositions and vivid colour schemes too, and who can forget the pulp-cool classics Planet of the Vampires 1965 and Danger Diabolik 1968. (Which make up two more on that top five list!) It’s all great stuff! If you still don't know of Mario Bava, then you really need to get away from your computer screen and in front of your DVD to check him out NOW! Bava's movies definitely are among some of the best looking movies ever to come out of Italy, all due to his passionate love of cinematography, lighting and composition. Looking back at his cinematic legacy I definitely feel that this "lost" movie is of his most engaging films ever directed, and it packs an ending so unexpected that it will startle you.
It’s said that Rabid Dogs became the long lost masterpiece since the movie was shelved and hidden away in the vaults after that producer Roberto Loyola died. Well that’s not quite true, it was shelved and somewhat forgotten for decades, but Loyola didn’t die, he went bankrupt, hence his movies being seized and locked in the vaults, along with a decent number of other movies too.
Several years later, in 1996, Lea Lander (Maria in the movie) somehow obtained rights to several movies thought long to be lost, and with the assistance of a young genre lover Peter Blumenstock, who you may remember released those great Beat at Cinecitta albums back in the late nineties on his Lucertola label, did all they could to get this wonderful piece of film back in the public eye. Blumenstock managed to secure the DVD rights - a very bold thing to do for a young cineaste as this still was the early days of Digital Versatile Disc, and there was no real market for Italian genre pieces like this one at the time. Well there obviously was, even if very limited. But who dare’s wins right! Back in the seventies Lander was the girlfriend of an elderly German gentleman whom invested in the movie on the terms that she was given the lead role in the movie. As Bava had worked with Lander previously on Blood and Black Lace 1964, he accepted the offer, luckily for us today!
Through his Luccertola lable, Blumenstock released the movie and in a splendid way DVD history was made as this movie definitely opened the floodgates for further genre title releases.
A few years on, Mario Bava’s son, Lamberto Bava - a director in his own, and long time Bava producer Alfredo Leone, purchased the rights, re-cut and shot new scenes for Rabid Dogs according to notes left by the late Bava putting together what is referred to as the definitive version of the movie now released under the name Kidnapped. Obviously this disc is a must for Bava fan’s that need to have all his movies, but in my opinion, the Rabid Dogs version is the one to hold, as this stays the closest to the material available when it was shelved, apart from the tinted title-sequence featuring Blumenstock’s girlfriend at the time weeping behind a curtain.(But given the chance to hear Tim Lucas discuss this movie on a commentary track, makes the Anchor Bay edtion very attractive too.) There’s something uncanny and disturbing when you try to tail footage shot some THIRTY years later on to a movie like this. Just remember how god-awful the Special Edition of Night of the Living Dead 1968 was when they inserted a load of new bullshit into that movie. That’s one limited edition disc which only got played once before it was instantly sold further at the second hand film store. You don’t mess around with a classic!
The action kicks in straight away as we are literally thrown inside a mans car as drives it rapidly down the road, honking his horn, and looking at something in the back seat, and checking his watch. We will later learn that this man is Riccardo [Riccardo Cucciolla] A delicate edit from Riccardo’s watch to Doc’s [Maurice Poli] watch where he is faking engine trouble as he waits for a designated car to pass by. The car passes and Doc jumps into his car where three other gang members are waiting. They follow the car in front of them and as it pulls up in front of a building, they rush out with their weapons drawn and as Thirtytwo [George Eastman as Luigi Montefiori] lets out a burst of shots, Doc flinches, which perhaps could be interpreted that he is not the most prone to violence of the four, making it clear that he’s the brains, “they” are the muscle. A third gang member Blade [Don Backy as Aldo Caponi] rushes up to the car, grabbing the briefcase from the man in the cars grasp. But not before stabbing him to death with a huge stiletto knife. The cops are closing in, the gang return to their getaway car, and set off only to have their perfect escape shattered as security guards at the building shoot their driver, and also puncture the gas tank (no, this isn’t an American movie, so the car doesn’t explode in an inferno of flames.) Obviously the car chokes to a halt a short while later and the now group of three bail out seeking refuge in a parking lot as the cops start sealing off the exits. Again we see shots of Riccardo driving through the traffic, glancing over his shoulder at the object in the back seat. Meanwhile back in the parking lot standoff, Blade once again gets active with his stiletto and kills one of the two women they now have taken hostage. Repelled in shock the Cops back off as the villains shove themselves into a new car taking the surviving female, Maria [Lea Lander] with them.
By coincidence they come upon a traffic light and in a cunning move to ditch their getaway car and shake off the cops the mobsters all stumble into the car at the red light… It’s no real shock that we find Ricardo behind the wheel, and he is now yet another of their hostages. And the bundle in the back seat? It’s a kid, a sick kid that Riccardo says he’s taking to the hospital. All of this in the first twelve minutes, gives you a concept of how fast this movie rolls.
The band of characters take off for the countryside, Doc says to Riccardo that they will let him take the kid, Tino o the hospital when they are safe. At the same time Blade and Thirtytwo make moves and provocative suggestions towards Maria. This adds to the tension along with the police helicopters swishing over head, police motorcycles driving past, the traffic jams and the toll booths that they have to get though without being bust or exposed by their kidnap victims. Several opportunities for escape are given for both Maria and Riccardo, and when Maria manages to make a run for it she ends up being chased by the manic Blade and Thirtytwo. Eastman by the way, is completely radiant here as the psychopathic and sadistic Thirtytwo, possibly his best villain ever in my opinion. Needless to say the two thugs catch up with her and Maria learns the hard way what it’s like to be a woman on the wrong side of a gritty, Italian exploitation flick. Back in the car their journey across the country via torment and paranoia continues. Riccardo tends and pleads for the child, and constantly battles Doc for the role of dominating male in the confined space.
Finally the tension cracks, the floodgates burst open, the anxiety within the group brings it all crashing down, and in the final reel you will find out why Riccardo is the coldest sonofabitch of them all. Once you think the movie has ended it turns out that it really has just begun.
Claustrophobia plays a large part in Rabid Dogs, as the majority of the action takes place inside the moving car. In many ways you could imagine Last house on the Left trapped in a moving car! There’s nowhere to go but forward, and your every move is scrutinized by doped up maniacs who don’t flinch to whip out their stilettos and slice a serious gash in your body. Then add the finer details, like the abundance of master shots, it’s all half’s, close up’s or extreme close-ups leaving no space to breath within the frame. As the majority of the film takes place inside the moving car where the heat almost can be felt, the sour stench of the constant sweating people in the car smelled, it is a very enticing movie indeed. Set Stelvio Cipriani’s haunting score to that, and you have nerve wrecking tension at it’s finest.
Rabid Dogs is ferocious to say the least. It is dark, it's gritty, it's pessimistic and highly nihilistic. It lacks most of the arty tenderness and gentle flow associated with Bava’s previous works but instead holds a more in your face harsh gritty documentary tone. If his previous movies where delicate bandages, this one is the oozing scab you can't stop picking at no matter how much it stings and burns. And that’s a good thing, as Bava took a step away from his previous lush looking movies to create this real gem of grindhouse cinema. Never the less it did stay on the shelf for almost twenty years making it mature with time like a good wine.
Image:
Being mastered primarily from various sources, the print looks thereafter too, but keep in mind, when this edition was released it was the only way to see the movie. In later years several other releases have been digitally re-mastered and therefore hold better image quality. Although the Anchor Bay version of Rabid Dogs released in 2007, does have an audio commentary track by Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog, (the magazine which any self respecting cineast will read with a passion) and if there is one person in the word who is the official go to guy when it comes to Mario Bava, you go to Tim Lucas. Period. If you are not familiar with his gigantic study and documentation of Bava [Mario Bava – All the Colors of the Dark] they I pity you, and advise you to seek it out before you do anything else.
Audio:
Italian Dialogue, 2.0 Stereo, English or German subtitles optional
Extras:
A trailer for the Luccertola DVD releases, Filmographies, and essays on Mario Bava by the masterful Tim Lucas, a study of the restoration by Peter Blumenstock.
A young woman spends the weekend with a Doctor in an attempt to unveil his evil ways, although get’s more than she bargained for when the erotic game takes a serious turn. Slowly but surely roles are changed and a fiendish plan is set in motion.
Me:
Femina Ridens could easily be viewed as being degrading towards women, as it does deal with a topic that will at first estrange women and could be perceived as objectifying them. This would be an easy statement to make about this movie and many like it in the ”exploitation” genre. But if you where to claim that this movie is an insult towards women, then it’s a fair guess that you have missed the point of the movie (or fell asleep before the final reel) as I would claim that the major plot twist makes this movie a highly feminist movie. After all who is using whom for their own needs here? Who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist?
Maria [Dagmar Lassander] is an eager journalist who get’s an opportunity to spend the weekend with Dr. Sayer [Philippe Leroy, who you possibly saw in Dario Argento’s pale finale to the Mother’s Trilogy, The Mother of Tears, Umberto Lenzi’s splendid Gang War in Milan or Lilliana Cavani’sThe Night Porter, yeah the one that jumpstarted the Nazisploitation genre], whom she plans to spend a few nights and days with so that she can get the scoop on him. She suspects that he is a murderer who kills his victims as he climaxes during sex, and she's going to bring him in. Or at least that is her initial plan...
Getting into action, Maria goes home with Sawyer but soon finds that he’s once again setting his sinister plans and sexual fantasies into action as she's lured into a fiendish world of sadomasochistic eroticism. At first she resists, but with time she starts to come around, only to learn that Sayer instead rejects her once she has submitted to him. Maria becomes desperate, and continues to play along with Sayers sadomasochistic games, and in one weak moment he confides in her and shows her photographs of his previous victims…
Now terrified of becoming Sayer's next victim, Maria tries to commit suicide by downing a fistful of pills instead. This is where things start to get really interesting. When Sayers realises that Maria dying would deprave him of his latest sex slave, he saves her. But this rescue isn’t salvation but instead becomes his damnation. He starts to feel emotional towards Maria, after all he shared his secret of the murders with her, and she listened to him tell the tale of his childhood memories, she knows him on a deeper level. (Which could be of use for her invest gory newspaper article!)
Dr Sayer, also grows as a character, in his fear of loosing his sexual play thing, he tends to her and nurses her back to health, and the two find themselves growing closer and closer. But subtly Maria is taking the dominating role instead of Sayer. It is now she who resists his approaches, as he moves in for intimacy, she backs off, taunting him in the same way he taunted her earlier.
Finally the climax to their erotic sadomasochistic game, in a sudden twist that you possibly may have seen coming, but at the same time a highly satisfactory climax, and the same one I claim makes this movie a feminist movie. Ages ago academics like Cynthia Freedland and Laura Mulvey argued that classic filmmaking is dominated by the “Male Gaze”, i.e. Women are only objects on screen for a male audience to google at, hence the starting accusation of this piece that it could easily be seen as a classical movie where females are only there to bring a voyeuristic and erotic element to the movie. But as I also pointed out the roles change and with the final scenes the tables have been turned on “us” the male audience, and if we follow Carol J. Clover’s writings on the female role in “horror cinema” she points out that we actually accept the fact that we identify with the “final girl/women in peril”, hence rendering her an active, valuable character and in no means passive and unimportant. That is exactly what happens here, as the final scene is played out. The rush of insight makes us realise that Maria is not a victim in yet another cheesy chauvinistic exploitation flick, but a strong, determined predator with a very obvious agenda that she is following in a splendid genre piece that plays with traditional gender roles and prejudice inherited from previous entries in the genre.
Trashy, 60’s pop arty, bold and an excellent movie to say the least. The cinematography by Carlo and Sante Achilli is fabulous, often reminiscent of Gialli photography, and relying heavily on symmetrical compositions to create stern images that go hand in hand with the strict and spartan modernism of Dr. Sayer's house of sin.
Producer Guiseppe Zaccariello only produced a handful of movies, among them Mario Bava’s milestone Giallo A Bay of Blood [1971], Rino Di Silvestro’s Nazisploitation Deported Women of the SS Special Section [1976], and Joe D’Amato’s Jungle war/Spaghetti Western hybrid Tough to Kill [1978]. Zaccariello not only produced, but also wrote scripts, and got a screenwriter credit on all three movies which all, by coincidence, just like Schivazappa’s Femina Ridens feature great scores by maestro Stelvio Cipriani.
If you are into that Freudian analysis thing, then you’ll have field day with this movie. It’s riddled with male/female emancipation as it uses archetypical gender roles and the prejudice that lies within those roles, subtle symbolism, especially the fabulous scene where Dr. Sayer walks into the crotch of a giant statue of a woman lying on her back only to have razor sharp sliding doors slam shut behind him in a monstrous Vagina Dentate. Once the doors open, only Sayers skeleton remains… Make what you want of it, but it’s a marvellous scene.
The Sculpture - Installation ”Hon-en Katedral” (literally she-a cathedral) by the artist collective Niki de Saint Phalle / Jean Tinguely / Per Olof Ultvedt was re-produced for the movie, as the original once stood at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1966. After entering the giant sculpture through the vagina visitors could enjoy a cinema, a rollercoaster ride, gaze upon a goldfish pond or buy soda from a vending machine. Now that should give you an impression of size!
As you may recall from my bit on Luciano Ercoli’s The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion, Dagmar Lassander never really made an imprint on me in any of her movies, (even though she was in two Fulci movies and that first tickling Ercoli Giallo) but this is possibly one of the exceptions, as she really makes this movie work and her acting is top notch as she slowly shifts from victim to perpetrator. She really sells the part perfectly, and instead of the regular “Oh I’m in Shock!” face, she actually manages to act with her facial expressions here too. She is fully believable as she curiously sets foot into Dr. Sayers world, terrified as he starts to enslave and break her down, flirtatious and sexy as she gives in to his plan, only to set her own in motion and stand victorious and content after her triumph. Once again this transition and performance is what sells the shift into a feminist theory discussion held above.
This edition claims to be a restored version, and for a change it’s not a marketing trick (which the UNCUT – UNRATED stamps usually signal to me when I’m choosing editions to buy), as the team at Shameless with the use of a varied bin of source materials, and constant dialogue with director Piero Schivazappa. This all led up to their screening for him, where he held with script in hand, later responded; “It is as faithful as it can be to the original script”, “This IS the version of my film to watch.” Once again Shameless bring a fascinating movie back to the intended vision of the filmmakers and make it available for fans of the genre after a painstaking labour of love is presented.
Image:
1.85 : 1, Remastered for 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio:
English Dialouge, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Extras:
The customary assortment of Trailers for other titles available from Shameless: Tonino Valerii’sMy Dear Killer, Corrado Farina’sBaba Yaga (which Shamless also restored to HIS vision of the movie, not the butchered version available previously), Lucio Fulci’sBlack Cat, Guiliano Carnimeno’sRatMan, and both of Massimo Dallamano’sVenus in Furs, and What Have They Done to Your Daughters. There’s also the Shameless Redux trailer for The Frightened Woman, but below I give you the original grindhouse trailer for your entertainment.
An antique dealer plans on spending a quiet weekend in the countryside but finds his plans shattered when a young woman accidentally crashes into his motorbike at a gas station. Edna offers George a ride to his destination, but on the way plans are changed once again and he ends up driving her to her planned visit to her sister who lives in the countryside. The road there unfortunately takes them the wrong way and as they stop to question at a farmyard a stranger wanders up from the river and towards the car. A stranger who has been dead for a month!
Me:
Jorge Grau's excellent “Undead” (I'll be saying undead from here on, as nobody in the movie ever says the word zombie. But we all know that they are zombies don't we!) movie Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, with all of its many a.k.a. titles is a great piece of genre cinema, and one of my personal favourites of the genre. Following in the wake of the groundbreaking Night of the Living Dead, it's possibly one of the best entries into the genre brought to recognition by George A. Romero in 1969. Luckily it's one of those Italian-Spanish coproduction’s that relies more on story than gut munching effects of the later wave of the zombie genre. Not that those movies are bad, quite the opposite, the apocalyptic world of the flesh eater is a tantalising one to say the least.
Producer Edmondo Amati, (producer of such greats like Fulci'sA Lizard in a Woman's Skin 1971, One on Top of the Other 1969, Alberto De Martino'sThe Antichrist 1974 and Antonio Margheriti'sCannibal Apocalypse 1980) decided that he must to get in on the zombie niche after Romero's movie became a hit, and in Spain he found his perfect candidate, the young Jorge Grau. Grau had a decent background in movies, not the horror genre per say, but a majority of his works had elements of the fantastic in them and had received an overall fine reception. Amati approached him with the question “Do you like Night of the Living Dead?” A movie that Grau indeed was a fan of, but as he was trying his hardest to get his Ceremonia sangrienta 1973 (aka The Legend of Blood Castle) off the ground since 1964 when he first heard of the Countess Bathory legend during a film festival in Czechoslovakia, the two could not collaborate on the project Amati was trying to pitch. Some years later after the completion of Ceremonia sangrienta, Amati approached Grau once again with the Sandro Continenza penned script, asking if he still liked Night of the Living Dead. Giving Grau a free hand to change the script and take the time he needed to make it more realistic, the two started their relationship, which would end up being Let Sleeping Corpses Lie.
Made in an age before the realistic gore exploded onto screens with movies like George A. Romero’s sequel Dawn of the Dead 1978, Andrea Bianchi’sNights of Terror 1981, Marino Girolami's eclectic Cannibal/Zombie hybrid Zombie Holocaust 1980and Lucio Fulci’s epic mother of all Euro Zombie flicks Zombi2 1979, Grau chooses, much like Romero to rely heavily on the realism and everyday drama of the people caught up in this strange new world rather than focusing on the specific gut munching and reigning chaos of a zombie infested landscape.
Let sleeping Corpses Lie is a pretty straight forward story, George [the fantastic Ray Lovelock] sets out for a weekend in the countryside, getting away fro the stress of inner-city life, which is made quite obvious during the start of the movie, the citizens walk aimlessly, stare blankly as they await busses, in the heavy trafficked core of modern civilization. People are seen wearing facemasks to avoid breathing in the fumes (which interestingly enough makes one think of the swine flu pandemic and fear that we are living with right now. It makes the movie contemporary even today) the further George gets out of town on his motorbike, cross cut with images of fuming industrial towers, urban decay, dead birds, the imagery lightens up and instead of the close-ups of decay, we start seeing wide shots of open country, fresh air and swaying fields. George is closing in on his safe haven, but when stopping at a petrol station to fill up his bike Edna accidentally crashes him into. Edna [star of Massimo Dallamano’s What Have You Done to Solange? 1972 and Luigi Cozzi’s top notch Giallo The Killer Must Kill Again 1975, and who also won the best actress award for her part in the movie at the 1974 Sitges film festival] offers to drive him to his destination. But they end up going the wrong way, into the middle of nowhere. George gets out at a nearby farm to ask for directions and two important storylines are introduced. The ecological cause of the forthcoming outbreak is established, which has George make a political statement. Don’t mess around with Mother Nature. No sooner has he said his than Edna has her first encounter with the undead, as Guthrie [the recently deceased Fernando Hillbeck], a local tramp tries to attacks her. Edna manages to evade him and runs up to the farm too, but George and the farmer can’t believe what Edna tells them, and laugh off the shocking experience she just had, as Guthrie couldn’t possibly have attacked her. He died almost a month ago.
A subplot with Edna’s sister Katie [Jeanine Mestre] is set in motion. Katie, a recovering drug addict has been forced out into the countryside by her husband Martin, [José Lifante] and Edna is on the way there to convince her to sign into a rehab programme and get of the drugs once and for all. But she just can’t seem to stay of the smack and as she secretly prepares to shoot up in the barn, she finds herself in the dark stood face to face with Guthrie! This encounter leads up to the death of Martin and it’s at this point of the movie that the real antagonist makes his entry, The Inspector portrayed with bravura by Arthur Kennedy. The Inspector quickly makes up his mind that these city folks, these damned hippies with their longhair and drugs, are the real culprits and that they have killed Martin, not the fantasy figure that Katie claims did. Now this in one cop who always gets his man. We can understand that from the way he moves, talks and acts. He isn’t afraid to go out on a limb to bust a case, and his loyal men are always standing by, ready to act on his every demand. Just watch as he lays pressure on Katie, trying to make her confess, not giving a damn that she just watched her husband be killed.
The movie moves forward as George and Edna try to figure out the whereabouts of Guthrie as both sisters now claim he is the real killer After an infant unexplainably in a fit of rage bites George at the nearby hospital he takes Dr Duffield [Vincente Vega] back to the farm where scientists explain the strange experiments they are conducting in the fields outside the village. Using ultrasonic radiation they are fighting off insects and bugs, who instead of eating crops go insane and kill each other instead when they hear the noises the strange machine makes. Really it’s a modified combine harvester, but it looks believable, and it gives a possible reason for the dead rising from their tombs.
George and Edna’s quest leads them to a crypt under the village church, and low and behold, they find him, the undead Guthrie. This is followed by a wonderfully long sequence where they battle their way out of the underground tomb chased by several more undead that Guthrie awakens by wiping blood on their foreheads. Once again their success in the horror narrative is their damnation in the drama narrative as the Inspector arriving at the cemetery finds his officer sent out to trail the suspects gutted and three burned corpses. Yeah, the undead now dead again.
Finally they all gather for a fantastic ending with several shocking events back at the local hospital and the movie comes to its climax with a bang to say the least. In some ways the ending is kind of silly, but at the same time it’s the ending we always wanted for Ben [Duane Jones] in the movie that inspired this one to start with, Night of the Living Dead. Even though the special effects by Gianetto De Rossi are quite restrained, I’m sure that in 1974 they where quite shocking, even the masterpiece from the other side of the Atlantic, Tobe Hooper’sThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 isn’t’ as visually spectacular as this movie is. And the movie is a wonderful time capsule of De Rossi’s realistic effect wizardry only a few years before he really took it to the limit in those splendid Italian genre pieces.
Symbolism and negative counterparts play a part in Grau’s movie. During the very start of the movie we see a fertility stature the symbol of life, a few moments later the camera focuses on a haunting painting which look like a strange blend of the iconic atomic bomb mushroom and a harrowed face of a dead person. Also in a wider perspective it’s somewhat ironic to start a movie that ends on such a down note with a symbol of life. The struggle for human survival is conquered not by the monsters, but by humans themselves. The Cops, who are supposed to be the good guys, turn out to be the bad guys. It’s all wonderfully sinister isn’t it, and one can only imagine the degree of social criticism Grau brought into the movie here, as the idea that the police force represents Franco and his dictatorship over the people of Spain isn’t too far from bay.
Much like The Exorcist 1973, Jaws 1975, and the recent Swedish hit Let the Right One In 2008, it’s the realism of the drama that makes the movie work. The movie is set in a real world and is actually a drama with horror themes and elements. Also i's the very ordinary characters who help drive the movie. George is a simple antique dealer who only wants’ to get to his rural house in the countryside to get away from the hectic tempo of the inner city. Edna is an everyday woman on her way to visit her sister who also lives in the countryside. There are no superpowers at play here, no secret army training, no suitcases full of weapons, just two common people in the middle of a terrifying setting. It’s the simple choices that they make that make them believable characters. Running for their lives, much like you and I would do.
The explanation for the undead coming back to life is also quite reasonable, and in many ways a critical standing point. The human element is to blame, not a freak of nature, but our own need to control our environment. An ecological theme that we are to blame for our own downfall much like in Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Jean Rollin’sGrapes of Death 1978. And it works, because we can relate to it, much like we still relate to discussions concerning the environment still today. It’s easier to swallow than radiation from outer space isn’t it?
One of the more sophisticated tools used by Grau in Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, is that George is a sceptic, it’s not until we pass half of the movie that George actually believes that the dead have come back to life, and from then on starts fighting with his life at stake. This is a cunning device as we grow into identification with George as he grows into the believer, his scepticism is the same as ours, there can’t be monsters, but as he changes and develops as a character we go along on the ride with him and he bring us into the story. As he comes to terms of the reality of monsters, so do we.
All of these splendid storytelling tools are used to crate a magnificent movie that still almost forty years later makes it a really disturbing, believable, engaging and highly entertaining movie. A masterpiece of the horror genre to say the least. A definitive must see movie for any fan of early European Zombie Horror.
Finally a word on Giuliano Sorgini’s excellent soundtrack. (Sample above!) It’s honestly one of the most impressive scores conceived for an Italian genre movie because where it starts out as a rock funky jazz thing so typical of the Italian movie scene at the time, it quickly degenerates into a terrifying mixture of primitive growling and guttural sounds which are really disturbing and go perfectly with the images of the undead feasting on the bleeding flesh of mankind. Great stuff, perhaps not as proggish as Goblin or as melodic as the Fabio Frizzi and Alexander Blonkensteiner tunes of the later wave of gut-munchers, but definitely a disturbing soundtrack for a fascinating movie.
