Lobby Card Collection - The Angry Red Planet (1959)

Dracula (1931)

Dir: TOD BROWNING
Country: USA

For me one of the most eagerly awaited releases of 2012 was the eight disc Universal Monsters blu-ray box set. It was indeed a joy to discover that this would be one of the titles put out to celebrate Universal’s 100^th anniversary, and a further joy to be able to experience Dracula (and its Spanish language variant, both 1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Wolf Man (1941), Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) in high definition. Though I must spoil Universal’s horror party somewhat by asking what on earth were they thinking including their lacklustre and tedious second attempt at Phantom of the Opera? Surely the sublime dark brilliance of The Black Cat (1934) would have been a more contextually satisfying inclusion, not to mention a damn site more entertaining. That aside the collection is pretty much faultless (the plethora of special features is almost overwhelming) and over the next few weeks I will slowly work my way through it, and hope to bring you reviews of all the films. So we begin with the film that gave commercial impetus to Universal’s appetite for horror, the lukewarm and rather monotonous Dracula.

Genocide - War of the Insects (1968)

Dir: KAZUI NIHONMATSU

Country: JAPAN

AKA:

Konchû daisensô

Genocide

War of the Insects 

One of the more intriguing responses to the monster movie (kaiju-eiga) boom of the 1950’s and 1960’s was the one undertaken by Shochiku. The studio was more commonly associated with the prestigious and formally precise productions of Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu, and the burgeoning formal experimentation of the politically motivated Japanese new wave. But in the late 1960’s the studio produced four science-fiction/horror/fantasy productions in quick succession in order to reap the fertile and profitable soil sown by the likes of Godzilla, Gamera, Mothra, King Kong and Ghidorah.  The first was the laughably inept The X from Outer Space (1967), a film generally regarded as one of the weaker entries in the kaiju-eiga cycle. The next was the more conceptually ambitious Goke, Bodysnatcher from Hell (1968), an intriguing blend of UFO’s, vampirism and apocalyptic disaster. The films arresting visual palette and its strong premise have enabled it to become the most visible of the Shociku quartet. The third was the peculiar The Living Skeleton (1968), which was shot in black and white, and was an eerie tale of revenge overflowing with the atmospherics of kaidan. The fourth and final effort is the film under discussion here, a revolt of nature horror film with an elaborate and complicated narrative that includes the search for an H-bomb, a man wrongly convicted of murder, communist infiltrators, a survivor of the Holocaust, and the apocalypse. It’s a heady mix, drowning in a sea of ideas, an unwieldy beast that ultimately slays itself on its own convolution.

Roman Polanski Poster Gallery

Knife in the Water (1962) - Polish Poster

 

West German Poster

Argentinian Poster

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Repulsion (1965) - UK Quad Poster

Lobby Card Collection - Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Lobby Card Collection - The Birds (1963)



Eaten Alive (1977)

Dir: TOBE HOOPER
Country: USA

AKA:
Brutes and Savages
Death Trap
Horror Hotel
Horror Hotel Massacre
Legend of the Bayou
Murder on the Bayou
Slaughter Hotel
Starlight Slaughter

Few filmmakers are burdened with the kind of expectation that Tobe Hooper endured when he came to make his second feature film. His first just happened to be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), a film that to this day has a visceral impact that remains undiminished. I’m happy to go on record in stating that I think it to be the greatest American horror film of the last forty years, and it is the sole entry in Hooper’s filmography that enables me to forgive him the celluloid offal that he has since produced. Hooper’s career has been a lamentable, pitiful, and at times desperate, search to recapture the waking nightmare of his first film. It is in itself a noble aim, but his debut picture was made without consideration of its commercial prospects, and Hooper has since worked largely as a director-for-hire; a position which immediately undermines and weakens a filmmakers attempts to develop his/her thematic passions. Of course many of the projects directors-for-hire work on are tailored to what the producers believe are the strengths of the filmmaker. The Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike for example, has over eighty credits to his name, but not a single one of them originated from his own mind. Yet Miike has been offered films which have enabled him to build a distinctive thematic universe which seems uniquely his. Hooper has been less fortunate, and one need look no further than his second film Eaten Alive (one of numerous titles the film was marketed under) to see how everything went wrong for the man that just a few years before created a horror masterpiece.

Calling All Police Cars (1975)

Dir: MARIO CAINO
Country: ITALY

AKA:
...a tutte le auto della polizia
Without Trace

Calling All Police Cars is one of the most notable obscurities to cross my desk in recent months. I say notable because its position within the landscape of popular Italian cinema of the 1970’s is truly undeserved. I have yet to read a negative assessment of this film, but the problem is being able to actually find any critical writing on it at all. The age of DVD has been particularly kind to some films and directors from this era, in some cases richly deserved, in others far from it. Mario Caino appears to be a director that frequently slips through the net, though the few films of his I have seen, easily stand up to many of his contemporaries. Caino is perhaps best known to fans of cult cinema for his 1965 gothic horror picture Nightmare Castle, which featured British actress Barbara Steele in dual roles, beautiful cinematography by Enzo Barboni, and a fitting score by Ennio Morricone. This distinctive contribution to Italian cinema’s gothic horror cycle was not really followed up though, as Caino found a productive niche in the popular and profitable spaghetti western cycle; titles include Ringo; Face of Revenge (1967, featuring Anthony Steffen), Train for Durango (1968) and My Name is Shanghai Joe (1973, featuring Klaus Kinski). Caino further proved his skill at adapting to different genres with Milano Violenta (1976, aka Bloody Payroll) and the Henry Silva starring Weapons of Death (1977), both of which were assured entries in the Euro-Crime cycle. A departure into the vile and sleazy world of Nazisploitation resulted in Caino’s most controversial film Nazi Love Camp 27 (1977), which, despite its subject matter, was still quite effective.

Martin Scorsese Poster Gallery

Who's that Knocking at my Door AKA I Call First (1967) - US Poster

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boxcar Bertha (1972) - US Quad Poster

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mean Streets (1973) - US Poster

Italian Poster

Celluloid Sounds - The Blood on Satan's Claw (1970)

From a purely personal perspective, the Tigon production of The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1970) represents the pinnacle of the British horror film. Of course an objectively dispassionate and critical eye is able to discern a myriad of plot deficiencies and narrative weaknesses, and one or two performances diminish the overall effect, but for me this is an insidiously perverse, eerie, and troubling piece of work, which evocatively renders the fears and superstitions of a rural 17th century community. In addition to its censor baiting visuals, and its various concessions to generic cinema, it is also a beautiful film about the English countryside. It is incredibly earthy, overflows with a rich autumnal palette, and possesses such a sense of pastoral isolation that at times the narrative takes on the mythical persona of a folk tale. The gorgeous Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire countryside was strikingly shot by cinematographer Dick Bush, and the natural lighting brings an exquisite rustic charm to its tale of a village’s children succumbing to the influence of Satan. Like the best examples of film art The Blood on Satan’s Claw works on an allegorical level, and its dramatic clash between a group of children realising and celebrating their freedom and sexuality, and the forces of patriarchal adulthood that seek to contain it offers a prescient message for the age of permissiveness.

Hanzo the Razor - Sword of Justice (1972)

Dir: KENJI MISUMI
Country: JAPAN

AKA:
Goyokiba
Sword of Justice

Sword of Justice is the first film in a trilogy of pictures exploring the controversial character Hanzo the Razor. Hanzo was the brainchild of Kazuo Koike who brought his adventures to life in a series of Manga publications. Koike is perhaps best known however for his Lone Wolf and Cub series, which ran to twenty eight instalments, and over 8 million sales. The success of this series spawned six feature films that showcased the stoic talents of Tomisaburo Wakayama, and found their way to the West via the hotchpotch efforts of Robert Houston and David Weisman under the title Shogun Assassin (1980). The enterprising pair grafted twelve minutes of the first picture Sword of Vengeance (1972) onto the vast majority of the second picture Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972), gave it a contemporary electronic soundtrack by Mark Lindsey, dubbed it into English, and enjoyed a notable success. Koike also created the character of Lady Snowblood, and though not as successful as Lone Wolf and Cub, still ran for fifteen instalments, and led to two feature films starring Meiko Kaji as the titular lady who seeks revenge for the rape of her mother, and the murders of her mother’s husband and son. All of Koike’s most famous Manga creations are marked by grand stylisation and extreme violence, and the film adaptations do not skimp in these areas. But Hanzo possesses a grotesquery that the others do not, and this is largely due to the Policeman’s novel interrogation technique, which sees him target mistresses, whom he then fucks into such a lather of ecstasy with his oversized penis that they are begging to spill the beans in order for the pleasure to continue.

Colt 38 Special Squad (1976)

Dir: MASSIMO DALLAMANO
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Quelli della calibro 38

Thus far on every occasion that a film directed by Massimo Dallamano has crossed my line of sight and made it to the screen, I’ve generally been impressed by the results. I say generally because his 1969 take on Venus in Furs left me cold, unimpressed, and most damagingly of all; bored! But since that fateful afternoon where I lost ninety minutes of my life to that asinine garbage, the films of his I have screened have had me reaching for the superlatives. The giallo double of What Have They Done to Solange? (1971) and What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) were remarkably consistent examinations of not only corrupted innocence, but also how a mask of innocence and youth can conceal all manner of perversions. The former totally outgrew the Edgar Wallace pot-boiler which it took tacit inspiration from, and the latter injected some of the high octane action strategies of the Polizio/Euro-crime cycle into its formulaic gialli narrative. It is this fusion of elements which points forward to Dallamano’s inevitable full blown entry into the Polizio/Euro-crime cycle with the fast paced thriller Colt 38 Special Squad. He seems far more confident amongst the chase sequences, shootouts, fistfights, and vengeful violence of this cycle than the muted atmospherics of the passable The Night Child (1975), the rather dry and forgettable horror flick that preceded it. One of the great tragedies of popular Italian cinema was that Colt 38 Special Squad would be Dallamano’s last picture; certainly on the evidence displayed here Dallamano could have made a number of vital contributions to the cycle, and would no doubt have further enriched a variety of generic soil.

Press Book Collection - Black Sabbath (1963)

[Cover]

[1]

[2]

[3]

Lobby Card Collection - Cujo (1983)

Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

Dir: DAMIANO DAMIANI
Country: USA/MEXICO

I have to open this review by saying that I consider The Amityville Horror (1979) to be a truly abysmal movie. It is a stultifying traipse through the conventions of the haunted house film; a lousy melodrama, one that is anchored in a swamp of po-faced seriousness due to a faux ‘based on true events’ gimmick that hamstrings any attempt for inventiveness or imagination. Nevertheless this feeble garbage became something of a sensation thanks in large part to a clever marketing campaign, and in even larger part to the gullibility of the American movie-going public. The most successful aspect of the film is Lalo Schifrin’s spine chilling music, its scariest moment a brief scene in which Rod Steiger (fly covered and gasping for air) is yelled at to “GET OUT!!” by a disembodied voice. Three years later Italian super producer Dino De Laurentis felt enough time had passed for a sequel, and to the enormous credit of all involved it totally dispenses with the restrictive ‘true story’ trick and fully commits to the supernatural. This is indeed ironic, considering that a major plot event of Amityville II is based on actual recorded events! In fact there is more true-to-life basis in the second film than the first! Amityville II is also technically a prequel, in the days before that term wasn’t synonymous with crap Star Wars movies. But it’s clear from the outset that the filmmakers couldn’t care less about evoking a specific period in time. This is not slipshod on their part; it’s illustrative of creative minds unshackling themselves from the supposed ‘reality’ of the Amityville story, and choosing to follow a trail blazed by The Exorcist (1973) and the more concurrent Poltergeist (1982). It comes to something when the major influence on a sequel isn’t the film that spawned it.

Lobby Card Collection - Highlander (1986)

Them! (1954)

Dir: GORDON DOUGLAS
Country: USA

The rich and fertile landscape of American science-fiction was sown in the 1950’s, and the production companies that ploughed the land most consistently were Universal International Pictures and American International Pictures. The former were able to bring a certain degree of filmmaking sophistication to such efforts as It Came from Outer Space (1953), This Island Earth (1955), and The Monolith Monsters (1957), and they gave director Jack Arnold a platform to investigate his thematic concerns in a series of sci-fi pictures that culminated with his unqualified masterpiece The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). In some quarters Arnold is considered an auteur, and so too is Roger Corman, who was to AIP what Arnold was to UI. By contrast the productions of AIP were marked by ultra low budgets, non-existent production values, and owing to their status as independent producers and distributors a certain amount of political and social radicalism. Like the cycle of monochrome horrors initiated in the 1930’s by Universal every major production company got in on the act, and independent production outfits had a field day with material perfectly suited to the drive-ins and the affluent teenage demographic; for whatever reason Warner Bros. were consistently uninterested in the booming sci-fi/horror cycle of the 1950’s. This mirrored their lack of interest in the horror cycle of the 1930’s, which was paid the slightest lip service with a small handful of films. Their influence in the 1950’s extended mostly to the area of distribution as they put out The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), X the Unknown (1956), and The Black Scorpion (1957). Their sole foray into the area of production was clearly intended to emulate the success of 20,000 Fathoms, and it did so and more, with a prehistoric dinosaur being replaced by a colony of giant irradiated ants.

Press Book Collection - Tales of Terror (1962)

[Cover]

 [1]

 [2]

 [3]