The Gorgon

The Gorgon
Directed by: Terrence Fisher
UK, 1964
Horror/Mystery/Fantasy, 83min

I can’t really understand genre fans that don’t like Hammer films! How can you not like Hammer films? For years I’ve been fucking annoyed that watchers of genre cinema all seem to be so polarized, they either only want the gore, the violence, the nihilistic carnage, or even worse, the ones that draw a line with The Exorcist, Jaws and Alien and determine that everything beneath them is automatically unwatchable trash.

Well obviously these people are not really fans of genre cinema. Let's just say that they like a few quick scares, and keep Hollywood in business. Fans of genre cinema take it all in, and leave no rock unturned in their search for the next thrill. The audience above are joined by the fact that they completely ignore the fluff… whilst supposedly claiming to like genre cinema. Well, the fluff is really what makes it all worthwhile. It’s the stuff that keeps the really good from the really bad. It's within the realm of the fluff where the important movies really are found. Such as the Hammer films. Looking at them historically the Hammer movies where the first gore films. Yeah, screw Hershell Gordon Lewis, screw the Japanese Chanbara flicks, Terrence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein 1957 is the first splatter flicks. When Peter Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein shoots Christopher Lee’s creature in the head with a shotgun and Lee holds his hand up to his face as the blood pours out of the concealed hole in his head, it was deliberate. When Lee’s eyes turn red and the blood seeps from the side of his mouth in The Horror of Dracula 1958, Fisher with makeup artists Phil Leakey and Sydney Pearson knew exactly what they where doing and knew that they where pushing the limits of things… and they created a complete new horror ingredient that people had never seen before, which in it’s own turn made Hammer Studios the minor success story that it was to become.

Terrence Fisher also helmed 1964’s The Gorgon based on a script by screenwriter/director John Gilling – who would later also direct some of the better later movies for Hammer, such as The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile both 1966, and ended up directing the Paul Naschy penned La cruz del Diablo (Cross of the Devil) for Naschy in 1975.

Let’s set up The Gorgon – Something is luring in the dark of Castle Borski just outside of Vandorf. Seven unexplained murders in five years have Inspector Kanof [Second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton] a frustrated man. When young woman, Sacha Cass [Toni Gilpin], goes missing and shortly after, her bohemian boyfriend, Bruno Heitz [Jeremy Longhurst], is found hung from a tree. It all looks like a closed case, and the town Judge rules it all as a murder followed by suicide. Nobody but Bruno’s father Professor Heitz objects and points out that Cass body was actually turned to stone… the town of Vandorf obviously want’s to keep something a secret, and he will not leave until he’s unveiled the mystery and cleared his son’s name. Doctor Namaroff [Peter Cushing] and his assistant Carla Hoffman [Barbara Shelley] run the village mental institute and all seems fine, until Professor Heitz second son, Paul [Richard Pasco] arrives with the same ambition to solve the curse of Vandorf. Carla and Paul take a liking to each other, and plan to take off as soon as Paul has figured out what goes on at Castle Borski, which obviously set’s up an interesting little triangle drama between Paul, Carla and Doctor Namaroff. Towards the final act, Paul’s mentor, Professor Karl Meister [Christopher Lee] also comes to the small village and together with Paul they aim to put an end to the rumors that, Magaera [Prudence Hyman, in one of her few onscreen credited parts in a Hammer flick] – one of two lesser know sisters to the legendary Medusa - resides in the woods of Vandorf.

It’s obvious that Gilling has a passion for detective stories – he wrote several crime/detective screenplays, and directed loads of super detective shows, like The Saint, The Champions and Department S. This is seen in the way he constructs the script to The Gorgon, as the movie primarily is a horror movie with an investigation plot. Gradually the audience know what is going on – the gorgon, and the subplots – and with a Hitchcock-ian structure, Gilling and Fisher lead us down a path that is more detective story than horror.

Red herrings are laid out for us to stumble on such as the Martha [Joyce Hemson] character who we blatantly are lead to believe is the Gorgon, and there’s very driven dialogue to make us pose further questions such as when Carla with panic in her voice says to Dr. Namaroff that “She has come back!” Everyone seems to have something to hide, facts they dare not proclaim, truths not yet spoken, which obviously propels the narrative forth.

Obviously the horror comes through the loan of a legendary icon, the Gorgon, Medusa or Mageara as she’s called here, and the heavy gothic vibe that seeps though the movie. Hammer movies are at their best when they ooze of EuroGoth created through the wonderful set design of Bernard Robinson, those great matte painting landscapes, and James Bernard’s magnificent scores – of which The Gorgon holds one of the darkest he composed for Hammer.

The motif of death is very dominant in The Gorgon and despite using a legendary tale we all know by heart – stare in her eyes, turn to stone – they put a spin on it, where characters don’t turn to stone in the flash of an eye as in the old Harryhausen flicks, but more of a sadistic torment as they slowly turn into stone statues. One character even writes a letter home, telling of the pain and despair he feels in that very moment. That’s kind of heavy, even for a Hammer movie. Also they bring a familiar spin to the story when it becomes apparent that the second night of the full moon is when the attacks occur, something we all know from Werewolf folklore.

Building tension and then gradually releasing it is what Hammer movies are all about. God knows they made their fair share of movies that did nothing but build only to present a semi-shocking reveal at the end. This is also true with The Gordon. The initial attack if you will shows us the exact path that Sasha Cass takes, the religious nook by the roadside, the full moon, and the looming structure of Castle Borski. These elements all become referents later on as Professor Heitz walks the same path, it’s not rocket science and we know he’s walking right into danger. Returning imagery, locations and motifs are all important tools for building anticipation as the next time we see them we are aware of the threat they pose.

Characters are kind of stiff and restrained throughout The Gorgon. There’s no real arcs with evolving characters here, and there’s nor really anyone to feel for to start with. Secrets are kept, science argues against fantasy and every one – especially Dr. Namaroff act as skeptics when it all comes around. So there’s a use of something called the contrast frame at work here, where even the men of science deny to acknowledge the Gorgon – which the audience by the way, knows exists – it becomes logic that we tend to empathize with Paul and Carla. They are after all the only characters to stand up for there beliefs, and even though we as an audience are miles ahead of them both, we tend to favor them.

Although one must not forget the many subplots that are irking their way in, of which the Paul – Carla one is the strongest. There’s also the whole protection racket that comes with Dr. Namaroff. It’s almost eerie the way Cushing sluggishly floats around, stopping here and there for a pose to show us that he’s lost in thought, because despite being the skeptic of the piece, he knows what’s going on… Or at least, has an idea, which is why he becomes a human shield for Carla. He won’t let anyone near her, and does his best to protect her. But he’s so overprotective of Carla that it becomes painfully obvious why she falls for Paul, as he offers her the freedom she looks for. Away from corridors of Dr. Namaroff’s institute, away from Vandorf. Ironically it’s merely a metaphorical freedom and her real freedom comes in a completely different form during the final moments of the movie courtesy of scarcely used Christopher Lee’s Prof. Karl Meister.

The Gorgon, is still one of those Hammer movies that sums up all that was great about Hammer horror, the atmosphere, the somewhat stiff stage performances of the cast, lurking death, gothic horror and, for the time period, acceptable special effects. Perhaps not as impressive as his work on The Horror of Dracula, you still have to give Sydney Pearson credit for the Medusa and her head of snakes. It get’s the job done, the turning to stone transformations, although primarily only make up, work and the final decapitation scene is still something of a classic Hammer moment. When it all comes around, the movie may be a tad on the slow side, but then again that’s what draws me into the world of Hammer. The slow meditative approach, the modest scares and the clean cut closure, which almost all Hammer movies end with. There’s never any lingering around for no reason at all in the world of Hammer. Kill the monster, cue the end credits, let’s all get up off the couch, and sod off to bed.

Ratline

Ratline

Directed by: Eric Stanze

USA, 2011

Drama/Horror/Exploitation, 109min

Distributed by: Wicked Pixel Cinema

If you write that your movie is about Nazi Occultism on the cover art, I will watch it. I have an intense soft spot for Nazi’s and the paranormal – and why not, it’s so goddamned out there. I love the Third Reich’s fascination with the occult. I have done so since Spielberg and Lucas made a Saturday morning matinée about the krauts obsession with the supernatural. If you also happen to be an indie filmmaker, with some really interesting movies on your resume, then I will undoubtedly watch.

To set up the story of Ratline, it would be easiest to say that the movie is about the hunt for an old Nazi flag referred to as “Die Blutfahne”, a mythical swastika flag that went missing at the end of the Second World War. The only surviving member of the SS Paranormal Division is now seeking the flag with the intentions of completing the rituals that have been brewing for decades.

The main selling point of Ratline is obviously the Nazi connection, the promise of grotesque entertainment and spontaneous nudity along the way - as you will see from the trailer below. It’s all there, but Ratline serves up something much more than just an average exploitation flick. It shoves itself way beyond simple conventions and presents an intriguing and engaging story that delivers some severe shocks in it’s final act.

So, instead of going where convention predicts, Ratline tells the story of several characters and how their paths cross along the road of life. The initial set up creates a mood for the flick, as a bloodied, post-heist Crystal [Stanze regular Emily Haack, looking better than ever] burns her clothes and cleans up before hitting the road again – this woman is on the go. Cut to opening credits, which pass by rapidly as a metaphorical escape from the starting point, only to land in a Satanic Cult preparing their ritual. We stick with the youngsters for a while, and you would think you know who the leading characters are by now. But when the Satanic Cult, now on the roam for a human to sacrifice, fail to snare Crystal in their sinister trap, the focus shifts to a lone man peacefully driving his truck down the road. The kids lure him in, and moments later he’s tied up and ready to meet his maker as the kids tell him that he will be Satan’s sacrifice tonight.

A twist in the same form as the classic Psycho twist topples the world we have been introduced to. Where storytelling guru Robert McKee would shout out negation of the negation, Stanze and Christ thrust it full speed up that street. The entire opening set up with the teenagers performing a mock “this is what we think it’s supposed to be like” satanic ritual, and getting carried away to the extent of performing a human sacrifice becomes superbly ironic as they stare into the face of death in the shape of Frank Logan, [co-writer Jason Christ, also a frequent Stanze collaborator] a supernatural übermench who’s all the kids imagine themselves to be, amplified thrice.

For most of the first half of the movie, the ordinary world is established; characters present themselves and reveal their traits. Subplots are introduced, Penny Webb [Sarah Swofford] is presented, we gain insight into the backstory of Crystal, and the very real threat that she has pending over her life. It's a slow build, but it's necessary for where Stanze is going to take us.

But so far there are no characters that I really care about. They may interest me, but they primarily go about their business and where ever the day takes them. Their lives are woven together as their paths intersect and I find myself wondering where it’s all going to go… after all I do have some presumptions of the characters and what they may get up to. Somewhere just past midpoint – [59minutes] the first of many reveals is presented. First it’s the genesis of the Blood Flag, the item that Frank has been hunting through the movie, and the Nazi thread of the movie. It’s presented in a great - retro newsreel “found footage” complete with director cameo - way and does a great job of kick starting the second act. Now it all makes sense, we know of Frank’s identity, and this starts up a new wave of questions.

Then something unique happens. A moment that in its restrained shape proves that less is more, and a moment that definitely could have become something completely different. Instead it becomes a key moment of the movie. Penny and Crystal are drawn together by their desire for each other, but instead of using the moment to jump into gratuitous moment of nudity and sexploitation, Stanze has the two women merely connecting. An initial moment of intimacy that proves they have a desire for each other. From here they share a common foundation from which they can build a future together - a small sliver of light in Crystal’s darkness. They kiss, they embrace, and we can see the lust in their eyes. They have both yearned after this intimacy a long while and finally, as they find it, they have something worth fighting for. I call this an important moment as it establishes a value within the movie. Crystal who has been on the run for the major part of the movie – running from her past, running from her now and most likely to run from her future too – finds a reason to stop. There’s a possible love story there, which fills her character with value. I’ve said it in texts before; love is a strong tool in movies. We can all identify with the emotions a play; the emotional recognition is what creates the empathy for the characters. Crystal and Penny now have a value, never mind how dark and nihilistic we may be, we will want that moment of ecstasy to come. Their joy is our joy. The Crystal/Penny affair is used brilliantly, as it builds from here on out and culminates in the movies strongest and profoundest moments of disturbing darkness.

The slow build, which has lead up to the Frank backstory and the Crystal/Penny affair, culminates with a final rush of insight. We finally find out how these characters all come together, and in what way they all fit into the bigger picture. It’s an impressive move, which I should have seen coming, but I didn’t, for which I give all credit to Stanze (and Christ) as it caught me by complete surprise.

So I though that I’d be watching a cheap exploitation flick drenched with blood and gratuitous nudity, and the usual hardened unconditional approach that Stanze brings into his movies. But I ended up getting something completely different. Yeah, there’s nudity – fitting within the context, there’s some gore – at times fantastically gross and impressive, and that dark approach Stanze brings to his subjects is perfected with Ratline.

I’ve recently had the pleasure of watching through a retrospective of Stanze’s work due to the Eric Stanze Collection box being released by Njuta Films here in Sweden. (Ratline not included, but six other titles, which I reviewed in the November issue of Cinema – English version available on ipad - where I also pointed out that Stanze worked Second Unit on Jim Mickle’s impressive Stakeland.) There’s no doubt about it, Ratline is the Stanze-one-man-film crew’s most flawless work and it’s definitely a breaking point in his career. Indie movies usually just play though and that’s that, but Ratline really got under my skin, as some well played tricks pulled me in, set me up and unexpectedly shocked me.

Do NOT miss Ratline, as I have a feeling this is the one that makes the difference. It's the kind of movie that makes me love independent movies all over again, as it comes out of nowhere; punches hard and leaves an imprint that will last a long time. Skillful storytelling applied on genre, in the very best way.

The disc also features a behind the scenes documentary, and two commentary tracks, both featuring Stanze and both giving different insights into the movie and the filmmaking process. You should be listening to these kinds of things if you claim to be interested in making, or simply understanding movies. This is where you learn it for real, but watching stuff and listening to the people who made them.

Inbred

Inbred

Directed by: Alex Chandon

UK/Germany, 2011

Horror, Comedy, 90min

So I’m in Bottrop Germany attending the ninth Weekend of Horrors with fellow cineastes, bloggers and genre movie critics Fred and Joachim. I’d was spending a small fortune on various special editions of Lucio Fulci’s epic Zombi 1979, when we keep seeing people walking around with these really neat retro style exploitation poster t-shirts of a naked woman with a horses head. That’s enough to catch my attention. Then we see flyers pinned up all over the place of a chubby fella with a pig’s head and 3D glasses… Yeah, when we see that there’s a free screening of said movie, it’s wasn’t a hard decision when we decided that dinner could wait, as we had a chance to see a movie not yet released. Especially a movie which few images seen triggered our imagination into places unexpected.

Stepping into a dimly lit room where some geezers where are fiddling about with the projector to get the correct aspect ratio – one who I’d later realize was director Chandon – I started to feel that this may just have been the best damned move this entire weekend, because moments later a bloke had an axe planted in his face and the gore-fest started.

To set this up, here’s a mandatory quick fix for you: It all starts off with a movie within a movie. Let’s call it the initial attack to use terminology that you know I like to toss around. A prologue that ends in a violent showcase of impressive effects and fucking nails the mood of the movie. Cut to modern time, and the introduction of the ordinary world. Kate and Jeff take a minivan from London up North. The obligatory place to take the piss out of, the place where all mongrels live and are kicked in the bollocks in everything from Guy Richie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, it’s Great Britain’s Deliverance country. Now I'm from the North, and I have no problem taking the piss out of the fact of being a Northerner, and see no reason why anyone else shouldn't. For me it makes Inbred just fell a whole lot more close to home.

Anyway, that’s where they take a bunch of outcasts for a weekend of recreation and self-esteem building. Characters are established some likeable, some not. Small details work their way into the narrative and will return later on in completely different context, such as Tim [James Burrows] the rather empathetic arsonist. Yeah, I know he’s an arsonist from the way he reacts to stuff he sees around the old cottage they are supposed to spend the weekend at. This works for several of the other main characters too, and predictions lead to the unexpected as Inbred manages to avoid a lot of way to common pitfalls along the way.

So in their ordinary world, Chandon sets the characters in motion, tweaking and enhancing the minor traits we learned on the drive up, before the obligatory step into the unnatural realm is presented. Quickly fixing up the few rooms that they are going to live in during their stay, the kids are rewarded with a trip down to local boozer “The Dirty Hole”, where they encounter the inbred. From here on we know that the city folks are facing their worst nightmares as cultures clash and the scratching’s fond inbred ignite the hunt that will make up the rest of the movies drive forth.

Now from that you might feel that you know exactly where and what Inbred will be like… but you are wrong. This movie takes a familiar pattern of discourse and flips it head over heels. Conventions lead me astray on several occasions, which gave the viewing experience an interesting touch, as this doesn’t happen to often. The first question in the Q&A after the screening was not surprisingly “Is this movie out yet, because I have to have it!” That’s the kind of movie Inbred is.

Imagine all the dark comedy of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen pumped up on steroids, laced with the nihilistic horror of the new French extremity of recent years – Frontier(s), Haute tension, Belgian Calvaire which undoubtedly is in the same niche and British “fish out of water” – aka city twats taking to the countryside - shockers like Eden Lake and The Cottage. Then spice that with a dash of Jean Rollin, classic Italian gore and a backwoods Emmerdale Farm and you will start to get an idea of how fucking wild and brilliant Inbred really is.

There’s a couple of hilarious referents to stuff like An American Werewolf in London’s The Slaughtered Lamb – you know, the pub they walk into only to find Brian Glover and a young Rik Mayall blurting out that they “don’t like your kind ‘round ‘ere!” – the granddaddy of them all, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, iconic Monty Python images, and fucked up vaudevillian acts from hell.

In many ways the movie blows stuff like The Cottage, Severance and Doghouse right off the map. Inbred plays for keeps, it builds up slow and presents the characters in likeable ways, especially the social workers, Jake [James Doherty], who is such a complete twat, but still tries his hardest to make it work, and Kate [Jo Hartley – a Shane Meadows regular] who manages to work with the kids on their own turf. It’s no surprise that she takes on a heroine character as the survival horror aspect shoots through the ceiling.

Some fine details that made this an intelligent movie in my book: reoccurring readers will know the most annoying cock up in my eye are those fucking cell phones. Be clever, don’t insult me with the bloody “Oh I have no coverage” bollocks because that’s just lazy. The last movie that did that ended up being tossed out the window and into the park outside my flat, because it was shat out 54minutes into a 90minute film. Chandon handles it brilliantly; as Jeff takes the phones off the kids, sticks them in a plastic bag and shoves them in his backpack. Now that an original way to solve that problem, and just like the character traits, this comes back with a twist later on.

Subplots. Ron [Mark Rathbone], who isn’t allowed into the show, somewhat of a village outsider who even the inbred call a weird sicko. You know that there’s something really freaky in his backstory that makes him really intriguing, and interference with the village performances is hinted at. He’s an interesting character and is used perfectly.

Special effects that had me wondering how the fuck did they pull that off? A lot of movies try to put animals on screen and it most often looks terribly fake. There’s a horse scene, and a lamb scene in Inbred that are stunning, and then there’s some of the best bloody gore scenes I’ve seen since I started watching these kind of movies almost three decades ago. This one goes all he way to eleven on Chas Balun’s old gore score.

Political incorrectness. To show just how far out there the inbred are, Jim [Seamus O’Neil] puts on a full black and white minstrel makeup, and considering that even the old Robertson’s gollywog is erased from popular culture, it’s a grand way to show that the villagers go about business in any way the like without caring about wrong or right.

Unpredictability is an important part of Inbred, as there’s several times you think you know exactly where it’s going and then Chandon, pulls a 180 on the audience and takes it all in a complete different direction. This was refreshing and definitely created a vibe in the room and definitely created tension in scenes focusing on the empathetic characters of the piece… not saying that we all laughed

Acting is top notch. The villagers do exactly what you expect of them and it rarely feels overacted, when it does it works for the character. Seamus O’Neil another Shane Meadows regular, which you will find several in the movie, as the evil antagonist ringleader is hilarious as patriarch Jim, and Gris [Neil Leiper] is someone to keep your eyes open for more of. Protagonists James Doherty, James Burrows and especially Jo Hartley all give fantastic performances, and watching them fight for their lives was an enjoyable struggle, as it all stays very believable. You know that making it believable is crucial to me when watching genre movies.

Needless to say the rest of Friday night was spent discussing Chandon’s Inbred, and comically all three of us later spontaneously drifted into separate corners of our hotel room to start writing our reviews of this spectacular movie. It recently played in Sitges, and received a honourable mention at the Fantastic Film Festival in Lund – although if I’d had been in the jury, this one would have been sent to fight for the Méllès d’Or in Sitges, not Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block 2011, which I also thought was a great trip.

So grab a fountain pen and scratch Inbred onto your arm, because this one is going to be a classic, and you definitely don’t want to miss out on this gem.

Read more about Inbred here.

Return of the Living Dead 3

Return of the Living Dead 3
Directed by: Brian Yuzna
USA, 1993
Horror, 97min

A sequel, two notches away from the original source, shouldn’t really become a cult classic should it? Especially as the second installment only added insult to injury – despite finding it’s own place in zombie filmography and horror fans collections. Taking a daring step away from the black comedy splatter fest that Dan O’Bannon and John Russo’s original movie once was, and even further from the tepid not really that fun, and not really scary, failure of Ken Wiederhorn’s Return of the Living Dead II 1988, splatter-flick pioneer Brian Yuzna dug deep into the origins of the living dead to bring one of the franchises greatest moments; Return of the Living Dead 3.

Teenagers Curt [J. Trevor Edmond] and Julie [Mindy Clarke] are deep in love. Nothing can tear them apart… not even Curt’s stern military dad, top-secret research facilities or even death it’s self. After trying to impress his girlfriend by snitching his dad’s security pass card and sneaking into his research facility, and instead seeing a man being brought back to life, and then shot in the head, the couple take off scared and panicked with what they have seen. After another domestic conflict with his father at home Curt adolescently storms out of the house, most likely intent on running away with Julie. But fate has other plans for them and a freak accident leaves Julie dead. With the knowledge of what goes on in his fathers secret laboratory Curt has a second chance at love. But playing God has a price.

The first and foremost thing to pop out of the screen at me this time around was something that’s been attributed to other directors than the one who perhaps deserves the recognition. When critics, myself among them, started praising Marc Price’s Colin 2008 and even George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead 2005, and Survival of the Dead 2009, for introducing zombies as active characters making conscious decisions, one tends to forget about Julie Walker.

Seems that Brian Yuzna and writer John Penney, already went down that road almost twenty years ago with Return of the Living Dead3. Well aware of the lifecycle of the zombies – being bitten, dying and transforming into living dead flesh eater, Julie takes to self-mutilation to stay in touch with her humanity. That artwork and subplot wasn’t only a smart way of getting some great special effects and tapping into subcultures of the time, it was also a brilliant piece of character development. And it’s a rare to take the position of monster trying to stay human even in the modern zombie flicks of today. It’s pretty much still a metaphor for showing how man and man still bicker and fight amongst each other even when rotting flesh-eaters are banging on their front door.

Another interesting detail with the movie is the timeframe it’s set in. Not only a modern take on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but it also reflects modern deadly love affairs from pop culture such as Sid and Nancy and undoubtedly, Kurt and Courtney. Yes it's very nineties with several referents to the music scene of the time. Curt even holds a plan to take off to Seattle and join a band as a drummer... It's very much Grunge Nineties. But at the core of it all there’s the love story, and I can’t really think of a zombie movie that centers on a romance-fight for survival themed story before RotLD3, which again makes it rather unique at the time.

You need to pay attention to how characters are introduced in The Return of the Living Dead 3. The audiences’ first encounter with Julie sees her testing her endurance as she holds her hand over a flame – this will return throughout the movie and kinda sets a trait for her character. Curt arrives with the magic keycard and they both take off in what they think will be a mission to rescue animals from military experiments. We know from these few scenes that these are two typical young kids, trying out limits, seeking their place in life and engaged in the stuff that kids that age are, rock music, making out and rebelling against anyone and everything.

The power of politics are presented right off the bat. Where an initial attack would have been customary, Yuzna choses to present the real antagonists of the piece straight up front. The army via Colonel John Reynolds [Kent McCord] who’s all for the freeze-thaw-refreeze project and Colonel Sinclair [Sarah Douglas] Exoskeleton, a steel frame to control the zombies and use them in war… Which undoubtedly comes off as a comment on USA military and their way of exploiting anything they can. A lot of exposition and info about the secret military base is presented, amongst other things the shoddy security due to budgetary restraints… that will come in handy for Curt and Julie when they enter the facility somewhat later. This first scene establishes a rift within the corridors of power. John and Sinclair obviously come from two separate corners when it comes to the Zombies, which too is established in their very first scene.

The second military scene brings some delightful backstory into the piece and connects this installment with the previous two. A few lines of dialogue and a brilliant shot of a zombie in the classic barrels we have seen before. And as always, there’s never a scientific experiment that doesn’t go wrong. Where John’s rather humane approach seems to have been a success, it obviously fails, and the Sinclair’s exoskeleton project is propelled forth. Being a part three, one would have expected that viewers already would have known the genesis of the zombie. But as Yuzna and Penney have boosted their zombies – not even the common bullet to the brain works here, hence the Freezing experiments – and therefore we even get that little “this is how it works” scene.

Needless to say the movie thrives on the experience of Julie, and how she fights against her own body turning into a zombie. Poking her self with nails, twisting iron coils into her skin and fording shards of glass under her skin to tight off the hunger – and keep Curt’s love, are still in someway noble acts that do create empathy. After all, this is the character that changes the most through the movie. Possibly tame by todays standards, but at the time I recall the S&M motifs of Julie to be really captivating. Subplots like the Chinese shopkeeper – who drives a whole series of spectacular effects via his character, and the Latino gang out to get Julie and Curt, are set in motion pretty rapidly. Then they venture into the sewers, into the realm of Riverman [Basil Wallace]. With all this going on, the two fractions of the army chasing Curt and Julie – as they want her for research –is like spinning the volume up to eleven. There’s really no way you can’t enjoy this movie, as there’s never a slow moment. And just wait until Julie feasts on the brains of the poor man who just received a gun blast to the head!

A piece of fun trivia concerning that semi nude bodysuit that Clarke wears: as legend has it, special effects wizard Steve Johnson molded the suit off the body of his at the time girlfriend. None other than scream queen Linnea Quigley, star of the original installment.

Unfortunately the movie didn’t really make much of a splash at the box-office due to the MMPA and poor marketing from Tristar – despite a golden opportunity when the movie was Banned in South Africa for grounds of being immoral. With the poor theatrical reception in hindsight, the few page treatment that Brian Yuzna wrote about Hell Mary (about an underground Goth club where kids romanticize the story of Curt and Julie, and one special girl, Hell Mary has learned to cope with the pains and huger of being a living dead girl - never got made. I would love for Yuzna to dig it out of his archives and try to get it made, because there needs to be a change in the zombie movies made today as they all are more or less the same damned movie made over and over again… seeing men fight amongst each others in the face of the apocalypse is getting tired all over again.

Filled with some great special effect scenes, full throttle action from square one and characters that I actually give a damn about, Return of the Living Dead 3 is a lost classic of the 90's. This is a movie well worth re-discovering, it still delivers, has some very time-typical effects and it will certainly evoke that gothic punk rock chick fetish that you outgrew two decades ago all over again.

The most romantic zombie flick of them all, and this time love won’t tear them apart!

From the Land of Ice and Snow - The Sounds of Swedish Sin

The woman above is none other than Solveig Andersson. The stunning, intriguing and mesmerising Solveig Andersson. Now take a few minutes to look upon that face. Let it sink in. Absorb it if you will. Christina Lindberg and Marie Liljedahl in all respects, but for me the only real star of the Swedish Sin movies is Solveig Andersson.

I haven’t really read that much, and heard even less, about Solveig more than the few times she’s mentioned in interviews given by others about the genre.

Andersson dreamed of breaking through and becoming the next big Swedish star, which god knows she could have, but at the tender age of twenty-two she found herself cast in Torgny Wickman’s Eva – Den Utstötta 1969. This part led to other parts and if I where to list the quite frankly moderate list of movies she starred in you will see that Solveig starred in Bo A. Vibenius Thriller – en grym film (Thriller - a cruel picture) 1974, Arne Mattsson's Smutsiga Fingrar (Dirty Fingers)1973 and Torgny Wickman's Kyrkoheden 1970, Eva - den utstötta (Eva, Everything but legal), Ur Kärlekens Språk (Swedish Marriage Manual), both 1969, and my all time favourite Swedish exploitation flick, Skräcken har 1000 Ögon (Sensuous Sorceress) 1970, which I still demand an uncut version of by the way, and frequently panicky regret ever loosing that uncut vhs I had two decades ago.

If you know stuff about Swedish genre, then you will know that several of those titles above easily qualify as entries on some kind of top ten list.

Andersson left the movie business after finding faith in the lord. Now normally I would laugh that off, but in Solveig’s case, it’s so damned fitting. The main ingredient that draws me towards her movies and characters is that I find them and her to be the same person. I don’t really think there was that much difference between the woman and the characters she portrayed. There’s sadness and a frustration in all her characters. It’s almost as one can see the desperation in those blue eyes. As said, Solveig really dreamt of being a star, but sadly – probably due to her starring in the movies that she did – never really made it.

Despite never breaking out into the mainstream and becoming that shining star she dreamt of, there is some poetic justice in the fact that she apparently found her way in life and the few movies she did leave behind, have become cult classics on their own. So in some weird way, Solveig Andersson did become a star, and in my book the brightest shining star of them all.

Now get thy self off thy ass, and grab this smoking compilation of music from the movies you know and love as The Swedish Sin!

The Swedish Sin...

Now I’m not going to waste your time telling you about these smutty little movies or divulging into some pseudo analysis of narrative and characters, because that’s not gonna happen, despite how interesting it might have been. Instead, I’d like to tell you about these smutty little movies and why they should be part of your collection.

Naked Scandinavians, funky soundtracks, pristine restored prints, come on it’s fun!

If you like movies in the Swedish Sin fold, then these will be right up your street. Not only is Ta mig i dalen (Girl on Her Knees) 1977 the last of Swedish sexploitation king, Torgny Wickman’s movies - his importance is so understated in the annals of Swedish history - but it’s also a movie that shows the break between kinky soft sexploitation and the start of the deep end. One frisky take on the ways of life on a farm. Think Emmerdale with a healthy lashing of shagging, Yes Emmerdale and shagging, because Chris Chittell, who plays Eric Pollard in British countryside institution Emmerdale Farm since 1984 to now, starred in Ta mig i dalen as Richard.

Chittell appears under the stage name Charles Canyon that he used on all three of the Swedish blue movies he starred in. Ta mig i dalen was the second for Wickman - the first being The Intruder (Swedish Sex Games) against eminent stars such as Stellan Skarsgård in 1975, and Mac Ahlberg’s Molly (Sex in Sweden) 1977 against Marie Forså and Eva Axén… yes the same Eva Axén who get stabbed in the gut in the start of Dario Argento’s Suspiria 1977. See the Swedish Sin is our version of Six degrees of Kevin Bacon, everything in Sweden connects back to the Sin flicks.

Fans of doe eyed starlet, Christina Lindberg, might want to give Swedish/Danish co-production Nyckelhålet (The Keyhole) 1974 a gander, as the leading lady of that movie, Marie Ekorre, is definitely a worthy competitor for the title of queen of Swedish Sin, and here in her first leading role. You may have seen her in bit parts in Arne Mattsson’s still missing from a decent release masterpiece, Smutsiga Fingrar (Dirty Fingers) 1973, or Mac Ahlberg’s Jorden runt med Fanny Hill (Around the World with Fanny Hill) 1974, in which she co-starred as a fashion model with none other than Ms. Lindberg.

I’m happy to see distributor KlubbSuper8 return from a lengthy hiatus, as they are an important part of preserving Swedish cinematic heritage – come on, there’s so much more to Swedish cinema than Ingmar Bergman, and if you are a frequent reader you will know that I hold no grudge to Bergman and the fantastic legacy he left us with, but I do have issues with the shadows he casts upon the rest of Swedish cinematic history.

But where the spotlight really should be directed on these current releases is that the new titles – unlike the previous releases – all have English subtitles so that fans of Swedish Sin outside of Sweden can enjoy the dialogue too! But that’s not all, because if you take the time to go through the extra features, you will find, rare press materials, production documents, short movies, tons of trailers, and deleted scenes! Who the hell seeks out deleted scenes from an old skin flick? Yes, the dedicated troops of KlubbSuper8, and that's the kind of enthusiasm that I can admire!

The release of Ta Mig I Dalen is something of a treasure trove of lost material as they have also assembled the remaining material of Wickman’s never completed 1975 film Drömdoktorn (The Dream Doctor). After finding Wickman’s original shooting script and the uncut original negative, KS8, have reassembled the movie, which was discarded when the camera broke after 70% of the movie was in the can. This painstaking feat took two years of hard work to reassemble, and bring to life. Think about that the next time you rush through the special features on your discs, there’s someone who’s dedicated hours of hard work to get that on there. But it doesn’t stop there, because there’s also three tracks composed by George Riedell and Janne Schaffer.

Nyckelhålet also has its share of extras, not only a remastered version but also enclosed is a shoddy dodgy American grindhouse version complete with trashy film grain and shoddy tracking distortions. But keep in mind friends this is the real deal, no contemporary digital effects tampering, but authentic trashy grindhouse quality. And to make your acquaintance with Ms. Ekorre more pleasurable, there’s the gallery of her gentlemen magazine photographs for you.

Among the last batch of releases you can also find Blåjackor (Sailors) an Arne Mattsson musical from 1964, Bengt Blomgren’s moral dilemma drama Hällebäcks Gård 1961 (with the recently deceased Sif Ruud) where modern technology and lost love cause serious problems on the farm… without people shagging each other.

Finally the last release of this batch is another lost movie salvaged by KlubSuper8, Arne Ragneborn’s presumed lost forever anti-drinking propaganda movie Paradiset from 1955. On the bonus features here’ you’ll find interviews with colleagues, friends and co-workers who discuss just what a badass Ragneborn really was. Of the five movies he directed the most of them ended up being banned as they all dealt with topics like violence, criminality and the ever-popular Swedish pastime alcoholism… you have seen Luigi Scattini’s 1968 documentary Svezia, inferno e paradise (Sweden: Heaven and Hell) haven’t you?

Now for overseas or, “utanför tullarna” readers, I can see that this might be a tad on the narrow side even for you (not the skin flicks of course), but if you do live in Sweden then you should be picking these up anyways because these movies all have a part to play in our cinematic heritage, and if nothing else we should support KlubSuper8 as they have some really interesting titles hidden away for future releases, and we don’t want them vanish before the Dante movie or those fantastic Calvin Floyd movies are released now do we?

I’d suggest that you pop over to KlubbSuper8 and roam their web shop for some great movies filled with superb extras! Go get some!