Category Archives: Horror

Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema

#40 – Spanish Inquisition, The

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(1973, It, 80 min) Dir Antonio Marretti. Cast Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, Patrick Magellan.

Reuniting Price and Steele following Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum, Marretti’s The Spanish Inquisition finds the two of them in the same torturer/victim relationship as before. Young Francis (Magellan, still hanging around from Circo Nero and still wooden as all hell) longs to run away with his love Elizabeth (Steele) but when he finally drums up the courage to act he is interrupted by the arrival in town of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition. Price is Inquisitor Medina and from the time he first arrives he has his eyes set on Elizabeth. It all gets a bit Witchfinder General from then on – he concocts an accusation against her so that he can get her alone for some special torturing and, despite Francis’ best efforts, gets her up on the stake for the finale. But, just when you thought that unlike the Python’s Inquisition this was totally expected, Elizabeth’s head turns into a writhing ball of snakes and her unfurling bat wings snap the ropes that bind her to the stake. Yes, that’s right – she actually is some sort of Satanic hell-spawn and of course the Inquisition are running about like headless chickens because this is the first time they’ve actually seen a demon. But Elizabeth quickly blinds Inquisitor Medina and grabs a now not so keen Francis, making off into the dying sun. The special effects are terrible but points are scored for the unexpected.

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Black and White, Horror, Imaginary British Cinema

#33 – Ghost in the Floor, The

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(1962, GB, 95 min, b/w) Dir Eric Conway Bryce. Cast Denholm Elliott, Janette Scott, Martin Stephens, Freda Dowie.

Superior chiller, like an MR James story for Christmas that was never written, and impeccably shot by Freddie Francis. Victorian schoolteacher Reginald Benway (Elliott) is assigned to Oldgrey’s college in the moor bound village of Hampton. The reception, as one would expect in such a film, is chilly. That night, as he sits on his bed, his head in his hands in despair, he makes out what seems to him to be a face in the floorboards made from the whorls in the wood’s grain. As time goes on things improve – he makes friends with one of his pupils, the lonely and awkward Alec (Stephens), and a relationship is tentatively begun with his fellow teacher, Miss Devonshire (Scott). Of course everything goes wrong after that, with false rumours being spread about his relationship with the boy and even Miss Devonshire begins to keep her distance. As his troubles mount each night the face in his bedroom floor changes and grows larger… This all plays out at a superbly measured pace, all leading to an end that’s all the more terrifying for its inevitability.

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Drama, Horror, Imaginary US Cinema

#28 – Mean Average, The

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(2012, US, 100 min) Dir Eric Ceder. Cast Rob Morrow, Brent Briscoe, Laura Regan.

Bizarre Randian horror movie that spitballs the unrest of the Occupy movement into a society wide uprising that targets the innocent one per cent that are safeguarding our society. Our hero here is Alex Forster (Rob Morrow, possibly prepping for his role in Atlas Shrugged Part 3), a stockbroker titan unlike anything seen in The Wolf of Wall Street – he himself would totally never do anything bad ever and has a loving family that apparently exists in a perpetual sunbeam. The supposedly expensive but cheap-looking walls of his world come tumbling down one day when the unwashed drug-crazed hippies protesting outside his office move indoors and begin exacting their revenge on the money men. Thus begins a discount apocalypse in what is essentially a filmed play with CGI inserts and crowd scenes of mass riot that only work if your definition of the word ‘crowd’ bottoms out at two dozen. It’s baffling to conceive as to who this film is aimed at as it seems designed to offend and angry anyone not rich enough to own a gold toilet but, at the same time, is so cheap and stagey in its execution to betray the fact that no self-respecting wealthy person would put their money near it.

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Horror, Imaginary French Cinema

#24 – Extase de l’obscurité (Dark Ecstasy)

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(1975, Fr, 85 mins) Dir Jean Rollin. Cast Christina von Blanc, Maria Rohm, Joëlle Coeur, Britt Nichols, Alice Arno.

Lesbian vampire nuns. If the preceding sentence has left you cold then there’s not much here for you as Dark Ecstasy hasn’t much to offer beyond the allure of those three words. Young novice Caterina (von Blanc) has been sent to the mountaintop convent of Marie-des-Monts by the shifty Sister Elizabeth who lived there herself years ago and now rocks back and forth while cackling incessantly. It seems that Caterina’s purity is just right for the perverted denizens of Marie-des-Monts, as led by the icy and statuesque Maria Rohm, to exploit. And exploit it they do, for the full of the film’s running time, with Caterina of course proving victorious in the end, burning the convent down and sacrificing herself in the process. Slow but fun for fans of lesbians, vampires and nuns. Originally the film ran for a trim 72 minutes but the relaxing of certification laws in later years saw Rollin return (possibly under duress, depending on whose version of events you believe) to insert a lengthy dream sequence that included hardcore sex scenes and, because they were popular at the time, zombies. This hardcore zombie version was released under the imagination-free title Nonnes lesbiennes de Vampire in 1981.

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Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema

#22 – Circo Nero (Black Circus)

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(1972, It, 93 min) Dir Antonio Marretti. Cast Patrick Magellan, Telly Savalas, Reena Pavlova, Ingrid Pitt.

Watery flower child Duke (Magellan) is abandoned in the woods one night by his brain-dead hedonist friends and after wandering in the day for night to the accompaniment of a lonesome ballad he happens upon a big top in a clearing and risks a peek inside. On the high-wire is barely animated porcelain doll Reena Pavlova with a lonesome ballad of her own. Duke is entranced, obviously. Unfortunately for him sadistic ringmaster Telly Savalas (his bald head inexplicably, if eerily, painted red) has this doll in his collection and isn’t giving her up easy. Duke parlays his juggling skills into the position vacated by a recently deceased clown and lo he can travel with the circus and moon over Pavlova from a distance all the while seeing off the advances of dancing lady (Pitt, having a ball). Of course everyone in the troupe are Satanic hell-spawn pilfering the bodies and souls of the locals as they traverse the countryside but, despite the obviousness of their schemes and the well shot trippy dreams he keeps having about them being evil, the dim Duke is none the wiser until the final reel. The race is then on to save his captured love but is she what she seems either? Silly fun.

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Detective, Giallo, Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema

#21 – Quattro gocce di sangue in una stanza buia (Four Drops of Blood in a Darkened Room)

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(1971, It, 98 min) Dir Antonio Marretti. Cast Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Jack Taylor.

In 1971 Edwige Fenech was in the middle of a hot giallo streak with Five Dolls for an August Moon and Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key just two genre classics she shot around the same time as this. Quattro Gocce, while not achieving the lasting reputation of the others, has plenty for the aficionado. Fenech is an eager student by day and dissolute boot model by night in go-go Rome when her life is turned upside down following the horrible murders, in the same night, of one of her student friends and one of her model friends. It’s obvious to her (but not to the feckless polizia) that someone is closing in on her but who could the killer be? Among the many red herring are Hilton’s photographer friend and Taylor’s sweaty-palmed peeping tom, both caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course the reveal makes no sense it’s at least in keeping with the randomness of the rest of the feature and it’s flashy visuals, peppy Morricone soundtrack and some stylish kills make this a fine addition to any Friday night’s viewing.

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Black and White, Detective, Horror, Imaginary US Cinema

#20 – Skull and Jones and the Return of the Scarlet Ghost

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(1942, US, 83 min, b/w) Dir Irving Pichel. Cast Preston Foster, Susan Hayward, Rita Johnson, Joe E. Brown.

Two years from the Scarlet Ghost’s first appearance and for America the war is now in full swing. Joe E. Brown is shipping magnate Forster Blueford who hires our crime fighting hero and his disembodied pal to investigate the sabotage happening in the docks, sending his secretary Hayward along for the ride. Of course the Germans are responsible and at their head is the Ghost herself, who by this time has morphed into the blonde Rita Johnson and has been rebranded as the head witch of an occult wing of the Nazi party. She kidnaps Skull and hypnotises Jones into a hallucinating stupor and reprogrammes him with anti-American sentiment to act as their stooge. Of course he can’t follow through, stopping before he can strangle Blueford as bidden and rescuing Skull but getting the slip from the Scarlet Ghost, who makes off in a U-boat to plot another day. Great fun that belies it’s propaganda purposes with Preston Foster now wearing the role as comfortably as an old jumper, chatting away to his skull in a bag as though it were the most normal thing in the world.

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Black and White, Detective, Horror, Imaginary US Cinema

#19 – Skull and Jones and the Scarlet Ghost

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(1940, US, 70 min, b/w) Dir Albert S. Rogell. Cast Preston Foster, Claire Trevor, Ogdon Marshall.

The fourth film in the S&B series and the first to star their longest serving Jones, Preston Foster. Filming began about five minutes after cut was called on The Laughing Darkness and this is belied by a crossover in the cast, including a tiny role for Lugosi, uncredited, as an Oriental stereotype. Not a supernatural caper, this one – Skull and Jones here find themselves on the trail of a Nazi saboteur called (as the title would suggest) the Scarlet Ghost, who is at large in LA agitating  in some manner or another.  A twist in the tale reveals it to be none other than his socialite pal from the previous feature, the lovely Claire Tracey in a mask seemingly without eye holes and a sparkling ball gown, both of which seem odd attire for a Nazi saboteur. She tumbles from some docks into thick sea fog and is presumed dead in the final act but returns as Skull and Jones’ first recurring villain in later features. A slapdash affair, not a great start to Foster’s tenure (though he equips himself well enough) nor a great introduction such a strong a character in the series history as the Scarlet Ghost. Things pick up subsequently, leaving this one for the history books and completists only.

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Black and White, Detective, Horror, Imaginary US Cinema

#18 – Skull and Jones and the Laughing Darkness

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(1939, US, 73 min, b/w) Dir Albert S. Rogell. Cast Paul Fix, Claire Trevor, Bela Lugosi.

The notion with the Skull and Jones series – as popularized by Generation X viewers of the nineties such as Quentin Tarantino – is that Jones himself is insane, that Skull isn’t talking but that Jones is in fact a great detective throwing his voice into it. This theory is given credence in this, the third in the series (and the only one with a miscast Paul Fix, best known as a Western actor), where in the execution of his detective duties Jones finds himself locked in an asylum, hallucinating his cranial companion in his moonlit cell. Of course he escapes with the help of his knock-out socialite friend Tracey (Claire Trevor in a slinky silk number and ill-advised heels) and uncovers the warden’s dastardly plot to exploit the mad for his own financial gain via faux spectral apparitions. Lugosi’s casting as said warden makes the third act reveal a bit of a foregone conclusion but this is a fun romp with its eerie moments nonetheless.

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Black and White, Detective, Horror, Imaginary US Cinema

#17 – Skull and Jones

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(1937, US, 67 min, b/w) Dir Edgar G. Ulmer. Cast Francis Lederer, Margo, Olaf Hytten.

The first in the oddball Skull and Jones series. Lederer is the titular Jones, investigating supernatural mysteries with the aid of a skull (called Skull) that he carries around with him in a velvet sack and takes out to consult with when no one else is around. Called to the mansion of the recently deceased Hugo Noir by his daughter (Margo, the same year she and Lederer wed) who suspects that foul play and devilry were the cause of her father’s demise. His investigations take him beyond the sunny, palm-lined streets of LA and into the shadowy world of the occult, all leading to an explosive gun battle in a deserted night time Hollywood Bowl. An intriguing mix of horror and detective tropes with atmospheric direction from The Black Cat’s Ulmer and spry banter from all. Only one of two S&B starring Lederer before the torch was passed on a la James Bond – popular in its day, the series lasted for sixteen films and a short lived television series in the 1950’s. A blockbuster franchise attempt has been rumoured for the premise for some time, most recently with Johnny Depp in the lead.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms