R.I.P. Captain Phil Harris

One of the few TV shows that I actually got excited about these past few years is the Discovery Show DEADLIEST CATCH. Those guys rule and are completely awesome - and that's just them going about their day job. They pull off tasks that I couldn't manage even if I really wanted to.

But saddly one of the lead characters passed away yesterday after suffering a massive stroke at the end of January.

Captain Phil Harris was without a doubt one of the most fascinating characters on the show, and I'm honestly saddened by the news. Even though a dozen hours of TV can't define a person's real character, he was one of the highlights of the show and in my oppinion a very likable human being, making ends meet at whatever cost needed. Stern, but fair. A No Bull kind of guy.

My thoughts go out to his sons, family and crew at this sad time.

Rest In Peace Captain Harris. Rest in Peace.

My Fifteen Frames of Fame…

On the documentary Dario Argento: An Eye For Horror directed by Leon Ferguson from 2000, there is one short edit of Dario Argento signing a UK Quad Poster for his 1971 movie Four Flies on Grey Velvet. The guy just off camera removing the UK Quad for Cat O’Nine Tails is me… I never even made it on screen.

Not that I needed to be in there - with the rest of that great cast, I obviously have nothing to add as a mere fanboy.

But what puzzles me is that the guy behind the camera was an Italian, and could hardly talk any English at all. But he still managed to inquire if he could roll as Dario signed stuff for me, as he was making a documentary of The Maestro and I’d brought a pretty big pile of stuff brought to the table. So during this same meeting the camera guy shot a whole lot of material with Argento signing stuff for me and our conversation about the artworks for the various films. Some that Argento obviously preferred more to others making it was a fun and somewhat different meeting as the artwork became the area of discussion instead of the regular movie chitchat. This was the third timeI had met Argento which meant I was quite at ease talking to him and the direttore della fotografia also stuck around to shoot the interview I conducted with Dario a short while later. (Which I think was the one published in Delirium #5 as this was at the time Stendhal Syndrome was doing the festival circuit.)

I have often wondered what ever happened to the Italian camera guy’s project, and why it ever derailed. He isn’t anywhere in the credits, and his documentary obviously vanished off the map, only to have the footage turn up in a completely different documentary made four-five years later.

Never the less, that’s the way stuff moves in the documentary business, and at least someone bought his footage, and I finally got my, even if only in the outer space area, the one reserved for Gialli killers and stalkers, fifteen frames of fame.

Well only I know that that’s me there, but on a personal level it’s still pretty satisfying.

Shock Waves

Shock Waves

Directed by: Ken Wiederhorn

USA, 1977

Horror, 85 min

Distributed by: Blue Underground

The Germans - Stern, ruthless and methodical to the bone. To say the least, the Germans at least gave us one useable thing out of the Second World War, apart from the Autobahn infrastructure, The Nazi. The Nazi is the most elaborate of all archetypal characters. You don’t need to set up anything with this character, just angle the camera at them from a lower angle and you have a haunting image of evil looming on the screen. There’s no back story needed, no character traits have to be explained, just shoot the image, and the audience will fill in the few blanks and cringe with recognition as they know the Nazi is the most evil of all… and when you are dealing with a Nazi that’s come back from the dead, they the amplifier just got cranked up to eleven.

Evil Nazi’s are a splendid tool to use, that’s why they are so frequently utilised by filmmaker, writers and comic book creators. Simply because they are our most powerful emotional, historical and cultural signifier of the foul core of pure evil – unless you are into all that White Power, supreme race bullshit of course. This is obviously why Mike Mignola has the Nazi forces exploring the Occult, and being the main antagonist in his Hellboy comic, and the first movie, this is why Tommy Wirkola uses Nazi Zombies in his smash hit Dead Snow 2009, why Steve Barker has Nazi ghosts in Outpost 2008, why John Landis werewolves in David’s dream sequence in An American Werewolf in London 1981 are dressed in Nazi uniforms, why George Lucas clad the upper ranks of the Empire of Star Wars 1977 in Nazi influenced regalia, why Jesus Franco put them at the bottom of a lake in Oasis of the Dead 1981, and why Jean Rollin used them in Zombie Lake 1981, why so many got so excited about the Richard Raphoorst’s now abandoned Worst Case Scenario and why the Nazisploitation genre always managed to churn out the most vile villains. The Nazis are the definitive evil character.

Which obviously is why Ken Wiederhorn riddled the ocean with Nazi Zombies in his 1977 movie debut feature Shock Waves.

Shock Waves starts with a classic final rescue scene indicating that one person at least will get out alive… as Rose [Brooke Adams - Phillip Kaufman’s excellent Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978, and David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone 1983] is found floating adrift on a small raft. She’s pulled onboard a fishing boat as she writhes and screams in panic. Some bad shit has apparently gone down, and we will soon learn what as the movie jumps back in time to Captain [the legendary John Carradine] and his tiny crew of Keith [Luke Hapin] and ship cook Dobbs [Don Stout] travel the Caribbean. Moments later a strange phenomenon knocks their boat out of whack unsettling the passengers, and setting the tone of creepiness to come.

Obviously strange stuff starts taking place, the passengers start to complain and after the boat is damaged by the passing ghost ship, the Captain is found dead in the waters as the rest of them take refuge on a remote island. On the island they find a seemingly abandoned mansion, and stumble upon the only person left on the island, a strange man donning a huge facial scar. [Hammer legend Peter Cushing] It’s also around this time that the zombies start to make an appearance, first taking out Ship Cook Dobbs. Cushing tells them to get the heck off the island, and as Rose goes for a evening swim in a lake, she finds the body of Dobbs floating in the water with a Nazi insignia held firmly in his dead hand. The few survivors lead on by Keith return to the hotel only to notice the swastika flags hanging in the main hall. Cushing appears once again, and like all bad villains he spills the beans without the Keith and company actually forcing him. Cushing turns out to be an SS Commander who was in charge of creating a special immortal task force - the Zombies - who he had command of during the war. As the war ended he was told to flee with his army of the undead, who all roamed the seas until their boat smashed into the reef off the island. With that said he tells the survivors that he at least gave them the chance to escape, something that is impossible now. Loading his pistol of fine German steel – his Luger gun - he tells them to leave, and if he sees them again he will shoot to kill.

As if Cushing’s threat wasn’t enough, they now have the army of the dead to avoid too. An army that pretty soon goes on a rampage after they decide that they don’t need a commander anymore. The movie more or less becomes a survival horror flick from here on, with the petty band of survivors becoming lesser in total forever ten minutes that goes by. This is where the danger of the opening sequence with survivor Rose being rescued comes back and bites the movie in the ass. There’s always a huge gamble at stake when you open your movie in this manner, as I know whom I can expect to pull though. And if you don’t take the time to build the supporting characters around that single survivor, they I’m not really give a damn about them. I feel nothing for the characters, and only want the carnage to begin. But Wiederhorn has a surprise ending in stock, an ending that is subtle, but still giving the movie a down beat finale and leaving you with a question to what really happened on the island.

All in all it’s a decent little flick. Perhaps not the most scary movie, but it does build slowly, setting, and sustaining a rather decent atmosphere which on many occasion actually holds a very European feeling to it. Carradine and Cushing only feature in the movie for a short time, but it’s a great move to use such acclaimed names in your debut feature, as you can guarantee that you will have those two recognizable names on your marketing material.

The Nazi Army, and their special effects created by Alan Ormsby of Bob Clarke's cult classics Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things 1973 and Dead of Night 1974, along with the delirious Deranged 1974 which Ormsby directed himself together with Jeff Gillen are pretty darned good. Even if they all look like a early nineties EBM band with bleached hair sporting raver goggles on their heads, their wet, bloated soggy appearance is pretty creepy. And speaking about special effects, that’s about as far as it goes. There’s no gratuitous gore or gut munching here at all, not even a single onscreen drop of blood which is a shame, but then again, that’s where the European ball game was at during the time period, and a completely different area all together. Within a couple of years the splatter and gore wave hit the US horror genre hard, and if made just a few years later, Shock Waves could have been a completely different movie. But all in all it plays it straight, avoids cheap gags for comic relief and creates a swell atmosphere for the movie.

Wiederhorn went on to direct college comedy King Frat 1979, a cash in on John Landis Animal House 1978, the thriller Eyes of a Stranger 1981 and the somewhat failed horror comedy, Return of the Living Dead Part II 1988 before settling into a quite decent career directing TV serials.

On a final note, the movies that take liberties with the Nazis fascination for the occult are actually based on “real” divisions and fractions within the party. They where heavily into that stuff, and books like Hitler: Black Magician by Gerald Suster and Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult by Peter Lavonda are fascinating reads which I definitely can recommend.

Image:

Widescreen 1:85.1, anamorphic 16x9

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. English Dialogue, no subtitles

Extras:

From Flipper to Shock Waves – interview with Luke Halpin, Theatrical Trailer, TV Spots, Radio Spots, and Poster Gallery. An commentary track with Wiederhorn, Alan Ormsby and indie filmmaker Fred Olen Ray which is highly entertaining, and not only gives an insight into the movie, but the crew also share some great tales about working with legends like Cushing and Carradine.

Friday Night Fulci Cameo #8

Comics 2 - Dylan Dog

One of my favourite comic books when I was at University back in the day, was the first round of Swedish translated Dylan Dog comics. – Well not only then, even now, as I still read the same trash that I used to read back then. I love that Italian Pulpy Stuff.

Be it academic books, fanzines, magazines, reference books, biographies, of just one of the many hundred goofy books on the horror genre, or my own damned writing… – Oh Yeah did I mention that I’m also part of ConstructingHorror.com, a project dedicated to teaching the dramaturgy of horror?

Not to forget the comic books. All those wonderful comic books, my precious treasures… Stuff that my kid’s are going to be getting into pretty soon. And I’m making it my mission to educate my kids in the world of horror. Both of them have watched Scooby Doo (a great entrance to the world of the dark) and Godzilla movies since they where babies. Without letting them watch stuff that’s too advanced for them too early they so far have a wonderful deck of reference to the Universal Monsters, Lovecraft Mythos, Japanese Kaiju Beasts, Mexican Lucha Libre stars, and as the oldest decided that he’s into the music of Michael Jackson I had to show him John Landis, still to this day excellent music video – Wolfman, Zombies, Vincent Price and all – the youngest son, racing to the screen frantically stating that he wants’ to see the zombies too.

A few months ago Dark Horse released the above mammoth bumper book of The Dylan Dog Case Files. If you like horror, especially Italian horror, and in cartoon form, and by chance have missed Dylan Dog before, then this is a book that you really need to pick up! It compiles the seven issues released over the last few years and has some great Mike Mignola (Hellboy) art, out over the many splendid works of the many Italian illustrators who have contributed to the long running comic book

Tiziano Sclavi created Dylan Dog back in the eighties, and it was completely unlike anything I’d seen before. Creepy, disturbing, and riddled with excellent dark humour, and direct references to the horror films of the time period.

You probably know already that Sclavi’s creation is the basis for Michele Soavi’s 1994 movie Dellamorte Dellamore, not really Dylan Dog, but still the similarities are to obvious to be ignored, and the fact that they got the inspiration for Dylan, English actor Rupert Everett, must have made Scavli and Soavi make high fives all day.

So if you haven’t read it yet I highly recommend it, a book that the seven year old kid and his forty year old dad call The Scary Zombie book, can’t be bad can it.

Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein

Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein
Original Title: Dracula contra Frankenstein
Directed by: Jesus Franco
Spain / France, 1972
Horror/EuroGoth, 88min
Distributed by: Midnight Video

It really is Francomania here right now, I find myself being drawn back to the films I saw years ago, and it really is like reuniting with an old friend. Movies that I once saw too many of in one go and perhaps didn't appreciate as much as I should have. But boy am I enjoying them this time round. At one point I actually started having regrets that I let all those damned VHS tapes go to the rewinding grounds in the sky (I donated them to Monkey Beach actually). I’ve taken it so far that I’m actually listening to Jess Franco and his B-Band on my iPod on the way to and from work! But it's good stuff, and a nice change from the Piero Umilliani & Chet Baker disc I've been playing too long.

Once can’t argue that Franco really has a fascinating spectrum to his catalogue. Not only the cheesy sleazy stuff, the horror flicks, the strange drama stuff, the sexy comedies, the sinister W.I.P. films, the jungle film, but be he’s also been a healthy contributor to the genre that somewhat defines European horror, the niche I refer to as EuroGoth.

I feel that it’s kind of unfair to give Franco’s Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein a hard time, because you can’t really go into a Franco film wanting to experience hardened emotions of fear, shock and dramaturgical fulfilment. It doesn’t work that way, and I can’t really believe the amount of trash that has been written about his movies when you start to poke around the net and even in the books and magazines of say ten-fifteen years back. They all complain about the same thing. Dracula looks silly, Frankenstein’s make up is tacky, and the Wolfman is ridiculous... you get the message.

You have to take it for what it is, and this is one of the keys to understanding his movies. There are a set of themes and motifs that Franco keeps returning too, and until you know these, you won’t get it. The mad scientist trying to recreate the face of his loved one, the widower seeking revenge for the death of her beloved partner, the seductive - but complex female and so on. Then there's the returning characters like the Red Lip Detectives, The Countess, Dr. Orloff, Al Pereira, the Jazz club/Cabaret scenes etc. etc to name a few. Before you have a knowledge or insight into these motifs, characters and traits, you probably won’t enjoy the show, or get the full magnitude of their intent.

A majority of criticism against Franco is that he constantly remakes the same film over and over again – The Awful Dr. Orloff 1962 has been remade with the same base theme several times up to Faceless 1987. The avenging lover was remade several times as Miss Muerte 1966 and as She Killed in Ecstasy 1971 and so on. You get the point. Now this shouldn’t’ really become a foundation for debate, as people rarely criticise, say Picasso for painting several similar themed paintings over and over again, you rarely criticise your favourite band for sounding as they did on the last couple of albums, you rarely criticise Hammer Studios for using the same casts and location over and over again, you rarely criticize your favourite TV show for reusing the same formula over and over again! It’s in our nature, we want safety, even if it means repetition and don’t want to be challenged with change. So please don’t waste your time writing "Yet another tiresome piece of crap from Franco…" over and over again. And I’m not telling you that you aren’t entitled to your opinion, it’s just that that exasperating opening or ending line just proves your ignorance - You didn't get it.

It’s the same principle when watching a Franco film. He goes back, or returns to the initial idea and sees how he can recreate the piece from a different perspective - be it with new actors, a new producer and Production Company, or a new location and sets. One could say a new budget, but Franco seldom received more money for his next film, than he had for the previous. I can relate to this from my line of work. Great the show rated wonderfully, now let’s get to work with the second season – but there’s never a penny more put n the kitty, as we managed so grand the first time around, instead let’s see what we can make cheaper. It sucks, and it definitely takes the edge off creativity. You can see the initial ideas and line of thought in The Awful Dr. Orloff, and then watch how he tweaks and refines the source up to Faceless – which still stands as the better of the two, even though The Awful Dr. Orloff was the movie that gave him his breakthrough and got Orson Welles interested in the Jazz man from Madrid.

So if you have seen a Franco film and didn’t find anything that you liked, enjoyed or actually had a positive experience from and thought that it was the largest pile of garbage you have ever seen, then back the hell off and don’t go back there. These films are obviously not for you! You wouldn’t go back to eat a meal at a restaurant you didn’t enjoy, just to see if they got any better at the same meal would you?

With that out of my system, let’s get down to work with Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein. Well what can one say? Sure it is a slow movie, sure the creatures do look kind of dorky, but that’s what special effects on a minimal budget looked like in those days. Remember that the zombies in Romero’s landmark Dawn of the Dead 1978 still look pasty however much we want them to look scary as hell in our memory of the film.

Basically the movie sees Doctor Frankenstein [Dennis Price] bring back his monster [Fernando Bilbao] with the aid of his slave Morpho [Luis Barboo – see, that Morpho! Remember Dr. Orloff’s handyman from The Awful Dr. Orloff? It’s Morpho – Frankenstein is Dr. Orloff in the Franco universe. It all comes together when you know what to look for doesn’t it!). With the monster resurrected they plan to enslave Dracula [Howard Vernon], who has been put out of action by the Vampire Hunter Dr. Jonathan Seward [Alberto Dalbés], and create an army of the undead.

One by one the women of the village fall victims to Dracula’s bite and become part of Dr. Frankenstein’s army. Just like the primary cast that consists of regular Franco actors who all had equivalent parts in the counterpart film The Curse of Frankenstein (La maldición de Frankenstein) shot at the same time – the female victims are also frequent Franco ladies, Britt Nichols, Geneviève Robert, Eduarda Pimenta and Josyane Gibert.

After sustaining a vampire bite – strangely missing from the movie – Steward becomes almost apathetic, while he is nursed back to health by the village Gypsy [Geneviève Robert]. She becomes so outraged by the plan and procedure that Frankenstein and Dracula have taken that she curses them all and calls upon the Wolfman [Brandy – your guess is as good as mine, he, or she, never acted again!] to put a stop to their fiendish plans.

Needless to say a final battle is in store and the whole show goes down with a bang. Even if it’s not much of a bang, perhaps one could say it’s more of a frizzle, but I’ll get back to that in a short while.

I don’t want to say that Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein is a homage to the Universal Horror’s, or a nod to the Hammer flicks, because I don’t feel that it is. I’m certain that somewhere along the lines, producers – the guys with the small bag of cash, that call the shots – told Franco that they liked the Hammer films, which where, and had been successful in the late sixties, early seventies, but now heading downhill at full speed. The same year as Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein, Hammer produced the appalling Dracula A.D. 1972, directed by Alan Gibson, which set the Count in a modern London. An idea that I’m certain Franco would have used if he were to copy the Hammer films - where better to locate the Gothic characters if not sizzling Spain. Just imagine Dr. Frankenstein and The Count checking out sexy chicks at a hot, vibrant Jazz club. It almost happens, but instead Estela [Gibert] performs a French song and can-can like dance in its place. Again a recurrent scene in Franco's movies, is the light going on yet?

So instead I look at the film as Franco’s interpretation of Universal and Hammer, as seen through his frequent used themes, inside a Franco universe, but with the use of their iconic characters. Sure an influence, but not a homage. And to his defence, the sets in this movie are astonishing, it’s probably some of the best laboratory set design [by Antonio de Cabo – his only one] that ever was made during this period of low budget cinema. Also, despite a pretty diligent use of the zoom, this movie has some awesome imagery and wonderful compositions thanks to cinematographer José Climent, and knowing that Franco wasn’t a stranger to getting behind the camera himself, I’m sure that he had a decent participation in the images. Some of the shots easily beat the Hammer films atmosphere and visuals of the same period in time.

Sure the fake bats obviously hanging off rods just out of frame are silly, but then again, the Hammer movies never managed to pull this one off either, their bats are still just a stuffed bat hanging from a rod just out of frame, so that’s just fine by me. On the other side, Franco and editor María Luisa Soriano [who worked on many of Franco’s films and on Paul Naschy films crash cuts from the real bat – yeah, real bat, because in the close ups, it’s a real bat held up by the wings for the valuable shot – to the actor or actress looming over their victim with such efficiency that the illusion actually works!

The movie has a magnificent score by Bruno Nicolai and Daniel White, who both scored many great Franco movies, and the soundtrack for Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein isn’t too far away from James Bernard’s music for all those Hammer films. But still keeping that wonderful style that we love from those great movie soundtracks they composed for Franco.

And for the narrative, well I’ve never been a fan of compilations of iconic monsters bashing it all out, they all belong in their own narrative space and those films don’t really get me excited at all – not even Ishirô Honda’s King Kong vs. Godzilla 1962.

But that isn’t what I feel this movie is about. In some strange way I feel that there’s a cunning Franco critique towards the Universal monsters, and the Hammer films hidden away in the movie. Because, and I love the movie for this reason; they are all completely incompetent. Yes completely incompetent! Dr. Frankenstein’s plan fails miserably, Seward (the Van Helsing character of the flick) is a utterly worthless vampire hunter, and spends the last half of the film a vampire bitten drone, the Vampire maidens lay comatose in their coffins, all but one with an apparent own agenda as she bites and kills Morpho, Frankenstein’s monster more or less takes his own life, hiding away in his electrical chamber when the push comes to shove, and the Werewolf doesn’t really have any impact at all, but getting tossed around by Frankenstein’s Monster, and finally the angry mob of villagers, lead on by Seward, complete with pitchforks and burning torches arrive at the castle after the Doctor has killed Dracula, the vampires and scampered off towards new experiments in fear, leaving Seward to wave his crucifix completely pointlessly as the movie comes to an end...

So there you go, the Universal monsters, reinvented by the Hammer Studios are completely incompetent in the wonderful world of Jesus Franco.

Image:

2.35 Widescreen

Audio:

English dub, Mono

Extras:

Original Trailer for Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein and Franco's Jack the Ripper 1976. Unfortunately Midnight Video doesn’t produce their exclusive Collector Series anymore, but the movie can still be obtained on DVD-R from them and is still the most superior version of the film available.

I can't locate a trailer, but instead I leave you with this and ask the question: What happened, and where did it go?

Sweden, Heaven and Hell - Revisisted!

Not only did Mr. Nylén - editor of the only Swedish film magazine worth reading - supply me with my first VHS copy of this grand movie back in the mid nineties, he also used to have a splendid poster for the film on the wall of his flat. But even better it's apparently his childhood bike that's seen in the shot below.

Sweden, Heaven and Hell

Sweden Heaven and Hell
Original title: Svezia, inferno e paradiso
Directed by : Luigi Scattini
Italy, 1968
Mondo/documentary, 85min
Distributed by: Klubb Super8

The wild and weird world of Mondo! You can’t stand unaffected by this fascinating odd niche of the Italian Genre Cinema, nor it’s offspring as these contain some of the most disturbing movies ever to have been made.

The Mondo genre is often quoted as starting with Paolo Cavara and Gualtiero Jacopetti’s Mondo Cane 1962. Actually there where “mondo-ish” movies made before Mondo Cane, movies like Luigi Vanzi’s World By Night and Alessandro Blasetti’s Europe by Night both 1959, but these where more focused on nightlife and strange club acts and all round fun. Although Jacopetti did script them, and this eclectic jumble of almost random footage and driving voice over narrative would soon play right into his hands.

Mondo Cane with it’s showcasing of the wild and weird world outside of Italy in an almost Ripley’s Believe it or Not style documentary approach – or shockumentary as they also are known as - created quite a stir when it was released, it was nominated for the Palm D’or at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and Riz Ortolani’s splendid track “More” was nominated for an Oscar for best music, original score at the 1964 Academy Awards. This unleashed a floodgate of Mondo themed movies, Jacopetti & Franco E Prosperi’s Mondo Cane 2, Franco de Feo’s Mondo Nudo, Gianni Proja’s Ecco all of them 1963, Roberto Bianchi Montero’s Mondo Balordo 1964 and even the American entries Mondo Freudo and Mondo Bizzaro, both 1966 directed by Lee Frost, and Russ Meyer’s Mondo Topless 1966 with a title that says it all. Most of them held a fair share of tantalising sexploitation, a humorous approach but also explored the downsides of life in other places and situations.

But at the late sixties the Mondo movie started taking two definitive paths, one focusing more on the sex and kinky scene, and the other on the a more vicious and violent as movies like Jacopetti & Prosperi's Africa Addio 1969, Antonio Climati and Mario Mora's Savage Man Savage Beast 1975 showed authentic deaths both in the animal kingdom and humans being killed by beasts. These traits also worked their way into the obscure cannibal genre too, where many animals where killed for pointless scenes in the movies narrative. Although many of the Mondo movies later where revealed to be staged situations, the tone had still been set and there was worse to come.

Pushing the boundaries further flicks like Rolf Olsen’s Shocking Asia 1976, Climati & Mora’s Sweet and Savage 1983, and Romano Vanderbes' This is America 1977 went even further, and merely consisted of onscreen deaths and violence almost wallowing in gruesome footage.

In 1979 the Japanese financed US production Faces of Death, directed by John Alan Schwartz became one of the most notorious Mondo movies of all time. And even though it like many Mondo movies before consisted mainly of fake footage acted out for the cameras, and a terrible acting by Michael Carr as Dr. Francis B. Gröss, our narrator and guide though the movie, the film still packed a ferocious punch. But a second Japanese financed US production finally pushed the genre over the limit. Sheldon Renan’s The Killing of America 1982 consisted almost completely of authentic footage of death and carnage, often caught by news cameras and un-expecting witnesses. It’s also one of the first movies to feature the infamous Zapruder Film which graphically shows the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Ironically Ruggero Deodato’s movie Cannibal Holocaust 1980 is not only one of the most infamous cannibal films, but also a stern critique towards the Mondo genre where directors staged and arranged death and execution scenes without interfering. In some ironic way the innovators had finally had enough!

With this last step taken, the gates of hell sprung open, and cheap compilations like the sequels to the Faces of Death series, The German Mondo Cane 4-6 films compiled by Uwe Schier, and abominations like the Traces of Death films, and the Faces of Gore series all focused merely on the of the horrors of life and death started turning up all over the place. Just like those god awful home video shows with stupid people doing stupid shit, the Mondo movie devolved into a cesspool of necrophilic depravity lacking all of the tongue in cheek humour of it’s predecessors.

But not all Mondo are about carnage and disaster situations. Even though the later movies are synonymous with onscreen deaths the early movies held a fantastic documentary style and even though they said exactly what ever they wanted over the random images shown, they had heart and humour to their story.

Like Luigi Scattini’s fantastic Sweden Heaven and Hell, a Mondo study of the sinful living of the Swedes during the sixties. Packed with lusty teens, naked women, violent biker gangs roaming the countryside, and the growing problem of the open alcohol and drug market, it’s no wonder that so many people used to think that Sweden and Swedes where the most open-minded and liberated people on the planet.

Young women who receive sexual education, only to later spend their weekends on the ”Love Boat” practicing what they learned in class. The gangs of Raggare roaming and raping their way through the teenage women of Stockholm (And yes that’s Marie Liljedahl having her clothes torn off by the bikers), turning the young lasses into homosexuals. All Swedish women sunbathe naked! The enforcers of law who spend their day’s making sure people of Stockholm obey the rules, only to pose naked for the photographers camera at night – the double morale of the women of Sweden, as even the most respected citizens indulge in dirty smutty late night actives. The kids, left at day care and later moved to a small community outside of Stockholm, where Dr Johnson cares for the children that all fell into a void of depravity and perversion before he saved them… It’s all here, and it’s a riot, as Scattini just randomly makes whatever claims he wants in his portrayal of the strange country up north. Although we did have sex education with very explicit images at school I never actually found those chicks wanting to do our homework in the practical manner.

Once sequence shows a sex shop on Birger Jarlsgatan – dead in the centre of Stockholm – where men and women gather at the Grotto of Porn, a library dedicated to porn. And one of the treats the filmmakers relish on, or rather points out as a vile obscenity, are the 7” records of authentic sounds of intercourse being sold – Pornophone! Remember Umberto Lenzi’s Oasis of Fear 1971, well that’s the same sort of records that Ornella Mutti and Ray Lovelock where flogging before they got into that first bout of trouble that forced them into hiding.

Scattini bars no holds as they twist facts and fiction into the melting pot of low morale, sexual cravings and perversion. No matter how naive and fake the movie is it is a hilarious movie. I have a weak spot for old photographs and footage of Stockholm of the past. I really love this city, and it’s still one of the most beautiful capitals in Europe, and seeing all these fantastic places and locations, but from Scattini’s warped vision makes me laugh and enjoy living in Stockholm even more.

I adore the short sequence where upper class girl Ulla holds all the power of the family house. As she sits making out with her boyfriend, her parents just sit watching, with the constant threat of Ulla actually deciding to marry her boyfriend which forces the parents to give her the house and move to the old folks home instead! After the young couple have engaged in a bout of pre marital sex – Ulla’s mom serves them coffee and sandwiches to keep Ulla happy! Holy smoke where did Scattini come up with these ideas, it’s uproarious.

On the other side, watching this movie some forty years later, the movie plays more as a parody on Swedish society. The warped discourse and suggestive voice over can easily be laughed at today as in some occasions their bleak portrayal is what we make fun of ourselves today. The cynicism of the young couple now leaving their maternal home only to spend a fortune an a small cramped inner city flat. The car owner beating up the guy trying to steal his car and ends up being the one punished instead – Violence is not accepted, but the youths lust for life is defended. It’s all stuff that still actually happens, victims being the ones punished, and the tiny apartments in the city costing a fortune for a few square metres. The problem with the high suicide rates… Something that in later years has proved to be based on the fact that Sweden are so anal about statistics and numbers that they where the only country with more or less accurate figures – hence the high numbers, no other country documented in the strict way of the Swedes.

But perhaps even more entertaining than the movie and its pseudo documentary narrative is the fantastic soundtrack by Piero Umiliani. It’s a fantastic soundtrack that definitely cheers up the most sombre state of mind, Not only does it contain the song that the Muppets made theirs ”mah na mah na” but also the lead theme; I tried to warn you… perhaps a prophetic tune to the state that the Mondo genre would end up in.

Luigi Scattini’s Sweden Heaven and Hell - It’s rude, it’s crude, it’s cheesy, it’s sleazy and it’s completely bogus of course, but it is the most entertaining Mondo movie ever made about Sweden!

Image:

Full frame 4:3

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, English, Italian or Spanish Dub available, with optional Swedish Subtitles.

Extras:

If you like Swedish skin flicks and corny comedies then the extras will please you as there’s a total of fourteen wonderful original trailers to sit though on the disc. There’s also a gallery of movie stills, marketing materials, and international movie posters.

And don't download it Buy it!

Bloody Moon

Bloody Moon
Original Title: Die Säges des Todes
Directed by: Jesus Franco
West Germany, 1981
Horror, 82min
Distributed by: European Shock DVD

Once again one of “Franco’s finest movies” finds it’s way onto my screen after being neglected for the last ten-fifteen years. Possibly it’s all part of the build up to receiving and watching the latest creation, Paula-Paula just released, or perhaps it’s just part of that phenomenon that is Franco. When you watch one of his films, you get the urge to watch a second, and then a third and so on… But for a change this one is more than just that recurrent DVD artwork quote, and is actually pretty darned good and still holds up for some light non-complicated entertainment. Bloody Moon is a fine example of how the US slasher films, once inspired by Euro thrillers come full circle and end up being made in the same places and directors that inspired them to start with.

During the end of the seventies and early eighties American slasher movies dominated the horror scene. It was all about masked murderers stalking and slaying young boys and girls as they explored the boundaries of innocence. If you smoked dope, had sex or engaged in drinking with your mates, there was bound to be a serial killer with some agenda rooted in his (or her) childhood lurking in the shadows just waiting for the right moment to leap out and kill them with a varied assortment of sharp objects. With it’s roots in the real life crimes of US serial killers like Ed Gein (as you know the inspiration for Robert Bloch’s Psycho later turned into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock), and war atrocities seen in the news reporting’s out of Vietnam movies like Tobe Hooper’s Texas ChainSaw Massacre 1974 and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas 1975, started using realistic violence and a raw, in your face psychology to bring an edge to the youths in peril. Later movies like John Carpenter’s Halloween 1978 and Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th 1979 refined the genre and set the traits of the genre upon solid ground. It should be noted that the slasher genre also is heavily indebted to the Italian Giallo, a fact that many of the directors acknowledge, even if US genre historians prefer to think they invented the genre, just like they think they invented Punk. Anyhow, the traits used in generic mainstream slasher flicks are still to this day the same as the movies that defined the genre thirty years ago.

Needless to say where there’s a buck to be made, producers will go, and getting in on the latest craze several European movie companies went with the flow. Producer Wolf C. Hartwig possibly best know for the Schulmädchen-Report films had at the time the fascinating director Jesus Franco on his pay roll. Franco had already directed a number of movies for Hartwig’s company – as I’ve pointed out earlier, Franco in his love for making movies frequently set up shop with a wide range of producers and production companies end churned out a number of flicks for each company before moving on to new exhilarating ventures with new companies and ambitious producers. Among the movies Franco produced for Lisa Film you find Mondo Cannibale and Sexo Canibal both 1980 and Sadomania, Linda and Bloody Moon all 1981.

Wanting to get in on the action producer Hartwig assigned Franco with Bloody Moon (the only movie they worked on together) a movie written by Erich Tomek (as Rayo Casablanca) who also co-wrote the screenplay to Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination 1979 (with Cozzi using his pseudonym Lewis Coates) and later Franco’s sexy comedy thriller Linda 1981. Bringing some of his trade marks to the mixed bag, Franco set out to make one of his most infamous movies, and that’s not a DVD box quote, but a fact. Bloody Moon which contains graphic murders, a sinister plot, a small tad of eroticism, well more nudity than eroticism to be honest, and above all one scene of real animal death was slammed by the UK censors and nailed by the balls to the infamous Video Nasty list. And anything that is on that list has been seen by the fans and has a cult following.

In a nutshell Bloody Moon works as a mix of the good old tale of fortune and deception – nothing is as strong a motivator as greed, even when it comes to murder - and the most notorious of the US slasher flicks - Halloween and Friday the 13th.

The opening scene takes place at a school of sorts; chicks shake their asses, dude’s flirt with them and pick up random lovers as the disco beat of Gerard Heinz blares out over the area. In the shadows misfit Miguel [Alexander Waechter – Miguel the Spanish name for Michael, wink, wink] lurks. Miguel dons a giant facial scar, which obviously makes him completely repulsive to the girls at the pool. But after hiding his face behind a Mickey Mouse mask, giving cinematographer Juan Soler a chance to use the classic P.O.V. through the mask shot of Halloween, Miguel manages to pick up one of the dancers who mistakes him for some other don Juan. But as soon as they hit the sack and she delivers some really take me take me tacky dialogue the mask comes off and as she screams with repulsion and fear, Miguel snaps and stabs her repeatedly in the gut with a pair of scissors.

Five years later Miguel is released from a mental institute, the Doctor played by Franco, into the custody of his sister Manuela [Nadja Gerganoff who is a bleak substitute for a part that I feel should have been played by Lina Romay every time I see this film. But Gerganoff get’s the job done and she was probably connected to the producer who wanted her in the flick. It’s happened before and it will happen again]. The two of them take the train to the estate owned by their Aunt, Countess Maria [Maria Rubio], a Franco trait – as he loves putting Countesses in valuable key positions. On the way there the leading lady of the film Angela [Olivia Pascal – who had a small part in Valerian Borowczyk’s nunploitation epic Behind Convent Walls 1978 and several other German soft-core productions] is introduced and the first indicator that Miguel may not be completely over his urge to murder gorgeous young women is planted. The estate - obviously the one from the pre-title sequence – has been reopened to serve as a language school for young women, and to run the project Manuela’s boyfriend Alvaro [Christoph Moosbrugger] has been put in charge. There’s an obvious grudge between Manuela and the Countess, who later confides to suave Alvaro that Manuela is only after her fortune, and holds no interest in the school at all.

After a quick montage of the school in action, i.e. chicks repeating what they hear on tapes while they learn Spanish under the guidance of Alvaro, the supporting cast is introduced. The girl gang consisting of Eva [Ann-Beate Engelke], Laura [Corina Gillwald] and Inga [Jasmine Losensky] all go to classes and in between classes spend their time sunbathing semi nude and flirting with the tennis teacher and all round janitor of the school Antonio [Peter Exacoustos].

Angela finally arrives at the school and tells the rest of the gang about her encounter on the train, to which Inga tells them the scary tale of the terrible murder that took place at the school some years ago - Yes the threads start to come together here, as she’s obviously referring to Miguel’s murder of that disco chic in the opening. While Inga tells her spooky tale, Miguel obviously lingers in the background. Minutes later the girls have all changed their clothes, and put on their best disco clubbing kits and head off over to the late night dance parlour located on the premises. Once again there’s some crappy dancing to Gerard Heinz disco version of the lead theme, the internal intrigue between the girls all trying to bed Antonio get’s wound up and finally Angela takes off for an early night in bed. Pretty soon there’s a knock at her door, and in comes Eva who wants’ to borrow a sweater so that she can stay warm on the boat ride she’s going to take with some lads she’s met at the disco after Angela left. Later in the film the minimal clothes budget is apparent when Inga wears the same sweater that Inga rejects – it’s a small detail, but repeated viewing of these movies ends up with you spotting the finer details. As Inga undresses the figure that has been lurking in the dark of Angela’s room steps forth and rams a knife through her back leaving the blade protruding out of her nipple. Now that’s something you don’t see every day! Angela screams bloody murder and flees the scene. Obviously there’s no trace of the body and no one believes her tale of death and murder.

With the initial kill behind us the movie takes off as the girls are one by one stalked and murdered, with the masked murderer – who I see more to be influenced by the killer in Sergio Martino’s Torso 1973, than the US slashers – staying one step ahead of the audience and hidden away in the safety of the off screen space, only coming into shot with the weapons of choice. And the weapons and murders come in all shapes and sizes. The marble saw decapitation is still a very gruesome scene and one of the most memorable set pieces of the film. Last year I was working on a show where we where planning a segment on children in horror and my producer claimed that only Tim Burton ever showed children dying on screen – I obviously objected and referred to EuroHorror of the eighties. But I wish that I had remembered Bloody Moon at the time, because the child who tries to save Eva from the gigantic industrial saw, suffers a terrible punishment for interfering.

As the movie closes in on climax time, shit has hit the fan, the killer has been exposed, surprisingly not the one that all the deceptive editing has insinuated, and the great final moment twist – the one that explains the motifs and double crossing of the murder plot – have done their part, its safe to say that Franco actually pulled this one off. And that’s without me even mentioning the incestuous relationship between Miguel and Manuela. It is an excellent movie, that plays right out of the slasher mould, without getting entangled in a complicated plot. An excellent genre piece that always manages to entertain. I think it’s fair to say that this one together with Faceless 1987 – a more typical Franco fare – are among the better straight forward horror flicks that Franco directed during the eighties.

I don’t mean to criticize Gerard Heinz scores to the movie, because it is quite interesting to tell the truth. It has a very wide variety of styles that make up the soundtrack, ranging from the Ennio Morricone-esque tunes to a very Dave Gilmore-Pink Floydish guitar track to the vibrant dance pop track that is way to over used in the film much like in Franco’s Faceless where Romano Musumarra’s George Michael soundalike popsong is heard when you least expect it. Otherwise the score is fitting, and a great complement to the movie’s tone, just like the tracks Heinz supplied for all the soft-core comedies he scored previously. Although the pop part of the soundtrack is what has aged the most and these scenes do have an almost stale flavour to them.

Once again it’s a satisfying encounter with the wild, wild world of the great Jesus Franco as Bloody Moon returns to it’s place in the box labelled EURO HORROR – SPAIN in my bookshelves, and it’s hard not to dip my hand in and try a pot luck gamble to see what other Franco movie I pull out. It’s always fond reunion with a director, who may not have made the best movies of the world, but he loves making them, and we love watching them.

All I want to do is take a few days of work and wait for the sound that the post makes when it slips through the mail slot, falls to the hall floor and then the silence of anticipation as I pick up the Paula-Paula disc, gently pry open the sealed envelope, delicately cut the plastic wrap and snap that disc out of the case and place it on the tray of my DVD player, and then sit down as Jesus Franco’s latest piece of wild and crazy cinema unfolds before my eyes.

Image:

Full frame presentation 4:3

Audio:

Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0. English Dub with optional Dutch subtitles

Extras:

I hate when films I like are released with a few squirts just chucked in to fill out the disc. It’s the same kind of disappointment I used to get when I listen to the later Frank Zappa albums, too much filler and not enough killer. There’s so many of us out here on the net that are writing about these movies, and even fifteen years ago when DVD started to hit the market, there was a wide range of writers covering these movies. Why not just contact one or more of us and fill out that disc with out insight and writings on the film? It would be cheap, and wouldn’t take any space worth complaining about on the disc. Anyhow, European Shock have only added the trailers for Bloody Moon and Linda, and a cheesy slide show set to that terrible disco track again.

Lost boxes of stuff... #2

...as I await the arrival of Jess Franco's latest movie Paula Paula - I go back in time and read European Trash Cinema Special Vol1.

Colin

Colin
Directed by: Marc Price
UK, 2008
Horror /Drama, 97min
Distributed by: Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment.

I’m not too much for writing on modern horror. Sure I’ll watch it, enjoy it and every now and again one of them will bring something new to the scene. But I can’t see myself returning to the movies of the last decade with the same passion as the movies of my youth – well possibly some of the J-horror’s, the South Korean scene, a couple of American flicks, and the terrific wave of stuff to have come out of Europe these last few years – but not in the same way as the movies that shaped my passion for genre cinema did. They just seem to lack that curiosity, lust for exploration and naïveté that movies of the past had, again with a few exceptions of course. These are the movies that have me thinking of them the morning after I have seen them. These are the ones that stick in my mind and actually are worth the time putting down my thoughts on. These are the ones that probably will be referred to in the next decade.

Every now and again Independent cinema produces some amazing horror features shot on minimal budgets giving maximum effect. Many of my favourite movies - and yours - are movies produced by devotees outside the major studios. Movies that are shot on an almost nonexistent budget and are made by true enthusiasts who know exactly what they want out of their minimalistic production. And most often they have a completely new innovative idea that they have come up with which makes the movie so much better than the usual larger studio churn outs.

Marc Price’s 2008 indie horror film, and first feature, Colin is one of those films that stands out and is definitely much more interesting than a lot of the contemporary horror.

Supposedly shot on a budget just under a fifty pounds Colin is an interesting and rather impressive movie even though it has some flaws. I’ll return to them later. It holds high quality, an intriguing narrative and a fascinating rush of insight at the end of the movie. It plays with the Zombie genre and respectfully holds it close to home, and several references to other great movies of the genre are apparent. The unique twist to Colin is the unique choice of having Colin, the lead protagonist, actually be a zombie. We see the world through the zombie’s perspective.

I’ll give you a run through of the movie's premise without spoiling it, because it is a movie that should be seen. So, starting off with the protagonist Colin coming home from an off camera struggle we see him enter his home, shout for his friend, who obviously doesn’t answer we are introduced to our leading man. Washing up after the off camera fight he realizes that he has a bite on his arm – a bite that means one thing – he’ll return when he dies. In panic he tries to wash the bite and misses to see that his flat mate Damien shuffles into the kitchen and bites his deeply in the back of the neck, securing that within a few minutes this character will be coming back from the dead. A battle takes place, where Colin violently rams a kitchen knife repeatedly into the head of his flatmate Damien. This opening montage sets the tone, we now know that this movie is going to be violent, we know that the camerawork will be shaky and handheld giving that guerrilla style faux documentary style of photography. The score is going to be low key, and I don’t know if there ever was a movie to open on such an ominous tone – as you know that a bite from a zombie means definitive damnation. Protagonists set in a damned world filled with zombies is one thing, but starting out as a zombie, that is profoundly dark.

Colin [played by Alastair Kirton] turns into a zombie, and starts his journey. So far we do not know to where or why – the thread that will give that rush of insight at the end – but until then we will merely observe him as he shuffles his way through the streets seeming to just be roaming, like zombies do in zombie films. But no adventure is complete without it’s fair share of obstacles and trials, which Colin faces several along his way. During the course there are vigilante zombie slayers, zombie hordes that wreak havoc, and even family members that become part of Colin’s trial. The thing that I liked the most is that the film stays true to the mood set in the opening sequence. There are no cheesy gag’s that try to go for a few bursts of relief giving laughs. It stays dark, brooding, and sinister throughout. And being a zombie, Colin obviously decomposes more and more as time goes by. Scars do not heal, and a painfully looking facial wound that he receives when a gang of slayers chuck a pipe bomb at the zombies looks completely revolting at the end of the film. Because the film does end, Colin tattered and torn, but finally reaching the end of his objective, and in some twisted way the ending is almost an opposite of the opening. Where the movie opens on a downer, it lands on an upper – a twisted sick upper, but still a positive compared to the negative of the start.

Now then why are people raving about this flick then? What makes it so special? What does his low budget zombie flick bring with it that none have before? Well if you want my sincere opinion on it I’d call it a love drama set in a horror milieu. Shocked? Well yes of course you are, but that is what I consider it to be and I’m sure that you will see this when you reach the end of the movie. As said before there is a rush of insight that I feel almost equals the one at the end of M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense 1999. You realise that you have been watching Colin in a conscious journey, a journey based on the most positive of all values - Love. And when you come to this conclusion, watch the film once again, and you will see all the referents delicately planted throughout the movie, the colour signifiers, the signs, and the motifs that drive, or perhaps by instinct direct Colin towards his goal, all make sense when you know what they represent. It’s a really splendid weave that Price has woven together here, and I agree with the critics that claim it to be one of the most interesting zombie films for a long time.

Another little detail that fascinates me is the power that narrative has on us, and just how easily we, the audience, are manipulated into taking sides. Simply because we have spent some time with Colin we actually take sides with him. There’s a scene where some guys attack him and try to steal his sneakers – and you find yourself hoping that he’s going to make it out “alive” without them succeeding with their theft. Now when you sit there rooting for the zombie - a figure that otherwise usually only is there so that a protagonist can smash, or blow their heads to smithereens – then you know that you have been mind fucked by some serious dramaturgy and a well written screenplay. It’s an interesting approach that hasn’t been utilised in the zombie genre before to my knowledge. Although George A. Romero did this slightly in Day of the Dead 1985, Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead 2004 has a similar themed finale and Bruce La Bruce uses the same approach as Colin in his 2008 gay comedy horror movie Otto; or up with Dead People, and I’m sure that it will be used again.

Colin is a intelligent and engaging movie, although the main problem I have with the film is that it’s way too long. The movie, just like the zombie Colin, simply shuffles forth and suffers from many tedious sequences. In the most humble way I would definitely have recommended Price to have cut at least a half an hour or more out of the movie, because there are some really slow and unnecessary parts that wouldn’t be missed if they weren’t there. The removal of that tiresome footage would end up giving him a compact hour of interesting zombie mayhem that still would stand out and be unique in its own way.

Neither is the proactive zombie a new novelty in any way, we have seen zombies make active choices and take actions before, as early as 1979 Lucio Fulci, with the help of Elsa Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti's screenplay for Zombi 2 sees the amazing Zombie vs.’ Shark scene – a possibly first action taken outside the norm. And in George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead 1985 he has Bub the zombie (played by Sherman Howard) take actions outside the usual hunt for food criteria that befalls zombies. A theme Romero constantly returns to in his movies, giving the zombie more conscious than a simple eating machine. But Colin holds a revelation, as you now may actually see, a revelation that affects all zombie films that have staggered their way past us before. The until now aimless wandering of the zombie may actually be conscious making decisions. Remember that scene in Romero’s excellent Dawn of the Dead 1978 when the lead characters discuss why all the zombies have returned to the mall? Well they say that it’s because the dead return to the old patterns they followed when in life, and this becomes even more obvious in Colin. Perhaps all zombies actually have an agenda that they are following, simply stopping to chomp down on a some human brains and entrails along the way.

All in all, Yeah I enjoyed Colin more as the movie ended, after I had had that rush of insight, but the journey there is way to slow and uninteresting, because there’s nothing really new in there – so it’s fair to say that Colin is a smart and intriguing movie that should have been shorter, and one of the few movies of the genre that actually get’s better on the second viewing. It’s apparent that Marc Price knows his storytelling and as far as I’m concerned he could possibly hold the future of modern horror in his hands.

Image:

Full screen 4:3

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0, or Dolby Digital 5.1 – unfortunately there are no subtitle options, but then again there is hardly any dialogue to talk about anyways.

Extras:

There’s a decent package of extras on the 2disc special edition. Disc one has an entertaining Audio commentary by director Price, Alastair Kirton, and several other key actors and crew. Disc two contains a forty-minute documentary on the making of Colin, which gives further insight into the movie and process behind it. And finally there are five deleted scenes, which could have been fifteen if you ask me, that play with optional commentary by Price.

Friday Night Fulci Cameo #7

Martin

Martin
Directed by: George A. Romero
Horror / Drama, 1977
USA, 95min
Distributed by: Anchor Bay

Martin, one of the finest pieces of George A. Romero’s cinematic heritage, along with Night of the Living Dead 1968 and it’s sequel Dawn of the Dead 1978, sees Romero place all the cards on the table and present truly believable situation that much like his previous living dead movies, deconstructs contemporary horror.

The seventies vampire scene belonged to Hammer, Christopher Lee, Jean Rollin with his scantily clad vampire damsels, and the great EuroGoth films out of Spain and Italy, not to mention those dreamy, surreal Eastern European flicks of that time period, and the phenomenon that is Blacula! Capes, Bats, fog, fangs, fake blood and naked women stowed away in a musky castle cellar where synonymous with vampire films – and in some way still are but now it’s bats, fog, fangs, fake blood and naked women gyrating away to techno soundtracks in a musky nightclub cellar. I find vampire movies quite boring, as it’s all pretty much the same, and they are so inhibited by all those rules. Zombies are more my bag, as they are just mean fucked up munching machines from hell. Vampire movies that go for the jugular and blend in the eroticism that’s often associated with the vampire are much more appealing than the spooky Count stalking the nearest village. And that eroticism - with the whole forced Freudian analysis thing where they claim it’s all about male dominance, the fangs representing the male phallus and the bite penetration and all that shit. Well sit those mumbo-jumbo analytics down in front of a Jean Rollin movie and ask them where they male dominance is to be found, and they’d have a hernia. We all know that Rollin is a tribute to woman, and those films bust the old Freudian analysis right open.

Martin on the other hand is a very different vampire movie to the ones that where being made in the seventies, as it is set in a modern world, has no gothic iconography what so ever, but instead plays out against the backdrop of urban industrialized Pittsburgh. Neither is there any outspoken romantic subplot where young maidens swoon over the vampire, instead we see the young (or is he) Martin falling for a middle aged woman – a real desperate house wife - who in her state of depression takes a fancy for the boy. It’s fantastic stuff that should have made a larger impact when it was released, but instead has somewhat fell off the map only to come back as a late night cult favourite.

Martin Matthias [John Amplas – who starred in four more Romero films after this one] is a young man with a problem; he thinks that he might be a vampire. He finds himself in a complicated situation where he must sedate and draw blood from his victims to calm his lust for blood. But is it really vampirism that drives his blood lust, or is the prejudices that are held against him? Right off the bat, during the opening scene we find out just how complex Martin’s situation really is as he prepares his syringes, breaks into a single woman’s train compartment, and sedates her only to slit her wrists and drink her blood. Arriving in Pittsburgh, his much older cousin Tada Cuda [Lincoln Maazel – who only starred in this movie] receives him and takes him to his house so that he can watch over him. Cuda is sure that Martin is Nosferatu. Martin’s other cousin Christina [Christine Forrest – Romero’s wife, and who almost always has a part on his movies, either behind or in front of the camera] also lives in the house, and her boyfriend is played by Romero compadre Tom Savini, this time without his trademark moustache. Cuda holds Martin under strict surveillance, only being permitted to leave the house when going errands as Cuda’s delivery boy. But this doesn’t stop Martin from meeting other people…among them desperate housewife Abbie Santini [Elyane Nadeau – who also only ever starred in this one] …and feeding. Tension builds between the two men as Cuda accuses Martin of the deaths in the area, but still the test’s he sets for him fail to prove that he is a vampire. Martin and Abbie’s relationship grows, and after a failed exorcism, where among others Romero as a priest also takes part at the pre-dinner, cousin Christina removes the religious artefacts in their house, traps set to expose Martin, as she thinks Cuda is getting lost in his stupid superstition - it seems as if Martin is finally finding his place in the world. But, and no movie is complete with out it’s but, in one ironic final twist concerning Martin’s affair with Abbie leads Coda to take drastic measures and the ultimate test is posed.

Where many Vampire movies often have a dilemma being that the vampire and vampire hunter often are both as appealing to the audience, it’s fascinating to watch Romero’s Martin, and notice that the classic roles of Vampire - protagonist, Hunter – antagonist get flipped around and set at very separate sides of the spectrum. In the classic Universal Dracula from 1931 you forcefully root for Dracula [Bela Lugosi] at the same time as you root for lead protagonist, Professor Van Helsing [Edward Van Sloan]. It’s the same complex relationship you find in the Hammer films from the seventies, Count Dracula as portrayed by the charismatic Christopher Lee vs. Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing. Even later in 1992 when Francis Ford Coppola updated the legend, you couldn’t help but being drawn to the eroticized, and empathized Dracula as played by Gary Oldman at the same time that you somewhere want Van Helsing [Anthony Hopkins] to put an end to the terrors of the Count.

Martin flips this relationship head over heels, and the longer we spend with Martin, the more it becomes apparent that he’s the real protagonist fighting his own desires and complexity against his cousin Tada Cuda who is the only person really convinced that Martin is a vampire. Cuda’s harsh ways soon manipulate us into favouring Martin and viewing Cuda as the bad guy. That’s also why the ending is so down beat, if we didn’t empathize with Martin we would be rooting for Cuda.

But a vampire or not? It’s a bold choice that Romero makes when he at no point in the film actually states if Martin is or isn’t a child of the night. Is Martin a vampire or is it all a psychological delusion of his? Romero never once gives us a solid answer, although the movie is riddled with clues to the truth, it’s an open question. One could consider that Martin’s elder cousin Cuda is so terribly much older than Martin – is it because Martin is a vampire stuck in the age he was when he was turned? Or perhaps those flashbacks that Martin has of a woman – obviously a taunting lover – who flees his grasp as she runs through gothic surroundings in a skimpy nightdress. The blood drinking – is he a vampire, or just a psychological mess…? Is the late night radio name that Martin takes, The Count, only an on air pseudonym, or is he really a descendant of the count…? It’s all up to the audience to make that decision and I like that Romero leaves this decision to me and doesn’t rub it in my face. Which also brings one to wonder about Cuda’s psychological state, and the actions he takes in the movie… who is the real monster?

Watching it now it’s easy to see how this movie is unique in its approach to the serial killer as a humane creature. Characters are filled with depth and complex layers, emotions are important to the narrative, and vampire mythology is cast aside in favor of a new updated mythos, which keeps us in the dark concerning Martin’s being. Romero makes a great job of laying out the rules that relate to this urban vampire tale and clearly marks the spots where classic Vampire mythology is reinvented and (at the time) brought up to date for the plot almost mocking the old in favor of the new. There's a metaphor for Romero in there too if you can see it. the new mocking the old. Most of the good old vampire weak spots are tried out in the quest to prove if Martin is a vampire or not.

The fusion between Romero’s script and Amplas terrific portrayal of the antagonized protagonist Martin is a wonderful experience, and you truly feel for this character. Much like Let the Right One In 2008, Martin mainly works because of the horror traits and themes being brought into the real world, and classsic drama. There are no hissing vampire women lurking in he back room of the club, there’s no transformation into a bat and flapping around the location, there are no special plasma drinks for vampires that have come out of the closet. Its just Martin against the world, a normal world that see him as a monstrosity.

As on most of Romero’s movies from this time period, he has his regular crew with him on the production, - Michael Gornick, Tony Buba, Tom Savini, and I feel that Donald Rubenstein’s score for Martin is among one of the better ever put to a Romero film.

So put the Romero Zombie flicks to one side, and check out Martin now. It is a masterpiece of Modern Horror.

Image:

Fullframe 4:3

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, English Dialogue

Extras:

Not a lot; a theatrical trailer, and a somewhat interesting audio commentary with George A. Romero, Tom Savini and John Amplas.

The Dead Don't Talk / Thirsty for Love, Sex and Murder - Turkish Horror Double Bill

The Dead Don’t Talk
Original Title: Ölüler Konuşmaz Ki
Directed by: Yavuz Yalinkiliç
Turkey, 1970
Horror, 76 min.
Distributed by: Onar Films

As you may recall in my rant on Kutluğ Ataman’s The Serpent’s Tale (Karnalik Sular) and the Turkish cinema – Yesilçam- it also had it’s own spectacular rise and fall producing some amazing movies of the fantastic genres during a brief period. But one of the most saddening facts about this time period is that when ticket sales once again halted and distributors and companies in a search to reclaim their money took drastic measures to get back their investments. Selling what they could to TV and foreign Video distribution, many of the movies left where destroyed to extract the silver contained in the prints. You can just imagine the amounts of films lost for all eternity for the small winnings that the devastating process gave in return.

With the tragic butchering of cinematic pop culture that took place in the mid eighties, it’s no wonder that the missing movies of their Fantastic scene are such sought after delights, and in some ways we do not demanded to have restored widescreen images and Dolby Digital 5.1 re-mastered soundtracks for these rarities – we will make do with what can be found – after all it’s either these releases or not at all. And it is fascinating to see the treasure hunters, or cinematic archaeologists if you like, come out from their intense searches with cultural heritage that one has thought missing forever now returned from the dead, no longer banished to the land of the Lost.

Onar Films Horror Double feature is a splendid investment for anyone who wants’ to get a grasp of what horror in Turkey could be like, as it features two movies made during the early seventies that are two completely different ways of approaching horror. One a classical old-school ghost in the haunted house flick and the other a contemporary arty Giallo flick with razor wielding killers, hot dames and eclectic soundtrack. In their own way, both movies are highly interesting, and also the short two years in between them goes to show just how fast trends and audience demands can shift, both creating and breaking new ground.

Fist out, Yavuz Yalinkiliç’s 1970, black and white Goth haunted house horror Ölüler Konuşmaz Ki (The Dead Don’t Talk) which they do, and even laugh ominously on each given occasion – so perhaps the dead laugh may have been a better title.

Yalinkiliç wastes no time setting the tone, creepy music and sinister laughter echo over the opening credits – and that’s pretty much the tone that you will get throughout the film, light hearted Goth horror not to different to the A.I.P films of the US, European flicks from Spain, France Italy and obviously the Hammer films of the UK produced during the sixties and seventies.

Melih [Aytekin Akkaya – one of the greatest Turkish genre stars along with Cünyet Arkin], and Oya, have been invited up to the mansion of the late Mr. Adem, presumably on business. It’s the 15th night of the month, and their coach driver makes sure to point this out to the youngsters before dropping them off outside the mansion and taking off like a bat out of hell. Melih and Oya enter the mansion only to find it empty, but strangely enough, the table in the dining room is set for two. The enigmatic servant Hassan [Giray Alpan – who actually looks like Vincent Price!] makes an entrance and greets them with phrases like Mr. Adem’s soul will be pleased. Later on Hassan lures away Oya to a living room sporting an executioners block and a portrait of a woman. He breaks down in tears in front of the photograph bawling on about how the woman, just like all beauties, leave him to wander the halls of the mansion alone. Later that night as Oya sleeps, Melih investigates the strange sounds he hears from downstairs and encounters the ghoul! The ghoul [Jirayir Ciracki] laughs as Melih empties his gun into the entity and stomps menacingly forth.

With some splendid in camera trick cinematography and the use of mirrors the ghoul seems to be indestructible as Melih shoot’s into a mirror. But the ghost can’t be stopped and both Melih and Oya lose their lives to the hands of the ghoul. Now we have had a pretty long set up of the ghost, the mansion and the curse of the fifteenth day, when the ghoul rises from his tomb.

Time to bring on the second batch, the new schoolteacher Sema [Sema Yaprak] arrives with the coach from the opening scene. She rides past two herdsmen, Kerem and Hodja. Meeting up the Director (the headmaster) Mr. Nuri, she installs herself in the mansion of Mr. Adem. Pretty soon the laughing ghost is up and about again, Hassan pulls his “woe poor me” shtick again and we see that everything is heading towards the same results as the first segment. But a rather unexplored relationship that has developed between Kerem and Sema has Kerem and his two friends Hodja Imam and Remzi make it their mission to put an end to the ghoul that walks the night.

After the ghoul knocks on Sema’s window late at night begging her to let him in, Sema flees and tries to hide at the home of Mr. Nuri. This leads her to the conclusion that Mr. Nuri is possessed or possibly housing the soul of the ghoul! Using herself as bait, Sema, Kerem, Remzi and Mr Imam go up against the ghoul in a final battle that has the ghoul begging for mercy as they taunt him with Holy Scripture and sacred artefacts. He melts before their very eyes leaving Sema and Kerem to walk off together into the sunrise.

I was quite worried as I started to watch Ölüler Konuşmaz Ki, as the first few minutes give a somewhat wrong impression of the movie. After the initial sequence and the introduction of Sema the movie really picks up and finds a decent Goth horror style in it’s own quirky way. There’s some classy cinematography, like the mentioned mirror scene, which is used for both parts of the movie, and some fabulous wide shots that really use the location wonderfully to bring some real atmosphere to the film.

If you frequently read the stuff I put up here you know how much I cherish a sceptic protagonist as it makes the transition into the world of horror from the ordinary word so much easier for us. Several times there are referents to this world, which in 1970 obviously was making huge progress, only a few years earlier the space race had started, technology was arriving and within a couple of years the video boom, cell phones and internet would be common household items. In the first sequence Melih states “superstitions are a thing of the past”, later Kerem say’s “In this century when people go to the moon, why do these ghost stories still exist?”

It could possibly be that Yalinkiliç’s wanted to make the statement that even though technology and progress prevails, it’s of out most importance that we don’t forget our history and cultural heritage. Even if it means believing in scary stories and laughing ghouls.

In the first sequence of the film you will see Aytekin Akkaya in a very early role. Later Akkaya would hold parts in Antonio Margheritti’s Ark of the Sun God and Yor both 1983, and was also in Çetin Inanc’s Dünyayi kurtan adam (The Man who Saves the World), the one you probably know better as Turkish Star Wars 1973 which saw him act against Cünyet Arkin, and T. Rikret Uçak’s hillarious 3 dev adam (The Three Mighty Men) 1973 where he was Captain America.

Thirsty for Love, Sex and Murder

Original Title: Aşka susayanlar seks ve cinayet

Directed by: Mehmet Aslan

Turkey 1972

Giallo, 58 min.

Distributed by: Onar Films

Next up a movie completely different in tone – Mehmet Aslan’s Aşka susayanlar seks ve cinayet (Thirsty for Love, Sex and Murder) 1972, made only two years after Ölüler Konuşmaz Ki. As cinema started loosing ticket sales to the modern thrills of TV entertainment, movie producers started looking for other tricks and delights to lure the audiences back into the darkness of the cinemas – and what better than graphic death, violence and sex! Aşka susayanlar seks ve cinayet is definitely not your average Goth horror but a fast moving shitkicker that brings all of the classic Giallo traits right into the heart of Istanbul. And it leaves an impression that will leave you craving more.

This one starts off just as you would have thought, with an initial attack to set up the masked, gloved antagonist, when he picks up a hitchhiker only to abuse, rape and slash her to bits with a straight razor a few minutes later. Hot crumpet Mine [Meral Zeren] on the way home with her husband, Metin [Nihat Ziylalan] learns of the violent death of the young woman and instantly has flashbacks to a terrifying experience she had herself as a younger woman. Her then abusive boy friend Tarik [Yildrim Gencer – who played the masked Kilink in Yilmaz Atadeniz’s Kilink Istanbul’da 1967] raped, slashed and beat her to a pulp and left her for dead in the muddy terrain at the end of their turbulent relationship. The scar that Mine after the last assault left him with is the only thing that the cops can identify the killer by, as hat was the last thing the murder victim remarked on before dying. Being Giallo territory the pace is rapid and during a cocktail party we are introduced to the rest of the key characters; Mine’s best friend Oya [Eva Bender who starred in many of Aslan’s Tarkan films] Yilmaz [Kadir Inanir] who soon will become Mine’s love interest, and lurking in the background - Mine’s ex and our prime suspect for the initial attack, the sadistic Tarik!

After Yilmaz makes his suave introduction and sets his line of seduction in motion, Mine spots Tarik, who follows her out of the party and threatens her with a broken bottle to the face. Luckily her husband Metin arrives in the nick of time, and Tarik flees from the party.

Here starts the classic Giallo cat and mouse chase that we have come to love, as we try to keep up and figure out what is going on the plot shifts back and forth between several of the leading characters as we figure out who the killer is and what he wants’. And just as we would expect, as soon as we make a presumption, the whole thing skids off the rails and takes a new destination, and once again Mine is at the centre of attention again, but just whom can she trust? Her best friend, her husband, her new lover? We will never know until Aslan wraps it all up with the final twist, and lets us in on the secret of the plot that he’s been hiding behind his back all along, and it’s worth the wait.

I love the way this movie just get’s the formula, and nails the atmosphere of Gialli cinema straight off from the start. There’s none of the trying to be a Giallo like many other Gialli influenced movies that where made outside of Italy, often disappointing and confusing films that you won’t think twice about. Instead Mehmet Aslan hits the spot and proves that you don’t have to be an Italian to make an interesting piece of Gialli cinema.

Lies, depraved sexual appetites, sinister characters, black mail, red herrings and double crossing back stabbers, it sure is a Giallo in every sense. The soundtrack with it’s eclectic fuzzy guitar and gentle piano swirls, subjective camera, masked, gloved killer and there’s even a fabulous little scene where the lighting is very reminiscent of Mario Bava’s vivid colours of Blood and Black Lace [Sei donne per l'assassino] 1964. Thirsty for Love, Sex and Murder does satisfy that thirst and definitely delivers! It utilises the classic twist, turn, and surprise ending of many a great Giall and it's possible that Sergio Martino’s The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh 1970 may have influenced the plot, but I'd say that also Henri-George’s Clouzout’s Les Diabolique 1955 had a part in the plot as it plays off the same platform - the murder for inheritance plot. But don’t think for a second that Mehmet Aslan stops there as he definitely isn’t pulling a cheap copy of what he’s seen before, and pushes it a few steps further than you may have foreseen.

It’s a great movie that fans of Giallo cinema definitely should check out, and together the two films on Onar Films Turkish Horror Double Bill make up for a terrific night of genre cinema exploration. And if you still want more, just watch the almost two hours of supplemental features and you will be in Turkish genre cinema heaven.

Image:

Both films are presented in 4:3 Full screen.

Ölüler Konuşmaz Ki - Black/White

Aşka susayanlar seks ve cinayet - Colour.

Audio:

Mono 2.0 Turkish Dialogue with English or Greek subtitles optional.

Extras:

It’s not a genuine Onar Films release without the fantastic amount of extras that these discs bring with them. This time there’s interviews with the late Metin Demirhan – who passed away two years ago, way to young – one of the most insightful Turkish film experts ever, who puts both films into their correct context and historical time frame. Giovanni Scognamillo – a Turkish actor, writer and cinema historian, who also discusses Turkish cinema, and finally an extensive interview with actor and Turkish star Aytekin Akkaya, who also talks about his career and the movies of Turkish genre cinema. All in all there’s almost two hours of interviews and you will walk away a lot wiser on the subject than before. And have a complete new set of movies you want to see. There’s a photo gallery of sills and posters from Turkish Horror films, a gallery of Aytekin Akkaya stills, and a series of trailers for other titles released by Onar Films.

So once again. Get online and pick yourself up a copy of the Onar Films Turkish Horror Double Bill as they are on limited release of 1200 pieces only and once they are gone these films will once again return to the land of the lost, but this time not forgotten.

Friday Night Fulci Cameo #6

Doghouse

Doghouse
Directed by: Jake West
England, 2009
Comedy / Horror, 89min
Distributed by: Sony Pictures

I have a bit of a problem with movies that try to be both funny and scary at the same time. Perhaps it’s because the horror comedy is one of the hardest subgenres to master as you either end up with schlock comedy like the Scary Movie flicks, or a confusing genre bender like Christopher Smith's Severance 2006 - a comedy for far to long and then trying it's hardest to be horror film that isn't quite certain of which foot to stand on, with Danny Dyer in the leading role.

Few movies have managed - Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland 2009, Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep 2002, Paul Andrew William’s The Cottage 2008, Peter Jackson's Bad Taste 1987, Braindead 1992, Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead 2004, Tommy Wirkola's Död Snö (Dead Snow) 2009, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 1981 and Evil Dead 2 1987 - to name some of the successful attempts. But these movies don't mock the horror like in the Scary Movie flicks, but use the horror as part of their narrative and milk those traits for all they are worth.

Jake West’s Doghouse at least gives the tricky subgenre a decent run for it’s money, and does manage to entertain me, treat me to a few laughs, but isn’t scary in any way. Unless you suffer from gynophobia of course, then you will be freaked.

Obviously that’s not the main point of the flick either, it's all about the laughs, but I have serious issues with this niche and can’t quite figure out why you would want mix horror traits in with your comedy if you didn’t want to scare your audience. In generic horror it’s part of the formula, a laugh to bring down the defences and then shock the heck out of the audience. It’s the same pattern with the sex in generic horror, flash a pair of breasts, awakening the lust synapses which makes the audience lower their guard and BLAM! scare the crap out of them.

But why would one want to go for a few quick shocks in a comedy… If it’s done with love and respect for the genre and actually part of the narrative – like in Shaun of the Dead – it’s a treat, but done in the wrong way, like the confusing and overrated The Signal 2007 which does have some great parts - but you can't make three chapters in three different genres within the same film without major complications, it just bores the crap out me and I end up angered and frustrated that I wasted valuable movie time.

Doghouse didn’t bore me. I liked it, and perhaps not to strange either as it plays heavily on gender prejudice and young male chauvinism, a sensitive area that is a great area for exploiting. Comedy and Horror should push the boundaries of reason and moral values or they are not doing there job right.

A band of mates all get together to take former member Vince [the amazing Stephen Graham Guy Ritchie’s Snatch 2000, Scorsese’s Gangs of New York 2002, Shane Meadow’s fantastic This Is England 2006, and soon to be seen in Dominic Sena’s Season of the Witch with Nicolas Cage], out in the countryside for a weekend of boozing, partying and raising hell, all to help him get over his sore divorce. Ring leader Neil [Danny Dyer – I cant get my head around Danny Dyer either, as I get the feeling that Danny Dyer never actually plays a character, instead all his characters are Danny Dyer. Sure he’s fantastic in Nick Love’s The Football Factory 2004, but since then I feel that every character has been Tommy Johnson, or is it Danny Dyer? Remember I mentioned Smith's Severance earlier... well Dyer is Dyer.] Anyhow, ring leader Neil calls the shots, and promises the lads that they will soon see Vince back to the grand old man he once was, not the pussy whipped softy that he now appears to be. Through a series of presentations we see how all the lads in the crew all have their own troublesome relationships at home, which kind of sums up to their non politically correct attitude towards members of the other sex. Which also is what sets the basis for the jokes, gags and monsters to come. They take off for Moodley, where newcomer to the gang Mikey [Noel Clarke – who you may have seen as Mickey, Rose Taylor’s boyfriend in the two first seasons of the reduxed Dr. Who series, and actor/writer of the acclaimed Kidulthood 2006, and later actor/writer and director on the sequel movie Adulthood 2008] grew up, and discover that the tiny, and I mean tiny, village appears abandoned as they scamper right down to the local pub for the first round of pints. Inside the pub there’s a great gag about the non-smoking indoor’s law’s and the smell of the real pub as the audience see the gnarled remains of the barman behind the counter.

Then all hell breaks loose as they find themselves standing face to face with the rabid zombie women of Moodley, monster that the guys soon name zombirds. A not very kosher joke, as many consider bird to be somewhat degrading to women, and not the delightful slang term that it actually is. And the jokes are all on that level, even going as far as the Lads’ F.C. football emblems on their jumpers.

But this is a comedy and you don’t want to get too worked up about it, I just wouldn’t advise that you recommend the movie to your most militant feminist friends. Although I’d have called the monsters Zombitches instead, it packs more of a sting. From this point on the horror traits kick in and it becomes more or less a dark comedic survival horror flick. The guys go up against an impressive motley crew of varied stylized zombirds, ranging from the bride, the wiccan witch, the cute girl next door cashier, to the hairdresser, the lollypop lady and the frustrated overweight housewife. Needless to say the shit hits the fan and the guys rough there way through to the bitter end.

Well really the horror of Doghouse is more of a platform for the movie to work out of and not the main device that drives the movie forth, the guys character development, even though it’s at it’s minimum, and the comedy is the strength of the film. And talking of that character development, the guys who are more politically correct are the first ones to go, and it is a splendid moment when the person with the largest arc actually turns right back to what he once used to be, goes back to being one of the lad’s fed up with taking crap from women, and I the audience cheer him on as he claims his ground and goes out to put the women back in place. Girls get back in the kitchen, because here come the fellas!

The paradox of it all is that even though the movie plays off the lead characters warped view on women and chauvinistic attitudes – sexist jokes in other words, it turns me, the audience, into the exact same thing as the characters, a chauvinistic pig who laughs, cheer’s and ooohhh’s as the guys bash their way through hordes, well half a dozen at least, of zombirds. It’s not a too pleasant revelation when you come to the conclusion, but what the heck, the film had me laughing on more than one occasion and within the context of being a comedy that’s a damned fine result.

West is no newcomer to the hybrid genre as his previous movie Evil Aliens 2005 proved, he knows how to tell a comedy using horror traits, and sci-fi in that specific case. And his debut feature, Razor Blade Smile 1998, starring Redemption Films icon Eileen Daly and David Warbeck [John Hough's Twins of Evil 1971, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dynamite 1971, Lucio Fulci's The Black Cat 1981 and The Beyond 1981 to name a few gem's, Razor Blade Smile being his final picture] is pure modern Goth horror. Screenwriter Dan Schaffer, who makes his debut as a writer for film here, has a background in the comic – graphic novel world and herein lays the little detail that will twist your view on the movie. Schaffer’s creation, DogWitch has always been neo feminist and sees it’s female lead character, Violet Grimm take on friends and foes in a way that only she can. – The comic book is by the way added as a pop culture reference in Matt’s [Lee Ingleby] shop where amongst others the Palace Pictures quad poster art for Evil Dead can be seen.

Now with that in mind I’d say that it’s fair to think of the film as an ironic comedy with horror traits, and not a piece of misogynist trash. The guys are all stereotypes and their characters both commemorate and send up young male culture, and they come up against typical male fears and prejudices’ – they wanted the worst, they got the worst. So in other words you could look at the movie as a feminist film - after all, the women have the upper hand throughout the film, and when male incompetence fails you know that the guys are fucked. The final scene, reminiscent of that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid pastiche that they paid homage to earlier in the film comes to mind again and we realise that these blokes are going to die for the single reason that they stay the simple minded characters that they where at the start of the film.

Cinematography by Ali Asad – with several awesome music videos to his CV, the classic Nick Cave/Kylie Minogue duet Where the Wild Roses Grow to name one - is grand. The movie has a wonderful stylized look, but I felt that the sound designer and editor (West among them) probably should have gone over a few scenes one more time, as I missed some valuable audio keys and dynamic when the attacks start taking place - where's the beat in that initial knife attack?

Like said, Doghouse is an entertaining ninety minutes and well worth the watch, great effects, great fun and a smashing rock soundtrack, it’s the kind of movie that you can gather your mates round to watch – or your extreme feminist friend if you keep the pseudo analysis above handy – and have a excellent time watching.

Image:

2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:

Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Digital 2.0 English Dialogue, subtitles for the hard of hearing optional

Extras:

Anyone wanting to learn more on how this movie came about and was made is in for a treat as the Making of feature is very entertaining and holds several anecdotes from the production. There’s also a few deleted scenes, a blooper reel (does anyone ever enjoy them?), trailers, TV spots a still gallery of those fabulous Zombirds, and production stills.

Now watch this and tell me that you don't want to see this flick!

The Bloodstained Butterfly

The Bloodstained Butterfly
Original Title: Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate
Directed by: Duccio Tessari
Italy, 1971
Giallo / Poliziotteschi, 89min
Distributed by: Manga Films

Even though Duccio Tessari’s The Bloodstained Butterfly is safest placed in the Giallo genre, I feel that is has more in common with say Massimo Dallamano’s What Have They Done to Your Daughters? 1974, than the common Giallo. Sure it plays off the same who-done-it plot structure, but follows the cops methods of singling out the villain more than the regular following of one specific lead character – until we get half way through that is. Just like What Have they Done to Your Daughters? it becomes a near perfect hybrid of the Giallo and Poliziotteschi genres.

Starting with a typical genre trait opening murder, we see the poor victim rolling down a hillside after being stabbed to death by the assailant. Through a speedy montage, various witnesses see the murderer fleeing from the scene of the crime. A Man stares out of his window, a balloon seller later points the killers path of escape to the police and a woman making out with her boyfriend sees the killer as she winds down the steamy window. This is where Tessari and Gianfranco Clerici [Ruggero Deodato’s Last Cannibal World 1977, Cannibal Holocaust 1980, Phantom of Death 1988, Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper 1982 and Don’t Torture a Duckling 1972], start laying out the red herrings for us to chomp down on as he brings us into the movie.

Pretty soon Inspector Berardi’s [Silvano Tranquilli - Paolo Cavara’s Black Belly of the Tarantula 1971, Silvio Amadio’s A Smile Before Death 1972 and Umberto Lenzi’s Violent Naples 1976 among others] hard work pays off and they bring in sport newscaster Alessandro Marchi [Giancarlo Sbragia], their prime suspect. The Victim - French exchange student Françoise Pigaut [Carole André – Visconti’s Death in Venice 1971, Lucio Fulci’s White Fang 1973 and Massimo Dallamano’s Colt .38 Special Squad], was a friend of his daughter Sarah [Wendy D’Olive – Mike Nichols’ Catch-22 1970 and Joe D’Amato’s Cormack of the Mounties 1974], his fingerprints where on the murder weapon, the stains on the victims coat match the interior of his car seats , his coat – as described by the witnesses – was sent to the cleaners by his wife Maria [Ida Gali once again as Evelyn Stewart – Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body 1963, Lucio Fulci’s The Psychic 1977] in a rather held back performance, not to mention that his skin was found under her nails - Alessandro seems to firmly hold a one way ticket to the slammer for the rest of his life.

Enter the sub plot that will spin this movie around and get the tempo back to a firm beat. While her father Alessandro is in custody, Sarah starts dating Giorgio [Helmut Berger - from all those great Visconti movies and Tinto Brass' Nazisploitation classic Salon Kitty 1976 ] a filthy rich music student who was Pigaut’s boyfriend before she was killed – which isn’t disposed to the rest of the cast, but we know it and it’s soon going to work it’s way into the narrative. Anyhow it’s a relationship that will get ugly before the climax. Simultaneously Alessandro takes to the chair during his trial and tells how his car was broke into several weeks earlier, the knife, his gloves and a black leather bag being stolen at the time. Marchi’s defence, Attorney Gulilio Cordaro [Günther Stoll – Dallamano’s What Have You Done To Solange 1972 and Jesus Franco’s The Castle of Fu Manchu 1969], starts trashing the prosecutions case and as a favour to Sarah, even Giorgio testifies on behalf of Alessandro.

A string of event’s that expose double crossing lovers and intricate relationships are told in great Hitchcockian fashion – let the audience in on the plot and keep the characters in the dark – all lead up to a second murder and further complications for the cops. Not to mention Alessandro who is held captive, even though his Attorney Cordaro claims he’s doing everything in his power to get his set free. But when the obligatory Italian husband’s lover makes an entrance he’s off the hook thanks to a watertight alibi. Once again we are desperate to solve the mystery and expose the killers identity, and thanks to he complex weave that’s been woven into the narrative we have a whole new set of prime suspects.

In a final reel twist Tessari chucks in a brief blackmail subplot that comes kind of unexpected, but leads up to the greatest reveal of them all. You won’t see this one coming and you will be surprised as all your conclusions are once again shattered. And for a change the motif behind the killings is actually quite logic, which once again proves that Tessari and Clerici are masterful screenwriters. The two worked together on several movie’s and the results where often very satisfying.

I can feel that there perhaps are a few courtroom scenes to many in the first half of the movie, but it’s all part of the set up, as in the second half all the conclusions that we have come to make are thrown aside when Tessari kicks the movie up full throttle. We are certain that Alessandro is the killer or at least perhaps hiding the real killer, and as soon as this presumption is made, he throws us a tight series of red herrings at us when a second victim is found only to have us jumping at new conclusions – the way only Gialli can, inviting the audience to be the amateur detective.

Just like his later Giallo, Puzzle 1974, a fantastic movie in it's own right, Tessari takes a delicate approach, avoids the predictable clichés and focuses more on the characters and their development than the usual trait of violent deaths and jazzy scores sat to wild cinematographically compositions. And it’s a healthy break from the fast paced moves of other movies in the genre at the time period. The slow pace also is where Tessari manages to build his characters and give us an insight into the deceptive reality behind the fancy façade that the characters hold towards the audience upon first glimpse.

There’s a great returning gag with Inspector Berardi’s espresso that keeps coming back every time they are in the office, he can never get that perfect espresso that he craves, and it gives a neat little comic relief to the movie.

The movie features a terrific score by Gianni Ferrio [Who scored several other Tessario movies, among them the 1974 Giallo Puzzle and also Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks at Midnight 1972 and The Rip-Off 1977], which is possibly one of his best scores. Take notice of Ferrio’s opening score and you will hear how he fuses in Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No1 into the opening scenes, and that’s not just coincidental as it will be of major importance to the rest of the movie. It’s the record that Françoise had with her before she was killed, it the record that breaks down Giorgio as he reminisces about his lost love, and it’s also the music that is of importance to the killer in The Bloodstained Butterfly. Another Gialli trait - the fine art that triggers the murderers killing spree!

Half the fun of great Gialli is trying to figure out the title of the movie, as the title often refers to a specific item, incident or scene found in the narrative. Dario Argento’s Bird with the Crystal Plumage 1970 refers to the bird in the zoo that becomes a valuable clue to solving the case, Profondo Rosso 1975 is the grizzly climax - deep red blood. Sergio Martino’s The Case of the Scorpions Tail 1971 to the photographic image that eventually exposes the killer, Fulci’s Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes 1977 to the melody that plays on Virginia Ducci’s watch - which is why the US title sucks so hard, Umberto Lenzi’s The Oasis of Fear 1971 to the house they spend the main time of the movie in and so on and so on. The title The Bloodstained Butterfly also has a semiotic significant within the movie. The title is a reference to the necklace butterfly that Giorgio bought Françoise before she was killed – a butterfly soon to be stained with her blood.

Duccio Tessari’s The Bloodstained Butterfly is a wonderful piece of Gialli cinema, perfectly conducted, well performed, holds a splendid plot and is a refreshing change to the common eclecticism of many other movies in the genre. Definitely a one to pop on when you grow tired of trippy, surreal Funky Jazz fests with to many incoherent killings and shifty characters – you won’t be disappointed.

Image:

2.35:1 Non-Anamorphic

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, English dialogue and a Spanish dub. Spanish Subtitles are forced, but you can work around them if you search the net for the right tricky combo of buttons.

Extras:

Very sparse, only cast and crew filmographies. To be honest, if you really need this movie in it's complete uncut glory you need to find the rare Italian Medusa release, or the German release, but I can't remember which company. X-rated perhaps?

Here's that great score by Ferrio for your audio pleasure.

And here's the opening titles... with a scene not included on the Spanish Manga films release.