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Théâtre du Grand-Guignol – location

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Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (French pronunciation: ​[ɡʁɑ̃ ɡiɲɔl]: “The Theatre of the Big Puppet”) – known as the Grand Guignol – was a theatre in the Pigalle area of Paris (at 20 bis, rue Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialized in naturalistic, usually shocking, horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre (for instance Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil), to today’s splatter films. The influence has even spread to television shows such as Penny Dreadful.

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Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was founded in 1894 by the playwright and novelist, Oscar Méténier, who planned it as a space for naturalist performance. Méténier, who in his other job had been a chien de commisaire (a person who accompanied prisoners on a death row), created the theatre in a former chapel, the design keeping many of the original features, such as neo-Gothic wooden panelling, iron-barred boxes and two large angels positioned above the orchestra – the space was embellished with further Gothic adornments to create an atmosphere of unease and gloom. With 293 seats, the venue was the smallest in Paris, the distance between audience and actors being minimal and adding to the claustrophobic nature of the venue. The lack of space also influenced the productions themselves, the closeness of the audience meaning there was little point in attempting to create fantastical environments, the illusion shattered immediately by the actors breathing down their necks – not that there was any room on the 7 metre by 7 metre space for anything much in the way of backdrops.

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The Guignol from which the theatre and movement took its name was originally a Mr Punch-like character who, in the relative safety of puppet-form, commentated on social issues of the day. On occasion, so cutting were the views that Napoleon III’s police force were employed to ensure the rhetoric did not sway the masses. Initially, the theatre produced plays about a class of people who were not considered appropriate subjects in other venues: prostitutes, criminals, street urchins, con artists and others at the lower end of Paris society, all of whom spoke in the vernacular of the streets. Méténier’s plays were influenced by the likes of Maupassant and featured previously forbidden portrayals of whores and criminality as a way of life, prompting the police to temporarily close the theatre.

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By 1898, the theatre was already a huge success but it was also time for Méténier to stand to one side as artistic director, a place taken by Max Maurey, a relative unknown but one who had much experience in the world of theatre and public performance. Maurey saw his job to build on the reputation the theatre already had for boundary pushing and take it to another level entirely. He saw the answer as horror, not just the tales of the supernatural but of the realistic, gory and terrifying re-enactments of brutality exacted on the actors, with such believability that many audience members took the plays as acts of torture and murder. Maurey judged the success of his shows by the number of audience members who fainted, a pretend doctor always on-hand to add to the pretence.

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The writer of the majority of the plays during this period was André de Latour (later de Lorde), spending his days as an unassuming librarian, his evenings writing upwards of 150 plays, all of them strewn with torture, murder and what we would now associate with splatter films. He often worked with the psychologist, Alfred Binet (the inventor of the I.Q. test) to ensure his depictions of madness (a common theme) were as accurate as possible.

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Also crucial to the play’s success was the stage manager, Paul Ratineau, who, as part of his job, was responsible was the many gory special effects. This was some challenge, with the audience close enough to shake hands with the actors, Ratineau had to develop techniques from scratch, ensuring that not only were devices well-hidden but that the actors could employ them in a realistic manner, without detection. A local butcher supplied as much in the way of animal intestines as were required, whilst skilfully using lighting helped to make the scenes believable as well as aiding the sinister atmosphere. Rubber appliances made suitable spewing innards when animal’s were not available and several concoctions were devised to simulate blood, ranging from cellulose solutions to red currant jelly. Actual beast’s eyeballs were coated in aspic to allow for re-use, confectioner’s skills employed to enable the eating of the orbs where required. Rubber tubes, bladders, fake blades and false limbs were also used to create gruesome scenes, though on occasion these did prove hazardous – reports detail instances where one actor was set on fire, one was nearly hanged and yet another was victim to some enthusiastic beating from her co-star, resulting in cuts, bruises and a nervous breakdown.

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The actors themselves were not especially unusual – they were performers taking work wherever it came. There were a few stars of note – Paula Maxa (born Marie-Therese Beau)  became known as “the Sarah Bernhardt of the impasse Chaptal” or, if you prefer, “the most assassinated woman in the world”, an appropriate claim for an actress who, during her career at the Grand Guignol, had her characters murdered more than 10,000 times in at least 60 different ways and raped at least 3,000 times. Maxa was shot, scalped, strangled, disemboweled, flattened by a steamroller, guillotined, hanged, quartered, burned, cut apart with surgical tools and lancets, cut into eighty-three pieces by an invisible Spanish dagger, had her innards stolen,  stung by a scorpion, poisoned with arsenic, devoured by a puma, strangled by a pearl necklace, crucified and whipped; she was also put to sleep by a bouquet of roses and kissed by a leper, amongst other treats. Another actor, L.Paulais (real name, Georges) portrayed both victim and villain with equal skill and opposite Maxa in every one of their many performances.  He once commented that the secret to the realistic performances was their shared fear. The actress Rafaela Ottiano was one of the few, perhaps even only, original actors in the theatre to transfer to the Big Screen, appearing in Tod Browning’s Devil Doll (1936).

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At the Grand Guignol, patrons would see five or six plays, all in a style that attempted to be brutally true to the theatre’s naturalistic ideals. These plays often explored the altered states, like insanity, hypnosis, panic, under which uncontrolled horror could happen. Some of the horror came from the nature of the crimes shown, which often had very little reason behind them and in which the evildoers were rarely punished or defeated. To heighten the effect, the horror plays were often alternated with comedies. Under the new theatre director, Camille Choisy, special effects continued to be an important part of the performances. Many of the attendees would barely be able to control themselves – if they weren’t fainting, they were quite possibly reaching something approaching orgasmic fervour, private booths being extremely popular to allow some privacy for their heightened emotions. On occasion the actors were forced to come out of character to reprimand more excitable audience members. Some particularly salacious examples of plays performed include:

Le Laboratoire des Hallucinations, by André de Lorde: When a doctor finds his wife’s lover in his operating room, he performs a graphic brain surgery rendering the adulterer a hallucinating semi-zombie. Now insane, the lover/patient hammers a chisel into the doctor’s brain.

Un Crime dans une Maison de Fous, by André de Lorde: Two hags in an insane asylum use scissors to blind a young, pretty fellow inmate out of jealousy.

L’Horrible Passion, by André de Lorde: A nanny strangles the children in her care.

Le Baiser dans la nuit by Maurice Level: A young woman visits the man whose face she horribly disfigured with acid, where he obtains his revenge.

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Jack Jouvin served as director from 1930 to 1937. He shifted the theatre’s subject matter, focusing performances not on gory horror but psychological drama. Under his leadership the theatre’s popularity waned; and after World War II, it was not well-attended. Grand Guignol flourished briefly in London in the early 1920s under the direction of Jose Levy, where it attracted the talents of Sybil Thorndike and Noël Coward, and a series of short English “Grand Guignol” films (using original screenplays, not play adaptations) was made at the same time, directed by Fred Paul. Meanwhile in France, audiences had sunk to such low numbers that the theatre had no option but to close its doors in 1962. The building still remains but is used by a theatre group performing plays in sign language. Modern revivals in the tradition of Grand Guignol have surfaced both in England and in America.

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Grand Guignol was hugely influential on film-making both in subject and style. Obvious examples include Prince of Terror De Lorde’s works being used as the basis for D.W. Griffith’s Lonely Villa (1909), Maurice Tourneur’s The Lunatics (1913)  and Jean Renoir’s Diary of a Chambermaid (1946). Others clearly influenced include the Peter Lorre-starring Mad Love (1935), Samuel Gallu’s Theatre of Death (1967), H.G. Lewis’ Wizard of Gore (1970) and Joel M. Reed’s notorious Blood Sucking Freaks (1975). More recently, More recently, Grand Guignol has featured in the hit television series, Penny Dreadful. The 1963 mondo film Ecco includes a scene which may have been filmed at the Grand Guignol theatre during its final years – as such, it would be the only footage known to exist.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

We are grateful to Life Magazine for some images and Grand Guignol website for some of the information.

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English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema – book

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English Gothic: a century of horror cinema is a film reference book book written by Jonathan Rigby first published in 2000 and expanded to include more recent films and TV productions and reprinted in 2006.

The British horror film is almost as old as cinema itself. English Gothic traces the rise and fall of the genre from its 19th-century beginnings to the present day. Jonathan Rigby examines 100 crucial movies, taking in the lost films of the silent era, the Karloff and Lugosi chillers of the 1930s, the lurid classics from Hammer’s house of horror, and the explicit shockers of the 1970s. The story concludes with more recent films, such as Hellraiser and Shaun of the Dead. Filled with film posters, stills, and behind-the-scenes shots, this entertaining study sheds new light on British cinema’s most successful, and misunderstood, export.

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Chapters

Foreward by filmmaker Richard Gordon

Part One – British Horror in Embryo

Part Two – First Flood (1954-1959)

Part Three – Treading Water (1960 – 1964)

Part Four – New Wave (1965 – 1969)

Part Five  – Market Saturation (1970 – 1975)

Part Six – British Horror in Retreat

Afterword by David McGillivray (House of Whipcord; House of Mortal Sin; Satan’s Slave)

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“English Gothic succeeds in providing an informed and in-depth overview of horror on British screens over the last hundred years, reflecting the important, yet often overlooked part the genre has played in the country’s cinematic output.” Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies

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Reviews:

“Even before I had paged myself to its conclusion, English Gothic impressed me as an instant classic, a true textbook, one to stand on equal terms alongside the seminal likes of Ivan Butler’s Horror in the Cinema, Carlos Clarens’ An Illustrated History of the Horror Film, Denis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, and David Pirie’s A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946-1972″ Movie Morlocks

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“The lack of a name index is a disadvantage and the onus is on the reference reader to access the book by film title, however this is not a major obstacle and the volume is, without doubt one of the most indispensable guides to this genre of British movie-making.” Stride Magazine

Buy English Gothic book from Amazon.co.uk

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Paul Naschy: actor and director

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Paul Naschy (born Jacinto Molina Álvarez, September 6, 1934 – November 30, 2009) was a Spanish movie actor, screenwriter, and director working primarily in horror films. His portrayals of numerous classic horror figures—the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Monster, Count Dracula, the Hunchback, and the Mummy – have earned him recognition as the Spanish Lon Chaney.

His signature role was that of the werewolf, Waldemar Daninsky, whom he played a staggering twelve times. He had one of the most recognizable faces in Spanish horror film, though his long filmography reveals Naschy also starred in dozens of action films, historical dramas, crime movies, TV shows and documentaries.. In addition to acting, Naschy also wrote the screenplays for most of his films and directed a number of them as well. King Juan Carlos I presented Naschy with Spain’s Gold Medal Award for Fine Arts in 2001 in honour of his work, the Spanish equivalent of being knighted.

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Jacinto Molina Álvarez was born on September 6th 1934 to an artistic family – his father, Enrique, was a renowned fur and leather craftsman, his grandfather, Emilio, a celebrated sculptor of religious iconography. His family members’ success in their respective fields allowed Jacinto a relatively comfortable upbringing. The tranquillity of his childhood in Madrid was dramatically punctuated by the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, an event, along with the rise of the dictator General Franco, staining his view of the world and inevitably influencing his later career. Despite his young age, Molina’s mind was etched with images of spiralling aircraft, a disembodied soldier staggering for a few brief seconds before collapsing in a twitching heap, rows of executed traitors, as well as the tales from his father who served on the frontline.

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As the Civil War gave way to the Second World War, further horrors revealed themselves, not least the German school Molina attended, bedecked with Nazi paraphernalia and a mourning assembly when news of Hitler’s death filtered through. At home, comics occupied his mind with more fantastical thoughts, though his uncle’s gory tales of sights he’d witnessed at local bull fights continued to draw Molina back to the death and the brutality of both life and death.

Cinema soon became a big attraction, initially the weekly serials which demanded you return to learn the resolution of the cliffhanger – particular favourites were The Drums of Fu Manchu and Mysterious Dr Satan. The real revelation was a screening of a reissued Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, Lon Chaney Jr’s portrayal of the doomed Larry Talbot changing Molina’s life forever. When asked by his mother what he wanted to be when he grew up, Jacinto replied, “a werewolf”. After briefly befriending the ‘spree killer’, José María Jarabo Pérez Morris, a man with such a muscular neck his eventual execution by garrotting took over twenty minutes, Molina’s first obsession away from cinema was weightlifting, another passion which stayed with him throughout his life.

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By his twenties, Molina concentrated on both weightlifting and acting, the first presenting him with almost immediate success, decorating him with an array of titles and accolades, the latter proving significantly more difficult to break into. Molina had an uncredited bit part in the classic 1961 Biblical epic King of Kings and a few other films of that period, and the experience drew him further into film-making.

While appearing as an extra in an episode of the American TV show I Spy that was being filmed in Spain in 1966, Naschy met horror icon Boris Karloff on the set, a thrill he never forgot. Karloff, in poor health, having difficulty walking and suffering with cold, broke down in tears one day, the frustration and pain just too much. The sight of his hero displaying emotion in this way, despite his history of terrorising and killing on the Big Screen was also to have a profound effect on Molina’s future acting career.

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Tired of waiting for success to find him, in 1968 Molina penned the screenplay to what would eventually become the film The Mark of the Wolfman (La Marca del Hombre Lobo) a film following the Polish Count, Waldemar Daninsky, who, afflicted with lycanthropy, battles both other werewolves and vampires in a bells and whistles fest of the gory and the Gothic. The screenplay was picked up by German producers who, when finding their first choice for the role of Daninsky, Lon Chaney Jr, was far too ill with throat cancer to take the part at the age of 62, offered it to Molina. Though not his intention, Molina gratefully accepted but was required by the financiers of the film to adopt a more Teutonic-sounding name. Thus Paul Naschy was born, ‘Paul’ after the then Pope, Paul VI, ‘Naschy’ after the Hungarian weightlifter, Imre Nagy. A Spanish name would simply have been too uncommercial for worldwide distribution – at the time, Spain was churning out endless dismal ‘comedies’ and little else, apart from providing many of the settings for Italian-made Westerns.

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The success of the film was enough to allow Naschy the comfort of continuing to develop his own projects – regrettably, a swift return outing for Daninsky in Las Noches del Homo Lobo, is now considered a lost film, though it was only two years later when his most famous creation was to reappear, in both 1970’s Dracula Versus Frankenstein (Los Monstruos dos Terror) and 1971’s The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman (La Noche de Walpurgis). Over the course of the twelve films Naschy made featuring Waldemar Daninsky there is little narrative connection, the wolfman existing essentially only as a recognisable and well-loved monster, the tenuous links between films either ham-fistedly managed or non-existent.

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Naschy’s ‘straightforward’ horror career was punctuated by many notable films outside of the cobweb-strewn fang-baring type. 1971 saw him star in the Tito Carpi-penned giallo Seven Murders for Scotland Yard, as well as perhaps Spain’s most famous entry into the cycle of usually resolutely Italian thrillers, The Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1973), though purists may argue convincingly for the same year’s A Dragonfly for Each Corpse.

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Also of note around this period are Naschy’s turns as the warlock Alaric De Marnac in Horror Rises from the Tomb (El Espanto Surge de la Tumba, 1973), the eyebrow-raising Vengeance of the Zombies (1973), the role of the priest in the Spanish Exorcist take-off, Exorcismo (1975), the witchfinder of his directorial debut, Inquisition (1976),  and the effective, gloomy apocalyptic vision of The People Who Own the Dark (1976).

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Buy Horror Rises from the Tomb on DVD from Amazon.com

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Despite, this, it was his more direct horror films which continued to make him such a star, especially in his home country where he had affectionately come to be known as  “El Hombre Lobo”. Many of his most successful films were directed by the Argentine, León Klimovsky, who forever yearned to make blockbusting mainstream films but had to settle for a career making horror, exploitation and schlocky westerns – he needn’t have worried, his films are rarely anything less than excellent entertainment.

Paul Naschy El Ultimo Kamikaze : La Bestia y la Espada Magica : La Venganza de la Momia : Inquisicion DVD

Having now played all the major monster roles, including The Mummy in Vengeance of the Mummy (La Veganza de la Momia (1971), Count Dracula in 1973’s Count Dracula’s Great Love, the hunchback in the terrific The Hunchback of the Morgue (1973) and an attempt to do all of them at once in 1987’s Howl of the Devil, by the mid-80’s he was spreading himself a little too thinly and making several curious decisions.

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1983’s Beast and the Magic Sword (La Bestia y la Espada Mágica) was just one of several projects Naschy produced either in Japan or with Japanese involvement. They proved surprisingly popular in Japan but less so back in Europe – Naschy’s eagerness to please the Asian market with films of Samurai and warriors simply proving impossible to satiate both markets’ demands and tastes. Even more upsetting was 1982’s Spanish-made Buenas Noches, Señor Monstruo (Goodnight Mr Monster), which, although made for children, upset horror fans with its musical japes involving the classic monsters Naschy had done so much to revive in the post-Universal wastelands.

On June 20, 1984, Naschy’s father, Enrique Molina, died of a heart attack while fishing alone on the shores of a lake. Some boys playing in the woods discovered his body, too late to revive him. The unexpected sudden loss of his father (with whom he had always been very close), coinciding with the bankruptcy of his production company, plunged Naschy into a lengthy period of depression, only returning to filmmaking in 1987 with his cult classic El Aullido del Diablo. Naschy’s son Sergio starred in the film, along with famed horror icons Howard Vernon and Caroline Munro (the film was very poorly distributed unfortunately, and is still not available on DVD).

Fear Without Frontiers Jay Schneider FAB Press

There is a chapter about Paul Naschy in Fear Without Frontiers
Buy from Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

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Brief film roles followed in the late 80’s and early 90’s but it was a return to weightlifting which occupied his time; despite his advancing years, he was still in enviable shape and was still both entering and winning many competitive events. Sadly, he suffered a near-fatal heart attack himself on Aug. 27, 1991, triggered by weightlifting in a local gym. He was hospitalised for more than a week, then had major heart surgery performed on September 5th. A rumour circulated throughout horror film fandom that Naschy had died, since he disappeared from the film scene for a while after his operation. He had to later contact a number of fanzine publishers in various countries to inform them that he was still very much alive – he also appeared at film festivals and conventions such as Eurofest in 1994.

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This virtual rebirth revitalised both the actor and his audience but his efforts lacked the imagination and vitality of his earlier roles and they were largely critical and commercial disasters. Even in this relatively short time, the Spanish film industry had become, in his words, “corrupt” and his efforts were on miniscule budgets and Naschy’s attempts to invest his own money into them left him on the verge of bankruptcy (his Japanese-based production company, Aconito Films, had already gone bust a decade earlier).

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 Buy Paul Naschy: Memoirs of a Wolfman from Amazon.co.ukAmazon.com

After penning his autobiography, Memoirs of a Wolfman, in 1997 and further filmic misfires, he fled to Hollywood in what would be a distinctly lacklustre final hurrah working for directors who certainly revered Naschy but had no vehicle suitable for him; both Brian Yuzna’s Rottweiler (2004) and Fred Olen Ray’s straight-to-video Tomb of the Werewolf, were a poor reflection of an actor who once could have claimed to be one of the biggest horror stars in the world. Fortunately, he managed to make one final classic, 2004’s Rojo Sangre, directed by the unrelated Christian Molina.

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Naschy died of pancreatic cancer on November 30, 2009 in Madrid, aged seventy-five. Although he ended his life in poor financial straits, Naschy always received a tremendous outpouring of love from his many fans and died knowing he would always be regarded as a major horror film icon.

Naschy was married only once, on October 24, 1969, to a woman named Elvira Primavera, the daughter of an Italian diplomat living in Spain. They were still happily married 40 years later at the time of his death. He was survived by his widow Elvira and his two sons, Bruno and Sergio Molina.

Naschy’s legacy is one which reflects his passion and understanding of horror film. His evil characters often have a very human side, a sympathetic and anguished counterpoint to the fury and violence of the monster. His best work often had magnificently evocative Gothic backdrops and, equally regularly, voluptuous, disrobed ladies, eager to fall at Naschy’s feet.

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He can be credited with perpetuating the popularity of characters largely already abandoned by Hollywood, if his later choices were sometimes a little wayward, it wasn’t for lack of enthusiasm. Perhaps more often forgotten is that Naschy at his best could be a superb actor, the most athletic of wolfmen, a believable romantic lead and a hypnotically-eyed icon. In 2010 a documentary about Naschy called The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry was released.

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Selected Filmography:

A much truncated overview of his huge output. Collecting Naschy films can be a frustrating task, the numerous re-titlings almost inevitably leading to duplicate purchases.

1968 Mark of the Wolfman (La Marca del Hombre Lobo) aka Hell’s Creatures/Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror –  the first outing for Waldemar Daninsky

1968 Night of the Wolfman (Las noches del Hombre Lobo) – now lost

1970 Dracula Versus Frankenstein aka Assignment Terror - Daninsky again

1971 The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman aka Shadow of the Werewolf – Daninsky

1971 Seven Murders for Scotland Yard 

1972 Fury of the Wolfman – Daninsky

1972 Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf (Doctor Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo) – both Daninsky and Mr Hyde

1973 The Man With the Severed Head (Las Ratas No Duermen de Noche)

1973 Curse of the Devil (El Retorno de Walpurgis) – Daninsky

1973 Hunchback of the Morgue (El Jorobado de la Morgue)

1973 Count Dracula’s Great Love (El Gran Amor del Conde Drácula) aka Cemetery Tramps

1973 Horror Rises From the Tomb (El Espanto Surge de la Tumba) – a first outing for Alaric de Marnac, based on Gilles de Rais

1973 Vengeance of the Zombies 

1973 Bracula, the Terror of the Living Dead (La Orgía de los Muertos) aka The Hanging Woman

1973 The Mummy’s Revenge (La Venganza de la Momia)

1973 The Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (Los Ojos Azules de la Muñeca Rota) aka House of Psychotic Women

1974 A Dragonfly for Each Corpse (Una Libélula Para Cada Muerto)

1974 Devil’s Possessed (El Mariscal del Infierno) – a second outing for the Knight of Marnac under his more familiar Gilles de Rais moniker

1975 The Werewolf and the Yeti (La Maldición de la Bestia) aka Night of the Howling Beast. Daninsky. Possibly his best recognised title due to it falling foul of the DPP and becoming labelled as a video nasty. It’s actually one of Naschy’s dullest during his prime period

1975 Exorcism (Exorcismo)

1975 Los Pasajeros – Rarely seen, it is based on the urban myth of snuff films

1976 Inquisition (Inquisición)

1976 The People Who Own the Dark (Último Deseo)

1978 El Huerto del Francés – much overlooked but highly lauded serial killer film

1980 Human Beasts (El Carnaval de las Bestias) aka The Beasts’ Carnival – his first Spanish/Japanese co-production

1981 Night of the Werewolf (El Retorno del Hombre-Lobo) aka Return of the WolfmanDaninsky

1982 Buenas noches, Señor Monstruo (Goodnight, Mr Monster)

1983 Panic Beats (Latidos de Pánico) aka Cries of Terror - a final outing for Alaric de Marnac

1983 The Beast and the Magic Sword (La Bestia y la Espada Mágica) – Daninsky

1987 Howl of the Devil (El Aullido del Diablo)

1989 Shadows of Blood – more serial killer action

1989 Aquí Huele a Muerto – abysmal Dracula spoof which was inexplicably a Spanish box office hit

1993 The Night of the Executioner (La Noche del Ejecutor)

1996 Hambre Mortal (Mortal Hunger)

1996 Lycantropus: The Moonlight Murders (Licántropo: El Asesino de la Luna llena) – Daninsky

2001 School Killer (The Vigilante)

2004 Tomb of the Werewolf  – Daninsky’s final appearance

2004 Countess Dracula’s Orgy of Blood

2004 Rottweiler

2004 Rojo Sangre

2010 La Herencia Valdema (The Valdemar Legacy)

2010 The Valdemar Legacy II: The Forbidden Shadow (La Herencia Valdemar II: La Sombra Prohibida)

2010 Empusa 

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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José Mojica Marins – actor and director

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José Mojica Marins is a Brazilian film-maker, actor, composer, screenwriter, and television and media personality. Marins is most famous for his alter ego, Coffin Joe (translated from Zé do Caixão). Although Marins is known primarily as a horror film director, his earlier works were westerns, dramas and adventure films.

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Marins was born in São Paulo in Brazil on Friday 13th 1936, at a farm in the Vila Mariana, to Antônio and Carmem Marins. His father was born in Brazil but journeyed to Spain where, for a time, he became a bullfighter. On returning to Brazil, he met his future wife who made a living travelling around Brazil singing and dancing at various events. His parents tired of the endless travelling necessitated by the lifestyle and they elected to run a cinema owned by his father’s cousin. In a retrospectively unlikely parallel to the events of the film, Cinema Paradiso, Marins junior spent much of his childhood watching films at his parents place of employment, soaking up all genres of film – on the occasion a film would be deemed unsuitable for his innocent eyes, he would sneak into the projection booth and watch from there. During the 1940’s and 1950’s, it was common for cinemas in Brazil to have days dedicated to screenings solely for women or men, the subjects for the latter, inevitably, occasionally drifting towards below the waist – Marins recalled with horror once sneaking in to a men-only event to be assailed by images from a documentary warning about the dangers of sexual diseases.

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At the age of 8, José was given his first camera, a pre-Super 8 model, by his parents, sealing his fate to be involved in the world of cinema for the rest of his life. Marins was afforded the luxury of being able to show his early efforts to the local community on the big screen of his parents’ cinema, great for the young film-maker, less so for the audience which included priests and nuns who were alarmed at the child’s already alarming imagery and disregard for convention and decorum. The adult José made his earliest efforts in Cinemascope, the first being a western, banned by priests in many cities for being pornographic, showing a distant shot of nude women bathing in a waterfall. Despite this modest set-back, the film still achieved wide distribution around Brazil. In a final attempt at mainstream acceptance, he approached an influential priest for advice, and agreed to make a film in which religion was seen as a healing and welcoming force. The result, 1963’s Meu Destino em Tuas Mãos, was an abject failure – so ended Marin’s attempts at appeasing the Church and diluting his own vision. It was such a vision that led to his appropriation of a disused synagogue to turn into a temple for film, both studio and school for actors and film-makers.

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In 1963, Marins was scheduled to make a film called Generation Curse, examining the activities of disaffected youths. Three days before filming, Marins had a dream, or more accurately, nightmare, where he became the victim of a black-clad figure who led him through cobwebbed caves until they reached a grave which had Marins’ name and dates and both birth and death. So vivid was the dream, that the following morning he instructed his secretary to take down the details he recalled. He contacted the other contributors to the planned film and announced that there was a change of plan – the film was now to be a horror film featuring the character who had so filled him with dread. The co-backers of the film were not impressed and abandoned the project, leaving Marins to to finance the film himself, a decision which involved both he and his father selling most of their possessions.

Lacking an actor to play the evil tormentor of the film, Marins had little option but to put himself forward – his existing beard and two long finger nails were supplemented by a further eight fake nails (later to be replaced by his own). His costume was entirely black, a top hat inspired by the logo on a cigarette packet, a black suit and cape completing the desired look. This then was Zé do Caixão or Coffin Joe, destined to become one of horror’s most distinctive characters and the star of many classic films (and several less so!). Although rarely mentioned in the films, Coffin Joe’s true name is Josefel Zanatas. Marins gives an explanation for the name in an interview for Portal Brasileiro de Cinema:

“I was thinking a name: Josefel: “fel” (“gall”) for being bitter — and also Zanatas as a last name, because backward reads Satanaz”.

His central belief is that (self) imposed superstitious beliefs tend to prevent individual development, inhibit positive social change. Those who do not accept his central belief are considered to be weak, lack power, and limited in their ability to rationalise objectively. Those who share with him similar beliefs are considered to have power and intelligence above the ‘normal’ person.

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The eventual film, regarded as Brazil’s first horror, was entitled, At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul, a creation still as chilling and inventive over fifty years later. Though working on a small set, the film encompasses several impressive scenes, all featuring the truly evil undertaker, Coffin Joe, scourge of priests, families, children and society as a whole as he stalks an unnamed town for a ‘superior’ woman to sire an appropriately majestic son. Both this film and the follow-up, 1967’s This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, proved highly inflammatory, the censors severely reprimanding Marins for scenes such as eye-gouging, snake and tarantula attacks, sexualised imagery and most especially, mockery of organised religion.

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These, combined with Marins’ studio, writhing the the aforementioned creatures and his general appearance, raised suspicion amongst the Brazilian dictatorship government that the director was a threat to National pride and public behaviour. He was arrested and briefly imprisoned, a hero to his fans upon release but left penniless and with the Brazilian film industry fearful of working with such a notorious director and actor.

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Marins became known for his peculiar castings for actors. He would challenge them to lay in coffins filled with scorpions and tarantulas to see how they would react – if they passed this test, he would push them even further, tying them up and covering them with honey, only to let ants pour upon them like a medieval torture. One actress told the director of the problems she was having at home, her husband’s regular beatings visible on her body. He filmed a scene involving an actor with only one eye – in his empty eye socket, he placed some crumbled gorgonzola cheese and wriggling worms, the actress instructed to lick the charming gunk from the cavity… remarkably she obliged and showed the footage to her husband. The abuse ceased. In fact, this was not the first time the director had employed someone who was missing a body part, the absent ‘item’ allowing for entirely believable scenes of limb removal and similar morbid trickery.

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Marins was forced to abandon his own scripts and become a director for hire, whether the project was a low-budget westerns, science fiction or traditional Brazilian comedy/drama. As the 1970’s wore on, he drifted into soft-core pornography, sometimes under the pseudonym J. Avelar – some of his work in this field was even more extreme, to the point of bestiality. Even when these opportunities eluded him, he worked as a master of ceremonies at parties and dances, often in his now distinctive Coffin Joe persona and regalia. Coffin Joe as a Brazilian phenomenon rest somewhat with the concept of the character, although existing in familiar horror surroundings of misty graveyards, his appearance and raison d’etre were unique, challenging the status quo of Brazilian society and ideals. Coffin Joe represents evil itself, evidenced throughout grotesquely sadistic acts but is not afraid to show that the behaviour of those he finds abhorrent are not above reproach themselves. It was not until the early 1990’s that Marins found true success beyond his home country, the bootlegged videos of his releases finally gaining official releases.

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Buy the Coffin Joe Collection on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

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The appeal of an already fully-formed horror icon with his own carefully scripted back-story (Marins had concocted a whole Coffin Joe mythology, complete with details of his parents and ideology) was great, America becoming the first to feast upon his back catalogue of depravity, though in truth, Europe had always had an underground fraternity of fans watching his films on the festival circuit. Marins was invited to film conventions worldwide, the exotic Brazilian and his bizarre appearance thrilling a brand new, welcoming audience. Marins found that rock musicians in particular found an affinity with his work; Faith No More/Fantomas singer, Mike Patton being ‘instrumental’ in releasing his films on DVD. He has been referenced in song by bands as diverse as 60’s psych/tropicalia pioneers, Os Mutantes, Brazilian metal heroes, Sepultura and death metal band, Necrophagia.

Read Coffin Joe’s official ‘biography’ here

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Marins’ fingernails had over the years grown to outlandish lengths, at their longest over a yard long. These weren’t permanently attached but glued on when filming or making public appearances. It was only in 2008 that the director was able to conclude his original concept of Coffin Joe’s search for a bride, the eventual film being Embodiment of Evil, the $2 million budget being 100 times that of the previous two films. It’s not a completely satisfying end to the character but still has some antics with a pig and some 3000 cockroaches.

When not making films, Marins has also regularly appeared on Brazilian television, hosting a monthly interview program O Estranho Mundo de José Mojica Marins (“The Strange World of José Mojica Marins”) on the Brazilian television station Canal Brasil, in which he discusses Brazilian media and culture with other contemporary figures, such as actors and musicians. From 1967 to 1988, Marins hosted the program Além, Muito Além do Além (“Beyond, Much Beyond the Beyond”) on TV Bandeirantes, in character as Coffin Joe, presenting short horror tales written by author and screenwriter Rubens Luchetti. Some scripts were later adapted as Coffin Joe comic books. The show’s tapes were reused and currently there are no known intact recordings of this program. Off-screen, Marins has been married seven times and is said to be father to no fewer than 23 children.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Fear Without Frontiers Jay Schneider FAB Press

José Mojica Marins is featured in Fear Without Frontiers. Buy from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

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Selected Filmography:

At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1963)
This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse (1967)
The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968)
Awakening of the Beast (1970)
The End of Man (1970)
The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe (1974)
The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures (1976)
Hellish Flesh (1977)
Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind (1978)
Perversion (1979)
Embodiment of Evil (2008) (Encarnação do Demônio)

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Baba Yaga – folklore

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“That’s not my mother’s voice I hear.
I think that Baba Yaga’s near!”

Baba Yaga is a recurrent figure in East European folklore, usually as a single entity though sometimes appearing as one of a trio of sisters, all using the same name. Baba Yaga appears as a filthy, hideous or ferocious-looking woman with the ability to fly around in a large mortar, knees tucked up to her chin, using the accompanying pestle as a blunt weapon or a rudder to guide her strange craft. Some tales omit her ability to fly but see her ‘rowing’ along the forest floor, using the pestle as an oar.

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With connections to the elements and nature, she usually makes appearances near her dwelling in birch woods and forests, where she resides in a ramshackle hut which is peculiarly perched atop chicken-like legs. These unusual foundations allow her to move her abode to different locations, the hut spinning as it goes, emitting a strange, unearthly moan. The eye-like windows also serve to give the hut the appearance of a living entity. The hut is protected by a fence made of bones, the skulls atop the posts glowing to illuminate the night – one post remains empty, awaiting another visitor. Some tales see the hut protected by what are essentially ‘familiars’, taking the form of vicious dogs, cats or geese.

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There are numerous derivations of Baba Yaga’s name – many cultures use “ba-ba” or “ma-ma” as a sound to refer to a mother figure, or in this case an older woman (for example “Babushka”, meaning “grandmother”, in Russian). However, in countries such as Poland, the similar word, “Babcia”, has connotations of cruelty and ugliness, both phrases lending tonality to Baba Yaga as a character. “Yaga” is more difficult to pin down, though linguists have pointed to similarities with words from various Slavic cultures and beyond; the Russian verb, “yagat”, meaning “to abuse”; Serbia/Croatia – “jaza”, meaning “horror”; Old Czech, “jězě” – “witch”; Polish, “jędza” – “witch or fury”; even the Old English term, “inca” meaning “pain”. You get the gist. In Russia and Finland, stone statues known as Yaga have long existed, pitched atop tree stumps with offerings of gifts from devotees.

The first reference to Baba Yaga dates back to as early as 1755, when a similar name appears in a Russian book describing various Deities and their Roman counterparts; it is interesting that the mention of “Iaga Baba”, is not cross-referenced with any older God, suggesting that the being is very much rooted in European and Slavic lore, with characteristics and behaviour which is unique to the region and the traditions of the local inhabitants.

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As previously mentioned, Baba Yaga could often be seen flying in a mortar, though not always equipped with a pestle – occasionally this would be a staff, or, reflecting more familiar witch-like behaviour, a broom. Witches and brooms appear in Western folklore far earlier than references to Baba Yaga, so it is likely this element was developed across land borders. The witch also has other strange traits, such as smelling out visitors to her environs by sticking her enormous, deformed nose, which reaches up to the ceiling of her hut, allowing her to sniff out, “the Russian smell”. Often she is found to be stretched out over the stove in her hut, using her wretched, spindly, elongated limbs to reach for objects in distant corners. Russian legend depicts her with large, iron teeth, huge, hairy chin and warts.

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Her appearance is accompanied by a strange wind blowing through the forest, signs of her arrival evidenced by trees and leaves being blown around on a normally calm day. So that she can stay hidden within the forest, she uses her broom to sweep up any traces of her being in a location. In common with a certain vampire myth, visitors to her hut are asked if they came of their own free-will – if they have, she is given carte-blanche to do her evil worst. As with another famous legend of a wolfy nature, the “pure of heart” are exempt from her cruelty. Her usual habits when receiving ‘willing guests’ are to wash them, feed them and then to sit them on a large spatula-like shovel which she will then push into her stove. Lucky human meals may be offered a chance of escape if they happen to sit on the spatula in such a way that they can’t fit into the oven. Despite Baba Yaga’s appetite of up to ten men a day, she remains skeletal in appearance.

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Beyond her hut attendants, the witch controls the elements and has three servants; a red (“My red sun”), black (“My black midnight”) and white (“My bright dawn”) horseman, whom she entrusts to fuel the times of day. She also has a number of ‘soul friends’ or ‘friends of my bosom’; a pair of disembodied hands which acquiesce to her bidding, as well as a herdsman, the sorcerer, Koshchey Bessmertny (or Koshchey the Deathless), something of a Grim Reaper role in the double act.

Although her horrid appearance and habit for eating both adults and children, some famous stories show another side to the character. The tale of ‘Vasilisa the Fair’, sees a young girl bequeathed a Russian doll by her dying mother who tells her that she will be guided with advice throughout her life by the object. Alas, her father remarries and the step mother and her two new step sisters make her life a misery, taunting her and forcing her to do all the chores for the family.

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One day, the trio conspire to make the fire go out in the house and the cruel sisters and father send her to Baba Yaga to ask for coal to fuel the furnace, in the assumption she will meet her end. Upon reaching the old crone’s hut, she meets the three horses previously mentioned and she is shown to the witch’s lair. Chastised by the hag for being idiotic for letting the fire go out, she is nevertheless welcomed in as she is unfailingly polite and gracious.

Vasilisa is given two days of chores, after which two seemingly impossible tasks are presented to her: separating mildewed corn from fresh, and poppy seeds from soot. Assisted by the doll, she achieves these, which Baba Yaga grudgingly acknowledges. She is presented by one of the glowing skulls outside the hut and is shooed on her way. Back at the unhappy family home, the doll guides Vasilisa away from danger but the skull waits until the father and two wicked girls are asleep and sets fire to the house, burning them all to death. Vasilisa’s exploits attract the attention of the Tsar and in the end, both are wed.

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Baba Yaga featured as a character in several films made in the Soviet Union, from the 1930’s right up until the 1960’s. Notable examples include: 1939’s genuinely disturbing, Vasilisa Prekrasnaya (Vasilisa the Beautiful) directed by Aleksandr Rou; 1972’s Zolotye Roga (The Golden Horns), also by Rou; and 1979’s Baba Yaga Protiv!, a bizarre animated film by Vladimir Pekar which sees the witch incensed at Misha the Bear becoming mascot for the 1980 Olympics and setting off to sabotage the arrangement and make herself the icon. Highly rated, though very difficult to track down is the Turkish film, Babasiz Yasayamam, said to be unnervingly horrific and violent. Sad to report that the most famous film connected to Baba Yaga, Corrado Farina’s 1973 movie, Baba Yaga, (Devil WitchKiss Me Kill Me) has little, if anything to do with the legend, though is worth a watch for entirely different reasons.

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Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Udo Kier – actor

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“From time to time you have to make a film like Armageddon so people see that you’re still around.”

Udo Kier – born Udo Kierspe; 14 October 1944 – is a German actor who has appeared in over 200 films, across many genres, though his appearances in horror films have been particularly notable.

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Kier was born in Cologne, near the end of World War II. The hospital in which he was born was bombed by the Allies moments after his birth and both Udo and his mother had to be dug from the resultant rubble. In his youth he worked as an altar boy and cantor. He moved to the United Kingdom to learn the English language when he was 18 years-old.

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In 1966, Kier was cast in the lead role for the short film, Road to St. Tropez by director, Paul Sarne. His first major film, appropriately enough, was the notorious horror movie Mark of the Devil (1969) a production packed with sexual imagery, extreme violence and, if you were lucky, a branded paper bag to vomit in, handed out at selected cinemas. Working alongside one of the titans of the screen, Herbert Lom, Kier, with his good looks, was cast opposite the facially disfigured Reggie Nalder; to ram home the point, Kier’s character, Christian (the hero) is pitted against Nalder’s sadistic witch torturer, Albino. The notion of Kier wearing a metaphorical mask and adopting a larger than life personality would become one of his trademarks.

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Two of the most important films in his early career were made back-to-back; Flesh for Frankenstein in 1973, directed by Paul Morrissey, a relationship which began when they met on an airplane flight, and Blood for Dracula, filmed by Paul Morrissey for Andy Warhol’s studio and produced by Vittorio de Sica and Roman Polański, with Kier playing the lead roles of young Dr Frankenstein and young Count Dracula (Warhol had little to do with either film, aside from the selling power of his name in the title). Udo’s thick German accent and wildly over-the-top performances immediately made him a cult figure with audiences. Indeed, Kier’s accent had led to many of his early performances being re-dubbed.

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In a typically contrary fashion, rather than building on his now alluring performances and growing fan base, he continued to act in wildly disparate and, in a mainstream sense, uncommercial selection of films; Just Jaeckin’s inadvertently funny erotic drama, The Story of O (1975) and the following year’s bizarre Spermula, in which he played an alien ‘popping out’ of a man, did little to sell him to a family audience.

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Adding to his appearances on the list of DPP banned list of films in the UK, his role in 1976’s House on Straw Hill aka Exposé as an anguished writer is both intense and alarming and Udo attempts to break the world sweating record. Alas, the film was something of a bone of contention, the film’s producers apparently doing everything possible to avoid paying him. It was to take another maverick member of the film-making community to drag him back to a medium he always felt happiest with.

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Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) is now, rightly, considered a classic of the genre and though Kier’s role of the doctor can scarcely be considered the lead role, his association with the film and his mannered performance reminded audiences that Kier wasn’t just a pantomime ham. Ironically, he later appeared in Argento’s Mother of Tears, in which the director proves himself to be infinitely hammier than his actor.

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It should come as little surprise that Kier also crossed paths with other Euro film philanderers: Poland’s Walerian Borowczyk cast the actor as Jack the Ripper in Lulu (1980) and in the following year’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne and Czechoslovakia’s Kurt Rabb gave him a role in his The Island of the Bloody Plantation, 1983.

Probably based on his cult status as Count Dracula, Kier has appeared in a number of other vampire movies, such as Die Einsteiger (1985), Blade (1998), Modern Vampires (1998, alongside Rod Steiger), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), Dracula 3000 and BloodRayne (2006).

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Throughout his career, Kier has almost uniquely managed to balance his acting projects between ‘high art’ and gruelling trash (such as Evil Eyes and Fall Down Dead), a trick which has endeared him to audiences and film-makers without necessarily leading to him being mobbed on the street.

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Fans of the actor have included Walerian Borowczyk, the aforementioned Dario Argento, Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (which allegedly ruled him out from appearing in any Werner Herzog films, due to an unspoken agreement between the directors – there was some slight leeway with a fleeting appearance in 2001’s Invincible). He has appeared in all of Lars von Trier’s movies since 1987’s Epidemic (with the exceptions of The Idiots, The Boss of it All and Antichrist) as well as the far more mainstream Hollywood blockbuster Blade (1998) as well as the ironic independent film Shadow of the Vampire (2000) produced by Nicolas Cage. He has also frequently worked with idiosyncratic German director Christoph Schlingensief.

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He made an appearance in cult movie My Own Private Idaho (1991) directed by Gus van Sant. Well-known film appearances were in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) with Jim Carrey as a billionaire, Ronald Camp, in Barb Wire with Pamela Anderson, as a NASA flight psychologist in Armageddon, and as Ralphie in the film Johnny Mnemonic, though these flirtations with Hollywood did little to dampen his enthusiasm for horror and the absurd.

In the music world, the actor’s cult status led to an appearance in Madonna’s infamous 1992 attention-seeking book called Sex, as well as the video for her disco hit “Deeper and Deeper” from the album Erotica. Kier appeared in nu-metal band Korn’s music video “Make Me Bad”, in Eve’s music video “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” and in the music video for “Die Schöne und das Biest” by defunct German band Rauhfaser.

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He also starred as the psychic “Yuri” in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and its expansion, Yuri’s Revenge, played the villainous Lorenzini in the 1996 film The Adventures of Pinocchio, and then later reprised his role in the 1999 sequel The New Adventures of Pinocchio. He also voiced Professor Pericles in the 2010 – 2013 animated series Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.

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A documentary on his life and career entitled “ICH-UDO…der Schauspieler Udo Kier” (“ME-Udo…the actor Udo Kier”) was filmed for ARTE, the French-German culture channel in Europe, and released in 2012. The documentary won the New York Festival “Finalist Certificate”. He was honoured by the Munich Film Festival with its CineMerit Award in July 2014.

Kier continues to act with horror films still featuring heavily on the horizon and so it is fitting that this career overview should end with the news that he will play Bela Lugosi in the 2015 movie The Final Curtain: The Last Days of Ed Wood, Jr.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Selected Filmography:

1969 Mark of the Devil
1973 Flesh for Frankenstein
1973 Blood for Dracula
1975 The Story of O
1976 Expose
1976 Spermula
1977 Suspiria
1981 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne
1983 The Island of the Bloody Plantation
1989 100 Jahre Adolf Hitler – Die letzte Stunde im Führerbunker
1990 Blackest Heart (The German Chainsaw Massacre)
1991 My Own Private Idaho
1993 Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
1994 Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
1994 Terror 2000 – Intensivstation Deutschland
1995 Johnny Mnemonic
1996 Barb Wire
1998 Modern Vampires
1998 Armageddon
1998 Blade
1999 Besat
1999 End of Days
2000 Shadow of the Vampire
2000 Dancer in the Dark
2002 Feardotcom
2003 Dogville
2004 One Point O
2004 Evil Eyes
2004 Dracula 3000
2005 Headspace
2005 BloodRayne
2005 Masters of Horror – Cigarette Burns (dir. John Carpenter)
2006 Pray for Morning
2007 Grindhouse (Werewolf Women of the SS trailer)
2007 Fall Down Dead
2007 Halloween
2007 Mother of Tears
2011 Melancholia
2011 The Theatre Bizarre
2012 Night of the Templar
2012 The Lords of Salem
2012 Iron Sky
2013 Nymphomaniac
2014 The Editor
2015 The Final Curtain: The Last Days of Ed Wood, Jr.

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The Nightmare – painting by Henry Fuseli

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The Nightmare is a 1781 oil painting by Anglo-Swiss artist Henry Fuseli (1741–1825). Since its creation, it has remained Fuseli’s best-known work. With its first exhibition in 1782 at the Royal Academy of London, the image became famous; an engraved version was widely distributed and the painting was parodied in political satire. Due to its fame, Fuseli painted at least three other versions of the painting.

The painting depicts a sleeping woman draped over the end of a bed with her head hanging down, exposing her long neck. She is surmounted by an incubus that peers out at the viewer. The sleeper seems lifeless, and, lying on her back, she takes a position believed to encourage nightmares. Also in attendance is a horse…or at least a horse’s head, which is looming through partially parted curtains.The colour palette, applied with oil paint, consists mostly of dark colours—black, deep greys, shades of brown, and blood red—with the exception of the young woman and the bed which she is laying upon, which are made up of more heavenly whites and gold tones. It is a relatively large piece, standing three-and-a-half feet tall and just over four feet wide.

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Opinion of the painting’s meaning has long divided critics but, understandably, most presume the peering horse and imp/demon on the woman’s chest are the manifestation of a nightmare she is experiencing. Others have ascribed specific meanings to the uninvited bedroom visitors, whilst others have largely ignored these aspects and frothed at the mouth at the perceived overt sexuality of the woman. Other thoughts see it as being an image of the woman’s wanton desire or simply a painting of a piece of literature read by Fuseli. The contrast of light and dark shadow, as well as the motionless imp make the picture particularly creepy, the horse’s head both bizarre and perverse. The horse could possibly be viewed as the ‘mare’ of the ‘nightmare': more revealing is that the origins of the word mare are derived from the Old English word maere, which referred to a goblin or incubus. Another meaning of nightmare derives from mara, a Scandinavian mythological term referring to a spirit sent to torment or suffocate sleepers. The early meaning of “nightmare” included the sleeper’s experience of weight on the chest combined with sleep paralysis, dyspnea, or a feeling of dread.

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When first exhibited at the Royal Academy of London in 1782, the overwhelming reaction was one of shock, the demonic aspect and the revealing of female flesh too much for many. Though the woman is not directly being attacked in any way, viewers understood the painting to portray a sexual invasion of a white, virginal innocent. The incubus would be read by many as being synonymous with nightmares. More learned students of art would have known Fuseli more for his previous paintings which tended to revolve around religious themes. Fuseli, who never revealed his personal motives for creating the image, sold the painting the same year for twenty guineas. A less valuable engraving by Thomas Burke was widely displayed in its place, accompanied by a poem:

So on his Nightmare through the evening fog

Flits the squab Fiend o’er fen, and lake, and bog;
Seeks some love-wilder’d maid with sleep oppress’d,
Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast.

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The painting became so well known that it was commonly used for satirical reasons with characters in the painting being replaced by the likes of British Prime Minister William Pitt and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in later years. Later still, the painting became a huge influence on writers. The Nightmare likely influenced Mary Shelley in a scene from her famous Gothic novel Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). Shelley would have been familiar with the painting; her parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, knew Fuseli. The iconic imagery associated with the Creature’s murder of the protagonist Victor’s wife seems to draw from the canvas: “She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by hair.”

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Another literary giant also drew on the painting for inspiration: Edgar Allan Poe may have evoked The Nightmare in his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839). His narrator compares a painting hanging in Usher’s house to a Fuseli work, and reveals that an “irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm”

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Ken Russell’s Gothic (1986) features various interpretations of Nightmare as a central theme. Even more recently, The 2011 film The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 displays the painting in a sequence where Edward Cullen researches demon children on the Internet.

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The painting is now owned and displayed by the Detroit Institute of Arts, where it is valued upwards of £4million.

Daz Lawrence

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Crimson Peak

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Crimson Peak is a 2015 US horror film directed by Guillermo del Toro (Cronos; Hellboy and sequels; Pacific Rim) from a screenplay by del Toro, Matthew Robbins and Lucinda Coxon.

The film stars Mia Wasikowska (Stoker), Tom Hiddleston (Kong: Skull Island), Charlie Hunnam, and Jessica Chastain (Dark Shadows (2005)). It is being produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Universal Pictures.

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Del Toro has said this film is a “ghost story and gothic romance”. He described it as “a very set-oriented, classical but at the same time modern take on the ghost story”, and said that it would allow him to play with the genres’ conventions while subverting their rules. He stated, “I think people are getting used to horror subjects done as found footage or B-value budgets. I wanted this to feel like a throwback.”

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Principal photography began at Pinewood Toronto Studios on February 10 and ended on May 14, 2014. The film is scheduled to be released on October 16, 2015.

Plot teaser:

Set in Cumbria, in a crumbling mansion in a largely rural and mountainous region of northern England in the 19th century, young author Edith Cushing (Wasikowska) discovers that her charming new husband Sir Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston) is not who he appears to be…

Cast:

Wikipedia | IMDb



Terror in the Crypt aka Crypt of Horror

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Terror in the Crypt – also known as Crypt of  Horror – is a 1964 Italian/Spanish horror film directed by Camillo Mastrocinque [credited as Thomas Miller] (An Angel for Satan), from a screenplay by Ernesto Gastaldi and Tonino Valerii (also assistant director).

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The story was loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s lesbian-themed novella Carmilla. The film’s original release titles are La cripta e l’incubo and La Maldicion de los Karnstein. The score was by Carlo Savina (see below).

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Cast:

Christopher LeeAdriana Ambesi, Ursula Davis, José Campos, Véra Valmont, A. Midlin, Carla Calò, Nela Conjiu, José Villasante.

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Plot teaser:

Count Ludwig Karnstein (Christopher Lee) dreads his daughter may fall prey to the curse upon his family, a curse which promises the witch Sheena will eventually be reincarnated in a Karnstein descendant. Could Laura really be a vampiric killer?

Reviews:

‘With its cheesy Sunday afternoon horror thrills (and some wild-eyed and voluptuous ladies), Crypt of the Vampire is a whole lot of fun. There’s melodrama, mysterious manuscripts and some gruesome business involving the severed hand of a hunchbacked beggar.’ Doomed Moviethon

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‘Brimming with atmosphere and shot in glorious black and white in and around authentic gothic ruins, Crypt of the Vampire has all the proper ingredients to affix it to the better movies made during the salad days of Italian horror. Although the film is sluggish at times, veteran director Mastrocinque … instills some truly haunting and shadowy imagery, especially when Laura’s macabre fever dreams are in full swing.’ George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

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‘The crepuscular atmosphere with candlelit interiors, the obligatory crypt and, on stormy nights, a bell tolling in a ruined church, lack the bite of a genuinely perverse force while all attempts at eroticism are foiled by the bovine incomprehension of the participants.’ Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Enclyclopedia: Horror

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Crypt of the Vampire poster

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Choice dialogue:

“I like these ancient castles… they have such an atmosphere of mystery.”

“I’ve killed her. I’m a monster! I want to die!”

IMDb


Sampson vs. the Vampire Women

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Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro is a 1962 Mexican horror film directed by Alfonso Corona Blake (The World of the Vampires; Samson in the Wax Museum) from a screenplay co-written with Rafael García Travesi, Antonio Orellana and Fernando Osés. K. Gordon Murray supervised the American re-edited version, Samson vs. the Vampire Women.

The film stars Santo, Lorena Velázquez, Jaime Fernández, María Duval, Augusto Benedico and Ofelia Montesco.

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Plot teaser:

Vampire women are awakened by their leader, The Evil One, in order to find him a bride. Diana, a local professor’s daughter (María Duval) is kidnapped and so he enlists masked wrestler Santo to rescue her…

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Reviews:

‘The main problem is that Santo and the vampire film are odd cousins. Santo is a very physical character based around his brute strength and wrestling skill, while the vampire is supernatural in nature. When the two meet, his immediate response is to engage the male vampire slaves in wrestling matches, which only serves to reduce the vampire’s customary aura of mystery to a very mundane level.’ Moria

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‘There’s the usual odd dubbing (one of Santo’s opponents talks like Nick Adams), but the special effects (the customary rubber bats notwithstanding) are pretty good, including vampires burning up in flames at the sight of a giant cross or the morning sunlight, or beautiful faces seen as the crusty, aged horrors that they really are when reflected in a mirror. One of the film’s most memorable moments has Santo unmasking his karate-chopping wrestling competitor to reveal a wolf-like kisser!’ George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

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‘Some of the concepts in the film go from the sublime to the ridiculous. We have a police inspector who, after the first kidnap attempt, believes in vampires (and thus releases the unfortunate cop he had locked up earlier) … We have a Professor who contacts Samson by video phone – oddly sci-fi and very out of place.’ Taliesen Meets the Vampires

 

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Cast:

  • Santo [Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta] as Santo/Sampson
  • Lorena Velázquez as Thorina, queen of the vampires
  • María Duval as Diana Orlof
  • Jaime Fernández as Inspector Carlos
  • Augusto Benedico as Professor Orlof
  • Xavier Loyá as Jorge – Diana’s fiance
  • Ofelia Montesco as Tandra, vampire priestess
  • Fernando Osés as Vampire
  • Guillermo Hernández as Vampire
  • Nathanael León as Vampire
  • Ricardo Adalid as Detective at Party

Choice dialogue:

“Follow me, we’ll search for human blood!”

Wikipedia | IMDb


Lake of Dracula

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Lake of Dracula – aka Noroi no yakata: Chi o suu me (“Bloodthirsty Eyes”) is a 1971 Japanese film made by the Toho company but following in Hammer’s Gothic tradition. The film is considered the second in a trilogy of films referred to as “The Bloodthirsty Trilogy”, the other films being The Vampire Doll (Yûrei yashiki no kyôfu: Chi wo sû ningyô, 1970) and Evil of Dracula (Chi o suu bara, 1974). All three were directed by Michio Yamamoto.

lakeofdracula6 In a remote coastal setting young Akiko (Midori Fujita) chases after her misbehaving hound, Leo, following him through a wooded area until they both arrive at a rather unlikely European-style mansion. Obliged to snoop around inside, they are faced with a figure appearing out of the gloom, fangs bared and none too welcoming. Skipping forward many years, Akiko is still with Leo and is venturing out to find a handyman, Kyûsaku, to fix her door. As she arrives, the handyman receives an unexpected delivery which he later discovers is a crate containing a white coffin.

lakeofdracula3 Akiko’s simple life, living with her sister Natsuko (Sanae Emi) by Lake Fujimi, allows time for her pastime of painting, her latest work being a large yellow eye featured in a sunset, which she explains was inspired by nightmares she’s been having since a child. The pair, joined by her sister’s boyfriend, wait patiently for Kyûsaku, who never shows – little do they know that having opened the coffin, only to find it empty, the man has been attacked by an unknown person lurking in the shadows.

lakeofdracula8 Events become ever more peculiar, with a dead body arriving at the hospital drained of blood but with two puncture holes in the neck, all of which the local doctor, Saeki (Chôei Takahashi) finds most perplexing. Meanwhile, Akiko has sadly found her beloved dog dead in the woods with the dinner-avoiding handyman close-by and acting oddly. Now referring to his ‘new master’, Kyûsaku’s return coincides with further abductions, all of which lead back to the mansion’s owner, a nameless vampire (Shin Kishida; the familiar star of the Lone Wolf and Cub films, Hanzo the Razor: The Snare and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla). Dr Saeki and Akiko are dragged into the vampire’s web of terror, not least when Natsuko begins to act strangely. Visions from Akiko’s childhood could be key to saving them from an eternity as the undead…

lakeofdracula5 Largely unloved, both at the time and now, Lake of Dracula is an interesting attempt to combine the particularly Japanese style of slow-moving action and gently painted characters with the elements which had contributed to Hammer’s meteoric rise as the bastion of the horror film. Firstly, it’s best to leave your thoughts on Dracula at the door, there’s really no connection here, the reference apparently being a marketing ploy by American distributors (perhaps the same who thought a re-titling of ‘Japula’ might draw in the crowds – fortunately, even they abandoned this quite quickly); neither is it wise to compare this to the other films of the trilogy, there is no storyline to follow between them.

lakeofdracula7 The main issue is an odd desire for the filmmakers to leave the vampire as such a minor character – apart from a pleasing finale and some hiding in corners, he is left with little to do, leaving, sadly, the less arresting actors to do the majority of the heavy-lifting. Fujita is a timid, shallow female lead, difficult to empathise with, even when her dog is killed – in fairness, she has proved herself to be all but useless in terms of preventing him from constantly running way. Likewise, the doctor, certainly no Van Helsing and barely as interesting as Van Morrison, we are presented with a scenario which blights many a horror film – heroes we’d much rather die than succeed.

lakeofdracula12 Fortunately, the cinematography is excellent, the mansion situated in such an unlikely place being that it’s oddly fascinating to see Japanese actors placed within it. Less well exploited is the titular lake, an opportunity for invention well and truly missed. The problem, aside from the issues already mentioned, is largely that Japan has little in the way of vampiric folklore to draw upon, unusual for a nation so large. As such, the sexual element is missing and the vampire’s motive is somewhat muddled – the film’s conclusion supposes the audience has come straight from a Hammer film, otherwise it could only appear as distinctly odd.

lakeofdracula10 Riichirô Manabe’s score is superb, a real shame it is coupled with such a lacklustre film; Western flourishes and Eastern exoticism, fruity glissandi doing their best to convince the audience something exciting is going to happen. He would later score the likes of Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster and Godzilla vs. Megalon. Colourful and often dreamy, it’s a waste of a good setting and an appealing monster, though as a curiosity it’s worth a watch. If nothing else, the film did have some influence – the impressive No Wave band, Lake of Dracula, taking their name from the movie.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Buy Lake of Dracula on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

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Robert le Diable – opera

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Robert le Diable (translation: “Robert the Devil”) is an 1831 opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto written by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne. Robert le Diable is regarded as one of the first grand operas at the Paris Opéra. It derives some of its development from the medieval legend of Robert the Devil, a tale which was written in 13th Century France.

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The opera introduces Robert, Duke of Normandy, the son of a union between Bertha and Bertram, a disciple of Satan, perhaps even a demon himself. In Normandy, alongside several other knights, he attempts to win favour with the beautiful Princess Isabelle. A minstrel, Raimbaut, inadvertently singing a song that referred to Robert as a devil is imprisoned by the enraged Robert but is granted forgiveness when Robert realises his fiancée is his foster-sister, Alice. Under the influence of a disguised Bertram, whom Robert is unaware is his father, let alone a devil, the duke gambles, leaves the door open for the Prince of Granada to woo Isabella and sees Raimbaut given a sack of gold to pursue love interests other than Alice.

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By the time Bertram reveals to Robert that he is his father, he has communed with the devil himself, an event overheard by Alice who learns from the depraved chanting that if Bertram cannot convince his son to sell his soul to Satan by midnight, he will lose control over Robert forever. Bertram discovers he is being spied upon and threatens Alice, who leaves. He turns his attentions to his son who he informs could win back Isabelle by taking possession of a magic branch which grants invisibility, hanging near the tomb of Saint Rosalia in a nearby cloister. He agrees, despite knowing this is sacrilege and is punished by zombie nuns, the remains of sisters who lived with impure thoughts, who rise from their graves to taunt him.

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Avoiding their suggestive drinking and dancing, he escapes with the branch and seeks to interrupt the imminent marriage of Isabelle and the Prince. With the clock approaching midnight, Bertram fails in his attempts and is cast down to Hell, leaving his son to step in and marry the Princess.

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The opera was an immediate success on its premier in 1831 and drew plaudits from the likes of Franz Liszt, Alexandre Dumas (who featured the opera in his classic tale, The Count of Monte Cristo) and Edgar Degas. Brass (some provided by the now rarely used ophicleide, a forerunner to the bass tuba), fabricated thunder effects and baritone voices create unease throughout the opera, the Gothic drama of which comes to a head in the graveyard sequence where the hero is attacked by ghostly nuns rising from their tombs, Robert having to fend them off with supernatural powers. In many productions, this sequence is carefully choreographed to make the nuns particularly horrific and moving in unnatural ways.

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Whilst the opera was so successful that Meyerbeer became a celebrity and was feted by the French court, it is said that his rival, the Italian Rossini, was so affected by Robert le Diable that he retired from composition. The opera has been compared to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, and is in fact mentioned by name in the musical. Considered shocking at the time of creation and still performed around the world today, the opera last appeared at London’s Covent Garden Opera House in 2012.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Stelvio Cipriani – composer

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Stelvio Cipriani – born 20th August 1937, in Rome – is an Italian composer, mostly of movie soundtracks, many of which were for genre films, including, horror, gialli thrillers and crime films. Cipriani is still active, performing both live and recorded works, his output totalling over 200 scores. He has occasionally worked using the pseudonym Steve Powder.

cipriani2 Cipriani grew up in a decidedly un-musical household, the catalyst for expressing his musical talent actually coming from hearing the local church organ. The priest encouraged this interest and alerted his family to his passion and quick progress in learning to both read music and play keyboards. Although he covered all bases by initially becoming an accountant after school, he had followed the more traditional path for Italian composers and had enrolled at a Santa Cecilia music conservatory aged fourteen, studying piano and harmony. At this stage, it had become the pattern among many Italian composers for film to have specialised in either classical or jazz before finding their true calling. Bucking this trend, more contemporary sounds appealed to Cipriani, joining small bands to play venues from local ballrooms to cruise ships. On a break in New York during the latter period, Cipriani met and played for Dave Brubeck, the legendary band leader. Cipriani returned to Italy to be pianist to emerging pop singer, Rita Pavone.

cipriani4 Aged 29, he composed his first score, the spaghetti western El Precio de un Hombre (The Bounty Killer, 1966), a breezy affair which had all the trademarks of a Euro Western score and was likeable if not ground-breaking. During this early period working in the film industry, Cipriani composed for a variety of film styles and directors; of particular note are the erotic thriller Femina Ridens (The Laughing Woman, 1969); the early Jose Larraz film, Whirlpool; Radley Metzger’s The Lickerish Quartet (all 1970), before his output took a slightly darker direction from 1971 onwards.

cipriani5 Even at this time, the likes of Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai dominated the Italian film industry when it came to music, though Cipriani was able to compete, not only because of his deft touch with melody and rather more light-hearted tone to many of his scores (his contemporaries had often strayed nearer to experimentalism or jazz before even thinking of incorporating ‘modern’ sounds) but also because he stuck to the composers’ code – he was willing to compose for any kind of film, regardless of subject matter or lack of quality. In fact, Cipriani’s style was closer to Americans such as Henry Mancini than many of his fellow countrymen.

cipriani6 Cipriani’s lush, almost outrageously suggestive score to Riccardo Freda’s giallo, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (1971) is typical of his work in this period – a broad spectrum of instruments from piano to oboe, breathy, wordless female vocals – by Nora Orlandi, herself an excellent composer – and flashes of both tea-spilling stingers and punchy pop moments. Such scores had brought him to the attention of one of the masters of Italian horror cinema, Mario Bava; the pair combining on his early slasher, A Bay of Blood (1971), Baron Blood (1972, too experimental for American distributors, AIP, who replaced him with Les Baxter for their home release) and Rabid Dogs (1974). It has been suggested that his score for Bay of Blood was originally intended for The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, eventually scored by Bruno Nicolai.

cipriani7 Such an association did little to slow down the pace of Cipriani’s assignments; his score to Death Walks on High Heels is in some senses the quintessential gialli score, initially flighty and breathy, lulling the audience into a false sense of security before angular dissonance signals the end of child-like frivolity and it’s black gloves and stabbing to the fore.

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A milestone in Cipriani’s canon is his towering score to Roberto Infacelli’s The Great Kidnapping (La Polizia Sta a Guardare, 1973), the descending chords of the melody being reused several times over the years, most notably on the nearly-Hollywood blockbuster, Tentacles (1977). Plagiarism of oneself is not mentioned in the rulebook.

cipriani8 His reputation as being an easy composer to work with made him in demand throughout the 1970s and into the 80s, aided by his willingness to adopt new techniques; like other younger composers such as fellow Italians Franco Micalizzi, the de Angelis brothers or Bixio, Frizzi and Tempera, Cipriani readily embraced modern production, using synthesizers and guitars, as well as disco and rock, as time progressed. Although his output was not always of the very highest order, landmarks such as the taut, thrilling score to What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) allowing you to forgive the slight misfires of The Great Alligator (1979) and the fun but daft, Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals (Nico Fidenco was clearly unavailable!)

An oddity in his output is Bloodstained Shadow (1979), a score which was written by Cipriani but was actually performed by Goblin, a contractual issue neither party had any control over. This arrangement was repeated, with Goblin founder and keyboardist Claudio Simonetti performing on 1979’s Ring of Darkness.

Hollywood did call, although half-heartedly; Tentacles was no Jaws and Piranha II: The Spawning (1981, under the guise of Steve Powder) remains famous only as mega director James Cameron’s debut effort. Bizarrely, Cipriani composed scores to no fewer than three films about the mysteries surrounding the Bermuda triangle.

cipriani10 Other horror-related works include Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City (1980), 1982’s Pieces, Joe D’Amato’s Orgasmo Nero (1980) and superior giallo, The House of the Yellow Carpet (1983). Cipriani continues to work in film and television (mostly in Italy) but has found many new fans due to his work being sampled by the likes of Necro and the use of cues from his older scores finding their way into Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and to great effect in Larry David’s TV comedy, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Selected Discography

1966 – The Bounty Killer

1969 – The Laughing Woman (aka The Frightened Woman)

1970 – Whirlpool

1970 – The Anonymous Venetian (winner of the silver ribbon awarded by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists)

1970 – The Lickerish Quartet

1971 – The Lonely Violent Beach

1971 – Human Cobras

1971 – The Iguana With the Tongue of Fire

1971 – A Bay of Blood

1971 – Blindman

1971 – Death Walks on High Heels

1971 – Deviation

1972 – Execution Squad

1972 – Baron Blood

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Buy Baron Blood on DagoRed double-vinyl album from Amazon.co.uk

1972 – Return of Halleluja

1972 – Night Hair Child

1973 – The Great Kidnapping

1974 – Emergency Squad

1974 – What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

1974 – Rabid Dogs

1975 – Evil Eye

1974 – Death Will Have Your Eyes

1975 – Mark the Narc

1975 – Frankenstein all’Italiana

1976 – Colt 38 Special Squad

1976 – Deported Women of the SS Special Section

1977 – Tentacles

1977 – Stunt Squad

1978 – The Bermuda Triangle

1978 – Skin ’em Alive

1978 – Cave of the Sharks

1978 – Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals

1978 – Bloodstained Shadow (composed by Cipriani, performed by Goblin)

1979 – Concorde Affaire 1979

1979 – Encounters of the Deep

1979 – Ring of Darkness

1979 – The Great Alligator

1980 – Orgasmo Nero

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Buy Orgasmo Nero soundtrack on CD

1980 – Nightmare City

1981 – Piranha 2: The Spawning

1982 – Don’t Look in the Attic

1982 – Pieces

1983 – The House of the Yellow Carpet

1987 – Beaks – The Movie

1988 – Taxi Killer

1991 – Voices From Beyond

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Buy Nightmare City soundtrack on CD from Amazon.co.uk


Dead of Winter

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Dead of Winter is an American gothic giallo thriller film made in 1987. It was directed by Arthur Penn and is a loose remake of the 1945 film My Name Is Julia Ross. It stars Mary Steenburgen, who plays three roles, Roddy McDowall (It!) and Jan Rubeš. The movie was filmed on location in Ontario, Canada.

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Plot teaser:

Struggling actress Katie McGovern (Mary Steenburgen) is made to believe she has landed an audition for a role replacing an actress with a similar appearance. To record the requested audition tape she is taken to an isolated mansion where she is given the part. Soon Katie begins to realise that there is something much darker than film-making going on. She is held hostage by the disabled Dr. Joseph Lewis (Jan Rubes) and his assistant (Roddy McDowall) and becomes involved in their plot with a ferocious woman, whose recently murdered sister looked very like Katie…

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Despite the credits, Arthur Penn was not the film’s original director. Co-writer Marc Shmuger — a classmate and friend of Penn’s son Matthew — began directing but soon ran into difficulties. Producer John Bloomgarden took over directing in the interim. Studio executive Alan Ladd, Jr. asked Penn — who had brought the project to the studio’s attention — to direct. Penn reluctantly agreed.

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Buy Dead of Winter on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“Thriller plots are born to be manipulated and then forgotten. What counts is the architecture of the house, the exact locations of the one-way mirrors and the hidden staircases, the existence of a working telephone in the attic, the alarming moments when the heroine discovers that all is not as it seems. The plot is simply a device to get us from one heart-stopping moment to the next.” RogerEbert.com

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“It was clear from the start there was something off with the film, but it maintained a decent mediocrity –combined with Penn’s bewildering direction – until the last twenty-five minutes or so. Then it just got worse and worse.” The Stop Button

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“A key part of the effectiveness of Dead of Winter comes from the fact that it respects the intelligence of its viewers. As the story unfolded, I noticed certain elements that seemed a little wrong, a little inconsistent with the premise as set up in the initial scenes… and, in fact, these were clues for the attentive viewer that all is not as it seems. Toward the end, Dead of Winter does follow a somewhat more typical thriller development, but the elements of the story are well-thought-out; the film retains its own flavor and its believability all the way to the end.” DVD Talk  

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Trailer:

Wikipedia | IMDb

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M.R. James – author

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Montague “Monty” Rhodes James OM, MA, FBA (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936), who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King’s College, Cambridge (1905–18), and of Eton College (1918–36).

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Though James’s work as a medievalist is still highly regarded, he is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered as among the best in the genre. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James’s protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the “antiquarian ghost story”.

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James was born in Goodnestone Parsonage, near Dover in Kent, England, although his parents had associations with Aldeburgh in Suffolk. His father was Herbert James, an Evangelical Anglican clergyman, and his mother, Mary Emily (née Horton), was the daughter of a naval officer. From the age of three (1865) until 1909 James’s home, if not always his residence, was at the Rectory in Great Livermere, Suffolk. Several of James’s ghost stories are set in Suffolk, including Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad (Felixstowe), A Warning to the Curious (Aldeburgh), Rats and A Vignette (Great Livermere).

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In September 1873 he arrived as a boarder at Temple Grove School, one of the leading boys’ preparatory schools of the day. He eventually settled in Cambridge, first as an undergraduate, then as a don and provost, at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was also a member of the Pitt Club. The university provides settings for several of his tales and its insular world informs many of the often drifting souls he characterises. Apart from medieval subjects, James studied the classics and appeared very successfully in a staging of Aristophanes’ play The Birds, with music by Hubert Parry.

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His academic career saw him cataloguing and translating many medieval works, the hidden texts and found knowledge echoing several of his published fiction work, as well as being very highly regarded by his academic contemporaries. He later became a director of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum before seeing out his final years as Provost of Eton College, the town where he is now buried. As with his time in Suffolk, his Cambridge surroundings, especially those within University walls, are featured in several of his tales; A School Story, Temple Grove, East Sheen and A Tractate Middoth.

mrjames18 Many of James’s ghost stories were written for public performance, specifically for reading to a small group of assembled friends (and occasionally, choirboys) as part of spirit-fuelled polite revelry on Christmas Eve in his private quarters at the University. Such precise and well-orchestrated behaviour is a reminder of the very Victorian quality of James’s writing, and he as a person – it was also an excuse to display his acting skills, as well as to assert his dominance in an environment of constant one-upmanship.

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From his own recollection, his first written and published ghost story was Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook, which appeared in National Review magazine in 1894, with Lost Hearts appearing in Pall Mall magazine the following year. These, plus a further six tales were collected into one volume, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary in 1904:

• “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book”
• “Lost Hearts”
• “The Mezzotint”
• “The Ash-tree”
• ” Number 13″
• “Count Magnus”
• “‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad””
• “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas”

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The first edition of this collection featured four atmospheric illustrations by James McBryde, a friend of James’ and one of the few who were present at the stories first Christmas readings. It was intended that McBryde would provide illustrations for each featured story but his premature death meant only four were completed. A distraught James, whom, it is said, harboured romantic feelings towards his friend, refused to allow the publisher to use images supplied by anyone else to complete the unfinished work.

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The success of this volume led to three further collections:

More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911)
• “A School Story”
• ” The Rose Garden”
• “The Tractate Middoth”
• “Casting the Runes”
• “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral”
• “Martin’s Close”
• “Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance”

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A Thin Ghost and Others (1919)
• “The Residence at Whitminster”
• “The Diary of Mr Poynter”
• “An Episode of Cathedral History”
• “The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance”
• “Two Doctors”

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A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925)

• “The Haunted Dolls’ House”
• “The Uncommon Prayer-Book”
• “A Neighbour’s Landmark”
• “A View from a Hill”
• “A Warning to the Curious”
• “An Evening’s Entertainment”

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Despite the subjects of his stories, James claimed neither to have any real belief in ghosts or the supernatural, nor to have witnessed anything himself which could not be rationally explained. Although operating in an era when literature had several of the great practitioners in full effect, notably, Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, James honed both a style and structure which were distinct and memorable. Relying on neither the actions of wicked, misguided individuals (much of Poe) nor the unimaginable horrors of Lovecraft, James wrote of unassuming (if, often, well-to-do) individuals who by circumstance found themselves the victim of restless spirits, none of whom were in the least welcoming or benign.

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The classic Jamesian tale usually includes the following elements:

• A characterful setting in an English village, seaside town or country estate; an ancient town in France, Denmark or Sweden; or a venerable abbey or university
• A nondescript and rather naive gentleman-scholar as protagonist (often of a reserved nature). Few women appear in his tales, romance even less.
• The discovery of an old book or other antiquarian object that somehow unlocks, calls down the wrath, or at least attracts the unwelcome attention of a supernatural menace, usually from beyond the grave
• A mundane, contented life disturbed by an initially innocuous presence or occurrence, leading to a more malignant force.

Analysts have suggested that James’s sexuality and his inability to come to terms with it leant a detached malaise to his tales; a lack of, or even fear, of human contact quite a noticeable theme. Whilst this is possible, what is undeniable is the influence of Sheridan Le Fanu’s writing, which James was never slow in praising.

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On the other side of the coin, James himself was no stranger to praise from high places. Foremost of these was H.P. Lovecraft, saving significant reverence for James in his extended essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, first published in 1927. He also wrote:

“M.R. James joins the brisk, the light, & the commonplace to the weird about as well as anyone could do it—but if another tried the same method, the chances would be ten to one against him. The most valuable element in him—as a model—is his way of weaving a horror into the every-day fabric of life and history—having it grow naturally out of the myriad conditions of an ordinary environment…”

Other admirers of his work include Sir John Betjeman, Paul Theroux, Ruth Rendell and horror fiction heavyweights, Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell. More keenly, Kingsley Amis used James’s signature motifs for one of his most famous works, The Green Man. James’s character-led tales have made them ideal for television and film adaptation.

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Buy Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories from Amazon.co.uk

Television:

1951 – Lights Out – “The Lost Will of Dr. Rant”. A clear adaptation of The Tractate Middoth, starring Leslie Nielsen
1966-1968 – Four teleplays were broadcast on ITV in the UK, all of which are now considered lost in their entirety.
1968 – Whistle and I’ll Come to You – perhaps the most famous TV adaptation of them all, directed by Jonathan Miller for the BBC

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1971 – The Stalls of Barchester. From 1971, in a tradition James would most certainly approve, each Christmas saw a James tale dramatised, each directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark.

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1972 – A Warning to the Curious

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1973 – Lost Hearts

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1974 – Treasure of Abbot Thomas

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1975 – The Ash Tree

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1976 – The Signalman

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1977 – Stigma
1979 – Casting the Runes. Clark again, this time for ITV.

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Buy Casting the Runes on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

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1980 – A slightly more grown-up version of Jackanory, Spinechillers, saw three James tales read by Michael Bryant (The Stone Tape); The Mezzotint, The Diary of Mr Poynter and A School Story

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1986 – Robert Powell’s partially dramatised readings of The Mezzotint, The Ash-Tree, Wailing Well, Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad and The Rose Garden were screened on BBC2 for an even older audience.
2000 – Christopher Lee took the reading reins for another series of James re-tellings, this time in front of a roaring fire with a suitably-attired small audience. These are still regularly screened around Christmas time. With Lee playing the role of James reading his own stories, the 30 minute episodes produced by the BBC include The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, The Ash-tree, Number 13 and A Warning to the Curious

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2005 – BBC4 screened updated adaptations of both A View From a Hill and Number 13
2010 – A new version of Whistle and I’ll Come to You was developed for broadcast around Christmas. Starring John Hurt (Alien), most consider it massively inferior the Miller’s earlier film, which starred Michael Hordern in the same role.

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2013 – Horror fan and writer Mark Gatiss directed The Tractate Middoth, up-keeping a Christmas tradition now eagerly anticipated.

Film:

1957 – Night of the Demon (aka Curse of the Demon). Jacques Tourneur’s masterful adaptation of Casting the Runes.

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Buy Night of the Demon on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

1989 – The Church (La Chiesa). Michele Soavi’s film, co-written with Dario Argento but taking significant influence from The Treasure of Abbot Thomas.

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Buy The Church on DVD from Amazon.com

Forthcoming – Joe Dante has been linked with a new adaptation of Casting the Runes for several years, having already adopted the Jamesian curse for his 2009 film, Drag Me To Hell

Radio:

The performed origins and suggestive scares have made James’s work some of the most performed horror on radio.

1947 – CBS Radio – Escape – Casting the Runes
1973 – BBC Radio 3 – Lost Hearts, read by Bernard Cribbins (Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.)
1974 – CBS Radio – This Will Kill You – Casting the Runes, starring E.G. Marshall
1981 – BBC Radio 4 – The Hex – Casting the Runes, starring Conrad Phillips (Circus of Horrors)
1997–1998 – Radio 4 broadcast The Late Book: Ghost Stories, a series of 15-minute readings of M. R. James stories, abridged and produced by Paul Kent and narrated by Benjamin Whitrow (repeated on BBC 7, December 2003–January 2004, September–October 2004, February 2007, October–November 2011). The stories were Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book, Lost Hearts, A School Story, The Haunted Dolls’ House and Rats.
1982-92 – A series of four double audio cassettes was released by Argo Records, featuring nineteen unabridged James stories narrated by Michael Hordern. The tapes were titled Ghost Stories (1982), More Ghost Stories (1984), A Warning to the Curious (1985) and No. 13 and Other Ghost Stories (1988).

ISIS Audio Books also released two collections of unabridged James stories, this time narrated by Nigel Lambert. These tapes were titled A Warning to the Curious and Other Tales (four audio cassettes, six stories, March 1992) and Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (three audio cassettes, eight stories, December 1992).

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2007 – Tales of the Supernatural, Volume One, an audiobook presentation by Fantom Films, featuring the James stories Lost Hearts read by Geoffrey Bayldon (Tales From the Crypt, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed), Rats and Number 13 by Ian Fairbairn, with Gareth David-Lloyd reading Casting the Runes and There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard.
2007 – Radio 4 – The tradition of James’s ghost stories for the festive period returned once more, with a series of adaptations of his most popular tales. Each lasted around 15 minutes and was introduced by Derek Jacobi (The Medusa Touch) as James himself. Due to the short running times the tales were fairly rushed, with much of the stories condensed or removed. Stories adapted included Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad, Number 13 and Lost Hearts.

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2007 – A Warning to the Furious. Forty-five minute play, written by Robin Brooks, concerning a film-making team setting out to make a documentary about MRJ on the Suffolk coast.
A series of seven tales billed as Doug Bradley’s Spinechillers were released as audio downloads, read by Pinhead himself

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Comics:

Anna Sahrling-Hamm – Hearts/Wailing Well. Online adaptations

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Scott Hampton – Spookhouse Volume One. A compendium of tales, also featuring W.W. Jacobs Monkey’s Paw, James’s The Mezzotint is included.

 

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Kelley Jones – Eerie – Volume 6, 2014 – The Ash Tree

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Daz Lawrence

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Death Smiles at Murder (1973)

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Death Smiles at Murder – aka Death Smiles on a Murderer (Italian: La morte ha sorriso all’assassino) – is a 1973 Italian horror film photographed and directed by Aristide Massaccesi [aka Joe D’Amato] from a screenplay co-written with Claudio Bernabei and Romano Scandariato.

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Main cast:

Ewa Aulin, Klaus Kinski (Nosferatu the Vampyre; Schizoid; Venom), Angela Bo, Sergio Doria, Luciano Rossi (City of the Living Dead), Attilio Dottesio, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart.

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Plot:

1909: A rich couple take in a young girl who was in a horse carriage accident and has amnesia, and both have an affair with her. Meanwhile, Dr. Sturges (Klaus Kinski) uses an ancient Incan formula to raise the dead for his own series of revenge murders…

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Languid, yet morbidly compelling, with a delirious amount of close-ups of the actors eyeballs, Massaccesi’s focus on eroticism and necrophilia predates his 1979 ‘nasty’ Beyond the Darkness yet is considerably more arty – which perhaps explains why it remained pretty obscure until the digital age? Despite a baffling plot, the gothic ambiance and stylistic presentation are engaging. Meanwhile, the cast seem to believe in the nightmare scenario, especially Klaus Kinski who is typically manic.

Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

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“The plot cuts back and forth and twists and turns in upon itself as if to mimic the many bulging veins in Klaus Kinski’s forehead. Despite its nonsensical story, the film itself is surprisingly inviting. D’Amato pulls off a number of impressive scenes, in particular a montage of flirtation and fornication…” Jason McElreath, DVD Drive-In

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” … benefits greatly from high quality cinematography (helmed by D’Amato), terrific locations, and a perfect soundtrack by the great and under-appreciated Berto Pisano (Burial Ground, Interrabang), all of which are integrated together to create one of the best looking and sounding gothic horror era pieces that’s the stuff of dreams and nightmares.” At the Mansion of Madness

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“Just when you think you’re beginning to figure things out, random stuff happens that leaves you scratching your head, like the maid’s hallucinations, the unexplained revival of Eva in her tomb or the flowers that turn into a cat. Despite its drawbacks, though, it’s a highly entertaining, sumptuously made piece of trash cinema that holds up to repeated viewings.” Filmiarity

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” … achieves a hallucinatory ambience reminiscent of Mario Bava or Antonio Margheriti. At its worst it is as crude and banal as could be expected from a film-maker who later went on to specialise in sex / horror hybrids and outright porn.” Giallo Fever

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Cast and characters:

  • Ewa Aulin – Greta von Holstein
  • Klaus Kinski – Dr. Sturges
  • Angela Bo – Eva von Ravensbrück
  • Sergio Doria – Walter von Ravensbrück
  • Attilio Dottesio – Inspector Dannick
  • Marco Mariani – Simeon, the butler
  • Luciano Rossi – Franz, Greta’s Brother
  • Giacomo Rossi-Stuart – Dr. von Ravensbrück, Walter’s Father
  • Fernando Cerulli – Professor Kempte (as Franco Cerulli)
  • Carla Mancini
  • Giorgio Dolfin – Maier – Ballet dancer
  • Pietro Torrisi – Dr. Sturges’ Mute Assistant (uncredited)

Frankenstein – ballet (2016)

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Frankenstein is a 2016 British ballet directed by The Royal Ballet’s Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett at London’s Royal Opera House. The ballet is a music and dance adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Gothic tale of morality and love.

American composer Lowell Liebermann, composes a new score for the production. John Macfarlane created the stage designs, while David Finn provided the lighting design. The ballet is being simultaneously screened in a number of select cinemas. The main stars are Laura Morera, Federico Bonelli and Steven McRae.

Plot:

Victor Frankenstein is sent away to university, away from his family and his closest friend Elizabeth. Just before he leaves, his mother dies in childbirth. Distraught, Victor throws himself into his studies, learning obsessively all that he can from his Professor. Fuelled by his experiments and in a desperate hope to find a way to bring his mother back, Victor works furiously, and eventually succeeds in giving life to non-living matter – but, horrified at what he has done, Victor abandons his Creation.

Six years later, Victor returns home. The Creature follows him and, watching Victor with his family from afar, longs to be accepted and loved as one of them. On the day of Victor’s wedding to Elizabeth, the Creature draws closer, enraptured by Elizabeth’s beauty. Victor discovers the Creature, who, in his panic, kills Elizabeth. In his grief, Victor takes his own life, leaving the Creature once again alone and abandoned, cradling his creator…

Reviews:

“The dancing is superb, the sets magnificent, but Liam Scarlett’s new full-length ballet squanders Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece … That the Royal Ballet has allowed Scarlett to get in so far over his head is reprehensible. He is unquestionably a great talent, but he is equally clearly not ready for a commission on this scale.” Luke Jennings, The Guardian

“With great virtuosity and choreographic diligence, Scarlett crafted carefully each one character of the story, especially the three main one’s taken on by principal dancers. Frankenstein’s ideas of the new scientific world and galvanism, his visions, memory recollections and dreams are animated vigorously by Federico Bonelli; his feelings, however beheld in his expressionless countenance, are exposed through his vivid body language.” Gabriella Daris, Blouinartfino

“Lowell Liebermann’s score is equally murky as the theme might suggest but he does lock in rhythms, action and emotion clearly enjoyed by the dancers. And what dancers! Laura Morera played Elizabeth, the hero’s love interest, and I have never seen her dance better. She brilliantly captured the character’s middle class niceness and the wonder of a young woman’s unqualified first love.” Jeffrey Taylor, Express.co.uk

“Liam Scarlett is a talented abstract, neoclassical choreographer, but his Frankenstein is the least enjoyable full-evening work I have ever seen the Royal Ballet perform … The result is a piece that reeks of desperation – that, and what seems very much like the unchecked hubris of its creator. Nor do the sad parallels with the story itself end there – for this expensive-looking new work feels largely (de)composed of body-parts from other, infinitely superior British ballets.” Mark Monahan, The Telegraph


Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl (2016)

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‘Evil loves the lonely’

Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl is a 2016 American gothic horror film written, co-produced and directed by A.D. Calvo (House of DustThe Midnight Game). The film’s working title was Sitter.

Calvo explained his intentions to IndieWire: “This film is an effort to examine how, little by little, one can go from being conscientious and considerate to being careless and ambivalent. How, over time, slips in one’s moral compass can lead to lapses in judgment; perhaps even lead to evil.

The story juxtaposes the material desires of a poor young woman with the physical needs of her wealthy elderly aunt. So, really, this is just the age-old social security debate, which is as relevant in today’s political climate as it was back in 1980.”

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Main cast:

Quinn Shephard, Susan Kellermann, Erin Wilhelmi, Rob Tunstall, Mike S. Ryan, Frances Eve, Kristin Johansen, Hada Vanessa, Jonathan Holtzman,  Lainie Ventura, Adam Schartoff, David Pirrie, A.J. Helm, Matt Goyette.

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Plot:

When Adele’s mother gets a call for help from her rich sister, she sends Adele to live with her. Alone in a large, empty house, shuttling food and medicine to a woman who won’t leave her room or show her face, Adele grows lonely.

She meets a local young woman, Beth, seductive and mysterious, with whom she quickly becomes intimate friends. Beth commands increasingly more of Adele’s time and focus, testing Adele’s moral ground as she starts to abandon her responsibilities caring for her aunt.

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As Adele begins to discover that Beth may not be who she says she is, she is sent spiraling down a psychologically unhinged and phantasmagoric path, following in the footsteps of her unstable aunt…

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Reviews:

“Calvo takes horror fans back to a period of cinema that was short-lived and almost impossible to recreate fully. If one is not a fan of those slow-paced, moody and cerebral offerings, then this will not change your mind. Those who appreciate that side of the genre will find something rare and delightful. It is a stylistic achievement, and in the end, a melancholy exploration of just what the title promises – loneliness.” Ben Larned, Bloody Disgusting

“Unfortunately, Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl’s solid cast and admittedly great sense of mood and atmosphere fail to elevate the film above its disappointing story and lack severe lack of narrative punch. With a bit more narrative fine tuning Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl could have been something really special, but now all we are left with is a seemingly hollow experience.” Dane Williams, Caffeinated Film

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“Calvo (who also scripted) steers away from the conventions of the well-worn good girl/bad girl buddy movie, and instead lets the light of each enhance and accentuate their own shadowy traits. It’s in little moments, like Beth’s hobby of taking tombstone rubbings, or the way Adele rifles through the housekeeping money, that Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl is chillingly captivating.” Richard Whittaker, The Austin Chronicle

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“There is some great stuff here, and while I’m loath to criticize a film simply for a botched finale, there is no getting away from the giant misstep in the final act of Sweet Sweet Lonely Girl. I’m sure it looked good on the page, and there was probably some way of realizing it without it appearing so absurd, but I can’t help but think of this film as a wasted opportunity.” Simon Read, Quiet Earth

“Calvo’s latest has a vintage horror vibe to it that works. It’s a silent chill that rushes up your spine out of nowhere. So focused on nailing the effective atmosphere, though, the narrative is left exposed to plot holes … This isn’t a literal ghost story, but it the haunting, atmospheric elements that invoke classic ‘70s fare is the most compelling aspect of the film.” Meagan Navarro, Modern Horrors

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“Calvo keeps things vague, implying some sort of satanic connection to the proceedings along with a good old fashioned ghost story, but he can’t get past the hurdle of getting out from under his own influences, crafting a well-made independent horror film that continually hits a ceiling of quality.” C.J. Prince, We Live Film

Filming locations:

Rockville, Vernon, Connecticut, USA

IMDb | Official site | Facebook


The Night Digger (1971)

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‘A tale of the strange and perverse.’

The Night Digger is a 1971 British psychological horror film scripted by Roald Dahl (The Witches; Tales of the Unexpected) and set to an edgy Bernard Herrmann (Psycho; Twisted Nerve; Dressed to Kill) score. Psychosexual tensions, menacing ambiance and murders most foul are unearthed. The film was also released as The Road Builder.

Based on the novel Nest in a Fallen Tree by Joy Cowley, it was adapted by Dahl and starred his wife Patricia Neal (The Day the Earth Stood Still), plus Pamela Brown (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Nicholas Clay (The DamnedTerror of FrankensteinHammer House of Mystery and Suspense), Jean Anderson (Late Night Horror – 1968 TV series), Graham Crowden (The Company of Wolves), Yootha Joyce (Die! Die! My Darling!; Burke & Hare; Frankenstein: The True Story), Peter Sallis (Taste the Blood of Dracula; Full Circle; The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), Brigit Forsyth (Doctor Who: The Evil of Daleks), Sebastian Breaks (Out of the Unknown), Diana Patrick and Jenny McCracken. 

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Plot:

Maura Prince (Patricia Neal) leads a lonely life in a dilapidated country mansion, sensing the world is passing her by as she cares for the demanding, invalid mother (Pamela Brown) who adopted her years ago. Then a much younger stranger (Nicholas Clay) takes up residence as a handyman. He’s handsome, helpful. Wary Maura grows to love him… but it’s all too good to be true.

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Reviews:

“Horror fans looking for something beyond gory thrills will find 1971’s The Night Digger a true surprise. In a year that saw the horror genre reaching deeper into the limits of formerly forbidden subject material, this show gives us a strong drama with excellent acting and a convincing storyline.” Alastair Reid, DVD Savant

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“Even if richly atmospheric and finely acted, all the characters are unsympathetic and the undeveloped story is so unpleasant without an upside that I can’t see an audience for it. The pic hits rock bottom when it depicts the implausible romance between the psychopathic serial killer and the unhappy sexually frustrated spinster…” Dennis Schwartz, Ozus’ World Movie Reviews

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“The problem is that director Alistair Reid doesn’t quite find a way of blending the mad killer business with the rural petty snobbery, failing to make much of the horrific or even the erotic potential of the storyline.” Kim Newman, Ten Years of Terror (FAB Press, 2001)

Ten Years of Terror FAB Press book Harvey Fenton David Flint

Buy: Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

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Wikipedia | IMDb

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The Long Hair of Death (1964)

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The Long Hair of Death – I lunghi capelli della morte – is a 1964 Italian gothic horror film directed by Antonio Margheriti (Cannibal Apocalypse; Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eyes; The Virgin of Nuremberg) from a screenplay co-written with Tonino Valerii (director of giallo My Dear Killer), based on a story by Ernesto Gastaldi.

The film stars Barbara Steele, Giorgio Ardisson and Halina Zalewska.

September, 1499. Adele Karnstein is burned at the stake, accused of being a witch who has murdered Count Franz Humboldt.

Lisabeth, the woman’s youngest daughter, lives in the Humboldt castle and when she grows up she is forced to marry the deceased man’s nephew, Kurt Humboldt, whom is the real murderer…

The film is released on Blu-ray in the UK by 88 Films on 24 July 2017.

Buy: Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

” …wins points for its sexuality, using unnerving couplings and personal submission to add a tinge of unrest to the tale as it gradually finds its way to ghostly occurrences. However, it’s a long, slow ride to death’s door, with simple acts and behaviors gobbling up minutes of screentime, feeling more like padding instead of suspense.” Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com

” …connoisseurs of the Italian gothic will definitely want to check it out for its standout sequences, oddly radical political undertones and overall atmosphere – and Barbara Steele fans will certainly appreciate her relatively large amount of screentime – but newcomers to the sub-genre would be well-advised to start elsewhere.” Breakfast in the Ruins

“Margheriti peppers The Long Hair of Death (1964) with interesting characters and situations and although the action slows down a bit during the last half, the suspenseful second half benefits from these interactions. The film is also enhanced by a hauntingly beautiful score…” Cool Ass Cinema

“Margheriti’s direction is slack and unfocused and the cinematography mostly undistinguished. Without the heightened visual dimension there are no zinger moments, those single angles on Steele that elicit chills — like the close-up through the rainy window in The Horrible Dr. Hichcock or every other shot in Black Sunday. Margheriti’s elaborate castle set is too often flat-lit and lacking in atmosphere.” Glenn Erickson, DVD Talk

Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca

[spoilers] “With some editing, this could be a pretty good movie. The revenge/ghost/witch plot is always watchable, and there’s some plague subplotting (it takes place in the 15th century) that is always appreciated. Plus the movie is more or less about a guy who wants to kill his wife so he can be with her sister, so that’s hot. And the weird Wicker Man style thing that the bad guy is burned alive in at the end of the film is pretty awesome.” Brian W. Collins, Horror Movie a Day

Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca

” …there’s an unmistakable hint of that old Italian perverse insanity bubbling just below the surface here, and occasionally bursting through into a few scenes of genuine shock. I doubt the maggot-strewn corpse which crops up here was something audiences were expecting to see at this point. Then there’s a body which ickily rebuilds itself through various stages of decay, and there’s even a little nudity thrown in…” We Are Cursed to Live in Interesting Times

“Aside from a few well-realised set-pieces, and a conspicuously grim case of poetic justice at the climax, the action tends to be rather stiff and somnolent, as if the perpetually busy Margheriti was feeling a bit burned out and couldn’t muster the requisite enthusiasm.” Jonathan Rigby, Euro Gothic 

Buy: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca

“Subtlety and atmosphere are great, but not for 98 minutes! Here, we are treated to many enticing images of the 15th century castle in dim candlelight, but far too much time is consumed by walking one way, walking the next, chit-chatting between important scenes, etc. All punctuated by the same echoing theremin-style organ notes.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

Buy: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca

“There are some fine shots of a white-robed Zulewska wandering through the medieval castle with shafts of lights falling from high windows, and Steele’s presence alone suffices to life such fantasy well above the average, especially when here role combines eroticism and vengeful menace directed against brutally callous men.” Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

Cast and characters:

  • Barbara Steele as Helen Rochefort / Mary + Piranha; Shivers; Castle of Blood; Black Sunday
  • Giorgio Ardisson as Kurt Humboldt
  • Halina Zalewska as Adele Karnstein / Lisabeth Karnstein
  • Giuliano Raffaelli as Count Humboldt
  • Laura Nucci as Grumalda
  • Umberto Raho as Von Klage
  • Nello Pazzafini as the Servant

Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca

Filming locations:

Massimo Castle, Arsoli, Italy

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image credits: The Telltale Mind

Plot keywords:

witch | rats | castle | murder | plague | panic | hysteria | monks | incest | burnt alive


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