Not Quite Hammer, Not Quite Wry

Victor Frankenstein (2015)
Dir.: Paul McGuigan
TC4P Rating: 5/9

I could start off by listing everything that does not work in Victor Frankenstein, Paul McGuigan's somewhat revisionist take on Mary Shelley's timeless, Promethean, proto-science fiction tale. I could list them all, but it would take up three thousand words and this entire piece would be composed of nothing but "should have beens" and "could have beens". But here's a few:

How does a self-educated and abused hunchback gain enough medical knowledge while basically being trapped in the squalor of a low-rent circus to rival the highly educated and obviously brilliant but maniacal Victor Frankenstein? Why does Daniel Radcliffe's limp disappear and reappear at will, often within the same scene? Why is The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, who plays Mycroft Holmes on Sherlock (sometimes directed by McGuigan and sometimes written by Gatiss), not given anything to do but stand around and silently push buttons in the movie's hugely over-the-top finale, when his Sherlock co-star Andrew Scott, who plays über-villain James Moriarty, is given (ironically) the much juicier role of Scotland Yard's top detective?

There is hardly a scene that goes by in Victor Frankenstein where you don't wonder why they did this and didn't do that. When a film pushes the bounds of incredulity from time to time, you either have to suspend your disbelief and just try to enjoy the film, or you have to write the exercise off altogether and pretend you never submitted yourself to it in the first place. But when a movie asks the viewer to make that choice in every single scene, and still somehow remains oddly watchable all the way through, then you've got something special. 

Despite vowing to hit every horror and science fiction feature that reached my local cinema from the moment I became trapped in this new home in an eerily new town, I was somewhat resistant towards making a visit to see Victor Frankenstein. The trailer did not give me much hope -- in fact, nearly quashed my intent entirely -- nor did the dishwater dull movie posters (two big heads or two characters standing side by side with no real artistic vision in sight: both types of popular poster were released for this film). When the release date came, I fought off the urge for a week or so, but as time ticked by and I became aware that the film would likely leave our cinema by last Friday -- much quicker than I expected or Twentieth Century Fox wished -- I rushed up to catch the only afternoon showing left. What sort of Frankenstein fan would I be if I didn't see the latest iteration of the classic story mauled to death on the big screen?

The answer, surprisingly to me, is: a sadder one. No, I was not tricked by the film at all. Victor Frankenstein is not a good film by any stretch of an imagination greater than the people who created this film (which would be legion). It is over-produced, under-written, over-acted wildly (except for a couple of roles where a little more hamminess would have helped), and stuffed to the gills with every artifice and horror cliche known to resurrected man. They have disregarded the source material except for the names of a couple of characters and the basic regeneration concept, mixed in characters that only surfaced in later cinematic versions of the story (such as a hunchback named Igor), all while steampunking everything in a style that many millennials probably now believe was the actual look of the Victorian era. 

My friend Aaron expressed concern that the film would be filled with post-Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes-style "modern quippery and explosions," and that was a concern of mine as well. While McGuigan does resort to current Ritchie-like devices such as the superimposed anatomical cutaways of human and animal bodies, surprisingly there is little in the way of the dreaded quippery. While McAvoy's Victor is a non-stop shouter and rambler (often drunken) of whatever nonsense runs through his mind, Radcliffe's Igor is rather more quiet and introspective, and not up to that style of verbal linguistics, and so we don't really get the pair zinging one-liners off each other like they were in a buddy cop picture instead.

Were the hammy acting scale built into a high-rise building, much of the cast (Including Andrew Scott) would be seen about three to four stories above the ground floor, while James McAvoy, clearly relishing the cheese factor built into his role, would have already settled into the penthouse dozens of floors above and sat around wondering when everyone else in the cast was going to join him for an aperitif. This leaves the thankless job of anchoring the film to Daniel Radcliffe, which is an odd choice since his character (actually a co-lead as Igor) is one of the more bizarrely drawn in the film. But Radcliffe underplays most of the time, and rather disappears as a character in the presence of the far more brazen McAvoy. But apart from the lovely but very wooden Jessica Brown Findlay as the heroine, Lorelei, everyone else in the cast seems to have gotten the note that everyone should step into the ham elevator and push the "up" button.

The true sense I got from Victor Frankenstein was that it was as if someone was told several competing versions of the Frankenstein story while they were growing up, and having only heard each tale once when they were a kid, tried to recall the bits of each story years later through their faulty memory, and then reassemble those bits into one cohesive tale. Thus, like Frankenstein's creature itself, Victor Frankenstein absolutely feels like a patchwork creation.

Shelley's novel is pretty much shrugged aside from the very beginning as McGuigan and his team flat out decide to go their own way. From the second Radcliffe's Igor is introduced in clown makeup, we are in new territory (not that Frankenstein tales haven't taken place partially in circuses before; for example, 1985's The Bride). He is not even named Igor; in fact, doesn't even have a name, but he will acquire the monicker Igor from Victor for reasons I will not go into here. The film has Victor in medical school, and it is clear he has not created his first monster yet, and is in fact, working on raising the deceased chimpanzee first. Here too, we have already perverted the original storyline even more, and switching its main setting to London -- the book two most notable settings are Germany and the North Pole, but also takes time in London, Scotland, and Ireland as well -- also means a general change of atmosphere, and spending less time with the superstitious ways of simple villagers and more time with the manners and personalities to be found in a big city.

The film delights in its gruesomeness. In this age of PG-13 horrors, I have come to be shocked again and again by what can and can't be shown at that rating. While Victor Frankenstein is not loaded with gore per se, it does have enough blood included with its violence to remind you that it is indeed a horror picture. Mostly you get body parts being sewn into new bodies (you don't really see a lot of how they do it, but mostly the end products), and a fairly detailed, reanimated chimpanzee monster that provides some fun at the medical college. Some disembodied eyes that return their function is another sick thrill.

But one of the grosser moments in recent cinematic history is in this film, when Victor siphons the massive abscess that it is the cause of the hunchback's pain. He sucks the pus out through a rubber tube using his mouth, spits out a mouthful of the vile excretion, and then the remainder of the lightly yellowish pus spatters out of the tube onto the floor of the laboratory. (The pus that lands in the bucket which was meant to catch most of it is thrown by Victor off his balcony, and we hear the screams of some people below.) It's nasty and created a pretty good, intentional laugh from me when it happened. (Sadly, I was the only one in the audience, so I didn't get to hear the squirming of others at the scene.) Additionally, I was reminded of Michael Palin's Miles Cowperthwaite segments on the original Saturday Night Live (with the sawing off of a sailor's limbs just because his legs got wet and the spilling of copious amounts of drool from a bucket held about an elderly man's neck) and that is always a good thing for me.

The pus siphoning scene (I love the disgusting sound of that phrase) is still fairly early in the picture, when Victor and Igor (not his actual name, as it turns out, but one purloined for him by Victor) are still establishing their relationship. But it was the moment when I first caught on to what was happening within me in regards to my reaction to the film. While recognizing that the film was all of the negative things I have already mentioned earlier, I realized that I was still having a pretty good time with Victor Frankenstein. As I continued to watch, a small part of my mind was dispatched to do some detective work on its own and begin analyzing exactly why this was. 

My theory is tied up with the late night television adventuring of my twelve-year-old self, who had just discovered there were such thing as Hammer horror films if you stayed up later than your parents suspected. You can read the how and why elsewhere on my blog, so I won't elaborate here, but at that age, my first experience with really bloody films were from the Frankenstein and Dracula titles starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. My favorite of the lot was a Cushing starrer called Frankenstein Created Woman (actually the first Hammer film I ever saw). Frankenstein Created Woman crammed crazy plot element on top of crazy plot element in a way that my twelve-year-old self truly couldn't handle or really appreciate until I was much older (it has a pretty kinky twist to it that went over my head back then), but I loved it immensely even when it didn't make a lick of sense.

While watching Victor Frankenstein, I realized that for the first time in a very long time, I had regained that same feeling that I used to get from watching those Hammer films early in my youth. Hammer rarely held true to the original material themselves except for in a minor way in their introductory films to their Dracula and Frankenstein series, and later films in each series were all marked by some of the most wild divergences possible from what Stoker or Shelley had intended. And as I stated earlier, here too is where I seemed to be catching the vibe (yes, I watch The Flash religiously) that Victor Frankenstein was bringing up some of that residual Hammer Studios feeling in my system, long dormant from misappropriation and unfulfilled horror cinema promise.

As Victor Frankenstein grew increasingly manic but remained purposeful in its relentless path to the ultimate fates of its characters, the more I got caught up in it, with a wide grin plastered on my face in the darkness of the theatre. Luckily, since I despise smiling, no one was there to see me. (There wasn't even a sporadic visit from an usher to check on things, and they usually come through an average of three times a screening.) I wouldn't feel compelled to offer up a meek explanation of why I was enjoying myself at a movie that no one seemed to want to attend. Not that anyone would have questioned me; they would have probably just assumed that I had horrible movie taste, and they would be partially right.

And unless you too were raised on Hammer horror films, and knew the outrageous (and sometimes unsuccessful) lengths they would go to in their monster epics, you might not get why I was so overjoyed as the canvas of Victor Frankenstein got bigger and crazier and built itself toward a ridiculously grandiose finale, in a remote castle in Scotland, in a wild thunderstorm, and with practically every major character in the film in motion somewhere in that finale.

I have said little about the monster in this film, but I will say that when he is finally brought to his feet by Frankenstein's machinery (this gives away nothing, because of course he will; this is a Frankenstein movie after all), he is a remarkable creation. I was a little saddened that he wasn't brought to this world in a much better Frankenstein movie, but then I remembered that I had been smiling like a madman throughout the buildup to his creation. I had to check to see if perhaps the film was a co-production with the revived Hammer Studios, and I was more than a little saddened to find out that it is not. Regardless of that, I still felt like I did when I was a kid watching Peter Cushing build creature after creature in those Frankenstein films of yore. Bad new film or not, for me that is truly mad science at its best.

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 2

Of the Christopher Lee films I have seen to this point, the one area in which I hardly need delve are his most famous and popular roles. It has been decades since I first saw his Hammer Draculas and his turn as Frankenstein’s Monster, his villainous appearances in Bond and Three Musketeers films, and his Fu Manchu series countless times, and every role is etched in my memory. His later appearances in major modern epic series (LOTR, Star Wars) are also to be counted in this group, even if I hold little fondness for the last three Star Wars entries. I have also seen many of his supporting roles in films such as Serial (1980, of which I am still fond), a variety of turns alongside his old chum Peter Cushing in non-Hammer horror flicks, and his odd cameo in The Magic Christian (as a vampire waiter on an ocean liner). 

The point is that I am already well-versed in his major roles. In reviewing his oeuvre over the past couple of weeks and recalling his movies that I have actually seen to this point, there have been few thus far (except for some of the horror ones and The Magic Christian, which is certainly memorable but actually not very good) that I would describe as resting near even the lower rungs of the higher echelon of filmmaking.

But, as I make my way through his unseen flicks, I am discovering that there are plenty of near misses. As I recounted the other day, Hannie Caulder turned out to be a pretty good revenge western, if not great. Then I ran into three films which are ever so close to being good solid films, but just narrowly miss the mark for me. I am fairly certain that if I saw any of these three as a teenager or young adult, they would probably rank higher up in my memory, but I only just saw them in the past week. All three warrant follow-up viewings, and I will leave it to those moments to determine whether they move up or down in my rankings. So while I currently have assigned all three my middle of the road “5” rating, they were all worthy of my time and eventual, almost assured revisitation.

The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967) [aka The Snake Pit and the Pendulum; Torture Chamber; Castle of the Walking Dead; Blood of the Virgins; The Blood Demon; and many, many more…]

Dir: Harald Reinl

TC4P Rating: 5

One of the first hurdles for any horror film is evoking and maintaining a haunting atmosphere. This film has atmosphere in spades, as long as the soundtrack doesn’t emit a single musical note. The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is set in the same type of fairytale, Germanic burg as many of the more famous Hammer selections like Frankenstein Created Woman, and like those films, the fairytale backdrop is betrayed by a lurid series of events that lead to even more chaos. 

Christopher Lee plays Count Regula (which is what I would think Dracula would be if he devoured more fiber), and he is drawn and quartered in the beginning of the film for draining the blood from twelve virgins to give him immortality. (He fails because he had not gotten to the 13th victim.) He naturally swears vengeance before his body parts are ripped asunder, and sure enough, decades later, the script gives him the chance. Based partly on Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum (at least, the sections involving both a pit and a pendulum), Torture Chamber has a wonderfully creepy middle section where the protagonists (including post-Weissmuller Tarzan, Lex Barker) travel through a dark forest with bodies and limbs hanging from the trees all around them. All of the later scenes of Lee torturing his foes are also memorably committed to film, and I certainly enjoyed how much fun the film seemed to be having with its absolute depravity. 

In fact, my one and only real gripe with the film is the soundtrack, which for much of the running time seems too comic and buoyant for the storyline. However, it does have moments where it matches appropriately, so my initial statement regarding the emittance of a single note was merely to provoke. In fact, I quite enjoy the score all the way through, even the absurd parts. I just feel that at certain moments in the film, the score doesn't seem to belong. Overall, though, this is a fine, new addition to my regular Halloween viewing list, goofy and inconsistent music regardless. 

The Bloody Judge (1970) [aka Night of the Blood Monster; Trial of the Witches; and many more...]

Dir: Jesús Franco

TC4P Rating: 5

I not only think that the British tradition of having wigs lodged atop the heads of their judges and lawyers is quaint and rather silly in these modern times (I will put on the brakes before calling it stupid, but.. yeah...), the thought of them actually makes me a bit physically ill. Much in the way that I used to be so repelled by early ‘70s fashion in films (even though I grew up in that time) that I couldn’t watch certain films without a feeling of nauseousness, the courtroom attire of England does the same thing to me when I see it in a movie or on TV. I even want to wretch at the very thought of it, and I really don’t know why. Which is precisely the reason I have always put off viewing The Bloody Judge for eons. Almost always available for me to view, I have never been able to get past the image of Christopher Lee topped off with one of those ridiculous wigs on his noggin, no matter how enjoyably maniacal he was likely to behave in the film.

Well, consider me wrong. I should have watched The Bloody Judge a long time ago. Not that it is any great shakes as a “normal" film, but as a gonzo piece of shock horror, this is a pretty lowdown and dirty but gorgeously shot flick with some nasty torture scenes and bountiful nudity throughout. What you don’t get is the loopiness and lack of narrative drive inherent in many of director Jesús “Jess" Franco’s soft-core “masterpieces” (I am rather fond of some of those loopier films, especially Vampyros Lesbos). 

But what you do get from the other Franco films is the lovely Maria Rohm, who also co-starred with Christopher Lee in other Franco epics, including Count Dracula (1970) and The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968), as well as in several films directed by Jeremy Summers. It is no coincidence that the producer of all of these films, including The Bloody Judge, is her husband, the notorious Harry Alan Towers. Rohm certainly adds sensuality to a film that might otherwise just be unrelentingly grim. (This is my subtle way of saying she gets naked a lot and it distracts you happily from the torture bits.) Of course, I am joking… she doesn’t distract from the torture bits at all, since her biggest scene in the film is when she is locked in a cage and forced to lick the blood from a bound torture victim. I cringe in fear for any perv who actually gets his jollies from such a portrayal, but I will admit that the scene does add to the creeping effectiveness and overall griminess of the film.

Lee himself is solid as usual as the lead character, only loosely based on the real 17th century judge, George Jeffreys, who bullied his way through defendants, attorneys, and juries alike, and in this film’s version of the events surrounding the Bloody Assizes, dispatches accused witches to their doom without remorse. Of course, Jeffreys begins to grow worrisome over the chaos ensuing from his brutal courtroom tactics, and he begins to have nightmares of torture. That he will undoubtedly get his comeuppance is part of the fun of watching Lee in such a villainous role. 

It all depends on one's tolerance of tooth-yanking, hand-spiking, racking, digit-chopping, and beheadings, Don’t go looking for historical accuracy and try looking instead for pure psychotronic thrills, and you will definitely get something out of this.

Crypt of the Vampire (1964) [La cripta e l'incubo aka Terror in the Crypt; Crypt of Horror]

Dir: Camillo Mastrocinque

TC4P Rating: 5

If you have seen and loved Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (1960) as I have and do, then this Spanish-Italian version of Sheridan Le Fanu's novella, Carmilla will likely pale in comparison to the more famous earlier film. But it is a worthwhile rendering of its own, even if most character names have been changed, some bad dubbing is to be endured, and the director more than once betrays his obvious influencing by Mario Bava (never a bad thing).

Christopher Lee gets a heroic role this time, albeit a tortured one, and as in villainous roles, he has enough talent and range to pull the part off just fine. As Count Karnstein, he has to do battle against the light lesbian leanings of a mysterious vampire who is leaving drained bodies in her wake. It could be his daughter, who may be the reincarnation of an ancestor rumored to have committed such crimes, or it could be her recent companion, who has instilled herself into the daily life of the castle. The black and white cinematography is routinely effective if not spectacular, the sets and darkness of the castle are nicely rendered, and the heavy breathing, haunted ladies look divine onscreen.

This is the one of the three of these films where I am closest to giving it a higher rating, if only because it is the least gratuitous of the trio. This is likely due to it coming from a less permissive time in cinema (and just a handful of years earlier), so it relies more on subtlety and suggestion. However, there is a grandly gruesome sequence involving a dog tugging on the foot of a hanged peddler with his hand severed. Yes, it is derivative of Bava, but when a witch is seen using that hand as a candelabra in the very next scene while she invokes a spell, then you will know the film is a keeper.

[Postscript: I have since watched both Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism and Crypt of the Vampire again, and while I am keeping Torture Chamber's rating at "5," I have shifted Crypt up to a "6," which is my general rating for "good."]

Flickchart Comment #23: The Monster Squad (1987) vs. The Mummy (1959)

Passing a film legacy on to the next generation is a seemingly important thing. (Let's say for the sake of this piece that it is...) In these two cases, whether intentional or not, it is the legacy of the Universal monster franchises of the '30s and '40s being passed to two entirely different generations.

With their film versions of Dracula and Frankenstein already great successes (following an agreement with Universal to use their iconic horror characters), Hammer next made The Mummy (1959), more of a continuation of their Kharis series in the '40s and with little connection to the original film with Karloff in 1932. It's actually one of my favorite Hammer films, with excellent production values and the usual solid performances by Lee and Cushing. It also has character support by Raymond Huntley, who played Dracula onstage before Bela Lugosi. I especially like watching it back to back with Hammer's version of The Hound of the Baskervilles (same year, same director, same stars). Does it carry on the tradition of the earlier films. I doubt anyone really cared at the time. The trend for horror was cycling anew, and it was all about money. The world was being rattled by Shock Theatre at that moment on television, so it was certainly the right time to begin making films about these characters. That Hammer did a fairly grand job of it in their early horror years was really beside the point.

Fanboys are a different breed, however, and when The Monster Squad came out in 1987, it could have been a woeful story. Sure, you can have an obsession with something, and often the results onscreen do not translate to an audience. Not to fear with The Monster Squad. My friends and I ate it up when it came out (I went to it several times), and the chief reason is that director/co-writer Fred Dekker showed so much obvious affection and careful attention to these characters, you could feel the film's pulse thrumming lovingly in every single frame. Sure, the '80s kid acting is soundly atrocious, but we all ate up The Goonies around the same time as well, and looking back, the acting in that (especially by the adults) is even worse.

What was remarkable about Squad was Tom Noonan as the Monster (probably the best undead friend you could ever have); the underrated but superb makeup effects for the Wolfman; a endlessly clever script by Dekker and Shane Black; there is a teacher with a cat-like head; and the way it played at being a simple kid's movie but then shocked you all the more by turning rougher just went it needed to do it. The biggest thrill for me was the use of The Creature, whom I had never had opportunity to see on a big screen before (I have since seen the original film in such a way).

Love the Hammer version of The Mummy, but in nearly every way, I have to go with The Monster Squad. "Creature stole my Twinkie!"

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 7: Return of the Best Buy Exclusives!

Once more, a trip to Best Buy caused me to happen upon new discs which I had not seen discussed elsewhere. Warner has released a pair of discs exclusively to Best Buy stores, and one of them (featured below) was a no-brainer purchase for me. Some would contend, such as my girlfriend, that I would have to possess little in the way of gray matter to purchase such a thing in the first place, and this would not be a statement based solely on its content… the deeper truth is that we have little or no more room for such items in our relatively cramped abode, and my predilection for purchasing books, music and movies constantly has her making the odd comment here and there about the situation.

But she should put down the knife -- at least, she can after Halloween -- since I actually did show a small measure of restraint, as I did not purchase the twin disc to this set, a double feature of the Lovecraft feature The Shuttered Room and a Roddy McDowall golem flick called, simply, It! Since I have never seen the former before and it is actually being shown on TCM on Halloween, I decided to delay its possible addition to the collection for the time being. (Shuttered’s potential is the only thing in discussion over such a buy, since It! is really not very good at all.) But if I miss out on buying it, I miss it. That’s the choice I made, and Jen should be momentarily proud over it. Here are the discs:

Warner Horror Double Feature // Best Buy Exclusive
featuring:
Chamber of Horrors
Director: Hy Averback
Warner Bros., 1:39, color
Cinema 4 Rating: waiting to watch this over again, some 25-30 years later

The Brides of Fu Manchu
Director: Don Sharp
Hallam/Anglo-Amalgamated/Seven Arts, 1:34, color
Cinema 4 Rating: waiting to watch this over again, some 20 years later

Two more British horror flicks from the ‘60s that somehow my mind – and I am sure that I am not the only one out there – automatically triggers on as belonging to the long and bloody line of Hammer horror films, even though they, in actuality, are not. I know that somewhere far back in my past I saw Chamber of Horrors, a gimmick-laden (and how!) revenge festival with Patrick O’Neal as a one-armed madman with a variety of stump accessories, a couple of times. But, it was so long ago, I scarcely remember it past O’Neal’s image, being one of the few times I actually watched him act. The second of Harry Allan Towers’ Fu Manchu series I recall a tad bit better, having seen it slightly more recently, though still long enough ago where reading the film’s synopsis on IMDB has me now confusing with the later films in the series that I have caught in the past couple years.

Am I suggesting that all Fu Manchu flicks look alike? Hardly, that would be mildly racist, even when I am merely attempting to be ironic. But when all five films star the great Christopher Lee in the lead role, and all five basically have the same plot – the abduction of hot girls; forcing scientists to bend to his evil whims; trying to take over the world (the same thing he tries to do every night, Pinky…) – then you can understand the confusion. Fu’s megalomania is quizzical, since he can barely control a dozen people in one room – how is he going to control everyone in the world? He’d get no rest at all, and one would certainly beg for some extra leisure time with all the hot girls around. Maybe he should shoot for a smaller goal. Like taking over a movie studio and forcing them to make a halfway decent film. While Lee’s presence, and the attendant gore and torture that follows in his notorious character’s wake, could serve as the sole reasons why the connection to the Hammer series looms so large in my mind, perhaps it is also because these were shown side by side with the Hammer Frankenstein and Dracula films in my teen years, and so that made the true connection for me. Regardless, Hammer or not, The Brides of Fu Manchu will now rest side by side on my DVD shelf with those same films, if only for Mr. Lee.

Paul Naschy Double Feature // Best Buy Exclusive
featuring:
Curse of the Devil [El Retorno de Walpurgis] (1973)
Director: Carlos Aured
Spanish, 1:24, color
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet in a real version

Werewolf Shadow [La Noche de Walpurgis] (1971)
Director: León Klimovsky
Spanish, 1:35, color
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet at all

Trick or treat? I really won’t know which until I – and I will consider the opportunity a treat until I learn otherwise – dig into one or both of these Spanish horror films this Halloween weekend and discover the truth for myself. Most people outside of horror circles are probably not all that aware of Paul Naschy, who has as large a legacy in horror films in many countries in the world as Karloff, Lee, Cushing and Lee have in the English-speaking world. If they are aware, they may not know him by name, but possibly have crossed paths with him on Spanish-language channels here and there, generally in very censored and misshapen prints of his films, or even occasionally in badly dubbed versions of a couple of his films, such as Fury of the Wolfman, on UHF and cable access channels. In addition to his appearances in scads of films over his nearly fifty-year career, Naschy has knocked out a dozen films featuring his Hombre Lobo character, a wolfman named Waldemar Daninsky, even appearing as Daninsky as recently as four years ago. I only own copies of two of his films on videotape, both dubbed and truly atrocious in recording quality to view. I was aware that several of his films, including the two released on this combo disc (which I have read elsewhere can only be found at Best Buy), had been released to DVD. I figured now was as good a time as any, with my interest in world cinema, to become truly acquainted with Mr. Naschy (nee Jacinto Molina), and to let my own opinion take over in my mind all of the comments I have read – from disparate sources, mostly negative but coddling, as though they were films proposed by filmmakers with the talents of mere preschoolers, making films for the even more infantile. I doubt this is the truth, and there has to be some level of professionalism involved for such a series to have lasted so long and so popularly.

But then I think about Police Academy, and I worry…

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 6: Hammer Down!

With the near completion of my Universal horror collection over the past few years (there are only a handful of the obscurer titles still outstanding, with all of what would be considered the true "classics" covered), comes the time to pay attention to my Hammer collection.

Almost more influential to me in my youth than the Universal versions of the famous monsters were the Hammer versions of the same. Once I discovered that these films even existed as a near-teen, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (and to a lesser extent, Oliver Reed for his role in Curse of the Werewolf) became my gods for a number of years. I have recounted my devotion to a late night ABC affiliate program called The World's Most Terrible Movies a couple of times before; Lee and Cushing were the chief reasons that I tuned in week after week. With scant few references at hand in my local small town library and an absolute lack of internet in those days, I had little knowledge of Hammer Films except for the fact that I saw their names on many of my then favorite films, most of them starring those twin gods of mine.

And then, over the years, as I discovered more of their films, the immediate assumption was that all of these films were also Hammer Films, an assumption, if one were to judge from board comments on various websites, that many other horror film fans make to this day. When I made some recent purchases in addition to my obtaining the latest Icons of Horror DVD set, this time focusing on a quartet of unreleased as of yet Hammer Films, I grabbed the extra pair of discs continuing that assumption: that the related films featuring either or both of the Lee/Cushing team just had to be Hammer Films, even though I had read before that they weren't. So strong is the connection between that studio, those stars and their eager public, that it matters little when the film does not actually belong to the studio.

The Flesh and the Fiends (1960)

Director: John Gilling

Triad/Regal, 1:37, b/w

TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Skull (1965)

Director: Freddie Francis 

Amicus/Paramount, 1:30, color 

TC4P Rating: 6/9

First, the imposters: one I have never seen, The Flesh and the Fiends, a black and white version of the Burke and Hare story starring Mr. Cushing, and The Skull, an Amicus adaptation of a Robert Bloch short story featuring both members of the famous team. The Skull certainly fits the assumption well, as I have always lumped it into the Hammer camp. Having seen the film numerous times over the years, I suppose that I have seen the Amicus name in the credits over and over again, and it was still not enough to wipe the association with Hammer out of my mind. Never having actually owned a copy of this movie, though, I will be glad to finally get a chance to see it in its true aspect ratio (if indeed it proves to be), rather than the chopped and leaping prints with which I have had to make do over the years.

I always seem to think that I have seen The Flesh and the Fiends, but my memories of Karloff's The Body Snatcher (a favorite, for which I have always supported Danny Peary's notion that perhaps the man could have won an Oscar for his performance if the Academy were smarter) are very strong as regards black-and-white grave-robbing flicks, and I am also probably mixing it up with The Doctor and the Devils, a 1985 Timothy Dalton starrer directed by Freddie Francis (who, coincidentally, also directed The Skull). Judging from what I have read about this one, I am in for a gruesome treat. But only watching it will tell... [Note: And once I did, I liked it well enough, but not as half as much as The Body Snatcher.]

Icons of Horror Collection: Hammer Films
4 Creepy Classics from the Hammer Film Archives featuring:

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
Director: Terence Fisher
Hammer/Columbia
TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964) 

Director: Michael Carreras 

Hammer/Columbia

TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Gorgon (1964) 

Director: Terence Fisher 

Hammer/Columbia
TC4P Rating: 7/9

Scream of Fear (1961)

Director: Seth Holt

Hammer/Columbia

TC4P Rating: 7/9

And now for the real deal: the Hammer flicks, two of which I have never had opportunity to see. The Gorgon is a personal favorite, as it was one of the few Hammer films of which I actually own a real copy of on VHS, and yet again, I will be glad to be given a chance to see it in widescreen for the first time. I have never thought much of Hammer's Mummy series beyond the swell first flick, but I am willing to give them all another chance with fresh viewings, so The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb will likely be part of my Halloween program this weekend (though, unlike the other three films on this set, there is no Lee or Cushing).

I did get to watch half an hour of Scream of Fear a few months ago, before my pothead neighbors somehow convinced the cable guy to switch our connection off so they could get the Super Bowl (we have no proof of this, but the circumstantial evidence against them, especially as collected by Jen and I, is astounding). So, this will be another first, as will my viewing, long awaited, of the Hammer version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which I think might be the only version which I have not seen. (Believe me, I have seen a lot of them...) All told, it pulls in another chunk of Hammer all at once into my collection, cheaply and effortlessly.

And the other films? Like many a horror fan, I bid them all an eager welcome, whether we can remember if Hammer produced them or not. 

After all, in the end, it's really Pete and Chris that matter...

RTJ

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 2

Phase IV (1974)
Director: Saul Bass
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

I remember exactly where I was when I first saw Saul Bass' insect politics thriller, Phase IV. I just don't remember the "who" of the story.

It was a Friday night, and there was someone at our house. Was it an uncle, and not one with quotations around it? Was it just a friend of ours from the neighborhood, or my cousin Brad, and was my father actually even around for this? Was it him? I don't fully recall the name of the person who filled in that particular role in this story, but I am fairly certain it was one of her abhorrent dates following my parents' then soul-wrenching but actually perfectly timely divorce.

I only recall that this person who probably ended up banging my mom bet me a dime for every thirty minutes I could shut completely up for the evening. I was still young enough where a thin dime still meant a good deal to me -- 10 cents would still buy me a pack of baseball cards at that time -- but I was already engaged enough verbally where I could drag any sane adult to the dark side in no time flat. Much like today, it seems. And thus, the deal was born. I sat down, shut up, and decided to watch whatever movie was coming on that evening. In the '70s, ABC had an amazing penchant for showing horror and science-fiction movies in prime time on Friday nights, most of them made-for-TV (and that is no knock on their quality, for there were some excellent ones) and some of them theatrical releases. (Click here for the opening to their show.)

This evening, they were showing what appeared to be a really spooky looking film called Phase IV. Anything with bug attacks at that age, I was there. It's what tricked me into actually seeing The Swarm in a theatre. And so, having dragged a sleeping bag into the living room, I crawled inside and shut my trap, counting out how many cards I could buy if I did not squeak a single word for the next three hours. (That would be, for the curious, sixty cards.) And then, over the next two hours, I found myself losing the ability to speak anyway. Thanks to Phase IV, which had me so scared I couldn't even get out of the sleeping bag to go down the hall to the bathroom on commercials, I was cheating whoever it was out of their money.

At first, I remember being bored, but then, as the implications of what was happening in this oddly located film were growing, and as the tension built up, I found myself unable to turn away. I didn't really understand what was happening, but that didn't matter. It was about the moment, and that moment found me not just easily earning the first two hours of that cash, but in the end found an entire dollar being slapped into my hand. Never has silence been so golden. I maintain that if the entire world would just pay me hush money in this same manner, I would leave everyone alone. I wouldn't yell about organized religion and idiot Republicans (and, occasionally, idiot Democrats) and crazy Hollywood cults and everything else that pisses me off.

If only I could get people to listen to me in the first place, this would be a great way of life for me.

I also remember where I was when I first saw The Man Who Could Cheat Death. OK, not the full movie, but I did see it in sixth grade at our graduation prize summer camp. The people running the camp had a series of 8mm ten-minute versions of various monster films -- the kind that I would ogle in the back pages of Famous Monsters magazine but never have the guts (or the cash -- I apparently wasn't being paid to shut up enough) to order them -- and as a gift for winning Capture the Flag earlier that morning on our second day there, our class was treated to a night at the movies, camp 8mm style. Popcorn, hot dogs and condensed versions of Christopher Lee Dracula and Peter Cushing Frankenstein films.

In this mix was the miniaturized version of The Man Who Could Cheat Death, with Anton Diffring as a sculptor who appears to be 40ish, but is in reality an increasingly mad Dorian Gray type who has lived for 104 years by replacing certain glands in his body with those of gullible, much younger victims. Chiefly, I remember the final sequence, which I will not relate here in the interests of those who have yet to see what is actually a middling though handsome Hammer production. Of course, being a Hammer film, most likely all will not work out for the villain in the end, so if I were to say that the sculptor is not just flaming in spirit, you can work it out for yourself. The scene, though, did make quite an impression on me, as did the appearance of Christopher Lee, with whom I was beginning a definite fascination. Within the next year, I would start watching the full versions of these same Hammer horror films.

But I got my Hammer start by watching the 8mm renditions, all truncated and jumpy on an old projector -- also, completely silent, so we had to provide our own soundtrack -- inside a cabin that split the difference between a cafeteria and a congregation room for this camp usually attended by the biblically minded. That I would totally discard any attempt at connecting with established religion within the next couple of years, and then possibly replaced such worship with a devotion to the very films that I saw that night in the camp is perhaps an irony worth far more delving on my part. But, I will save that for another time. For now, and for once, I will just shut up.

After all, it's your dime. And soon it will be mine...

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Growling at Best Buy's Exclusivity...

Warner Home Video Sci-Fi Double Features
Disc #1
Moon Zero Two (1969)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)
Director/Writer: Val Guest
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

Disc #2
Battle Beneath the Earth (1967)
DirectorMontgomery Tully
Cinema 4 Rating: 3

The Ultimate Warrior (1975)
Director/Writer: Robert Clouse
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Disc #3
World Without End (1956)
Director/Writer: Edward Bernds
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Satellite in the Sky (1956)
Director: Paul Dickson
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

Quite regularly, I sift through a seemingly endless list of titles which I am hoping will get released onto DVD so I can replace old versions of these same films. Most of these films were taped off of cable television anytime in the past twenty to five years, though a certain number of them were prerecorded version officially released by their respective studios. No matter how I might have them in my collection, it is still my fervent hope that they shall be released onto disc form, and thus save space in our crammed little hovel (it's amazing the space saved when comparing discs versus tapes) and also, the hope remains that the print in which they are burned onto disc will far outweigh my previous versions in overall quality.

One of the films on this list, which I began compiling a full decade ago, was Hammer Films' special effects-heavy follow-up to One Million Years B.C., When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

Every couple of months since I moved down here to Cali, I have gone through most of this list, and one of the first films I always look up is When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Not that it is any great shakes as a film per se, but it is highly sought by fans of stop-motion animation for its exquisite dinosaur footage by Jim Danforth and Roger Dicken. (While I am at it, I should mention that David Allen, amongst others, also worked on the effects as an assistant, though only Danforth and Dicken were actually nominated for an Oscar at the 1972 awards.) It is for this reason alone (OK, the cave girls play a part too) that I embraced the film as a teenager, and made sure to grab a copy on VHS when it came out in the '90s. And this is without knowing that the original story for the film was devised by none other than J.G. Ballard, writer of Crash (the wonderfully twisted and kinky Cronenberg one) and Empire of the Sun.

But I had always heard there was a slightly longer version of the film, one that took the cavegirl stuff even further than when Raquel Welch leaped about in a fur bikini in B.C. Supposedly, the film originally held a handful (more than a handful, as they say, is a waste) of topless shots, both innocent (swimming about in mucky, sea monster-infested waters) and randy (mild cavepeople whoopee, apparently), as well as a scene where lead Playboy bunny/"actress" Victoria Vetri gets stripped down in a cave (appropriately) by her would-be cave beau. Gee, I'm was actually only here for the dinosaurs, but I can you heap some of this, too, on my plate? All the more reason to remain impatient over an official special edition.

And yet, I could never find this one, even while the entire Harryhausen oeuvre and much of the Hammer library had been released already. I felt certain that it was bound to come out sooner or later, because if there is one diehard fanbase out there, it's the one for special effects epics -- dinosaurs, spaceships, aliens, or what have you. But, as I kept checking over the last few years to find news of its arrival on DVD, I found nothing. My searches came up empty, over and over again. And then, the other day, I found out why: I had been primarily looking on Amazon.

Cut to last week, as I decided to take a quick first look at the new neighborhood Best Buy store. There, sitting in plain sight on a shelf in the science-fiction DVD section, was a single copy of a Warner Home Video Sci-Fi Double Feature disc holding, of course, two movies. The first was of no real consequence to me, though I had seen it years earlier: Moon Zero Two, often described (self-described, really) as the "first space western." But who could care when the other film on the disc was When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth? After the usual shake of the head and pinch of the skin to clear things up for me in as cartoonish a way as possible, I grabbed the copy and refused to let go of it until I arrived home.

I didn't get a chance to watch the film until yesterday, but in the meantime, mostly out of consternation over how I discovered the disc, I went online to research it once more, knowing full well I had been on Amazon just a couple of months prior and had seen nothing on WDRTE. It turns out there is now an entry for it on the site, but it is for an outside party trying to make some cash selling "used/new" copies of the disc. And in the description? The words "Best Buy Exclusive."

This is not the first time I have come at odds with this "Best Buy Exclusive" scenario. I also did this for years looking for Ernest B. Schoedsack's sweet 1940 mad science thriller Dr. Cyclops (the absolute inspiration for The Krofft Supershow's Dr. Shrinker, a crappie but fun show from my youth). I had the Universal VHS release, but was hoping for it on DVD, to accompany the rest of my Cooper and Schoedsack DVD library. Then I found out that Best Buy had been selling it for months as an exclusive set with several other prime golden age horror and sci-fi flicks, including two more on my list, The Land Unknown and The Deadly Mantis. A rush to Best Buy found me a copy all right, but the fact that it said "Volume 2" on it meant that there was an entire first volume of five possible films that I didn't have, and I finally procured a copy off of someone on Amazon for about fifteen bucks over retail in new condition. Which is how I landed The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Mole People and Tarantula in my DVD collection, after years of frustration, and also how my ire was first raised over these exclusive deals with Best Buy.

This wouldn't be a problem with me if they would do a general release a few months later, but from what I can gather from some movie boards is that there is a group of people who rush out and buy up every copy of these exclusives just so they can sell them later to needy, hungry fans once the discs go out of print. It's ticket-scalping without the tickets, I guess -- if you really want to see the movie, you are going to have to pay the price. As proof of this, another "exclusive," a set of generally low-grade horror thrillers thrown into a box called the Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive, is already selling for far above what I would be willing to pay for it (example: click here). Even though the undiscerning horror fan in me (which is the same one that embraces even the truly terrible films on the discs discussed above) would love to add those films to my overall collection, I already own four of them on tape, and none of them are truly essential by any means.

None of the six films in the three discs I did discover at Best Buy as exclusives last week were really essential to me either... except for the Hammer cave girls and dinosaurs epic. Truthfully, I could have saved the money on the other two discs, though I really did love Yul Brynner's The Ultimate Warrior as a kid, and also watched Battle Beneath the Earth lo those many years ago on that beloved after school sci-fi matinee show on KTVA. The upside is that I will be replacing five different tapes in my collection with these three discs (Satellite in the Sky is the only one of the six I did not previously own), and the purchase does give me widescreen versions of all of these films, which is a great addition to the collection too.

And now I have the apparently uncut version of WDRTE. Yes, the disc does say it is rated "G" on the case and shows a running time of 96 minutes. Watching it, you get at least some PG nudity antics and 100 minutes of cave girls tumbling about the animated dinosaur attacks. I found a few entries online talking about Warner recalling this disc from the Best Buy stores, but also some entries offering up different versions of the confusion from various locations. Who knows why it was recalled? My disc works, Vetri doffs her clothes, I couldn't care less about film ratings anyway (I am an adult, can watch anything I damn well please, don't believe in censorship at all, and do not pay attention to ratings or the bluenoses who maintain them), and everything is peachy keen once again in my universe...

...until I remember to ask: Where the hell is Roogie's Bump? Or It Happens Every Spring? Damn it...

Psychotronic Ketchup: The Anniversary (1968)

"There is one thing that I will not tolerate in my house, Karen. And that is the shouting of abuse." - Mrs. Taggart (Bette Davis)

No, but what Mrs. Taggart does tolerate in her house is every other form of abuse, whether mental, physical, auditory or visual. Oh, and Mrs. Taggart prefers that she is the one doing the abusing. Sure, you can get your digs in at her, but she willingly takes it without flinching in the least, because she has already prepared the next step in your decline towards mental instability. If she does flinch, it is merely affected, so that she can set you up for your eventual fall.

That Mrs. Taggart, played with scene-chewing coolness by the Divine Miss Davis, all the while sporting a designer tear-drop patch (in colors to match her wardrobe!) over a seemingly shot-out left eye, hands out this abuse is one thing. That she does this willingly and without the slightest bit of remorse to her three sons, their significant others and her grandchildren is another ballgame altogether. She is the ultimate bitch-mother; really, she is almost more of a mad scientist in her approach to her children's suite of madness, and you can almost imagine that somewhere in her mansion she has a hidden laboratory laden with test tubes and beakers bubbling away, helping her to plot her ongoing campaign against the functional family unit. The kids are over for the anniversary of her marriage to her not-so-dearly departed husband, and as always, she takes the opportunity to use each one's emotions against the others, even though they all work for her in the family housing business.

They have big surprises in store for Mum, they do: one arrives with his gorgeous fiancée to announce their wedding and his separation from her power, and the middle one arrives with his wife and a quartet of bratty grandkids in tow, and with one in the oven, to boot. Their shocker for her is that they are emigrating to Canada to wrest control of their senses away from Mum once and for all. And the other son? Well, he doesn't really have any new surprises in store for her -- but he does go on a cross-dressing and panty-snatching rampage that leads to numerous complications for the other characters. Of course, Mrs. Taggart has surprises for them, too; mainly, that she has a response figured out for just about any eventuality, and is always two steps ahead of them at any given moment.

She is also cruel beyond regard: she allows her middle son and his already unstable wife to believe that their entire brood were killed in a car accident, just to get them to leave the house for a while. This is the blackest of family comedies -- yes, it is a comedy, and at times, it is hilarious -- you are shocked by some of what Mrs. Taggart says, but then you will have a guilty little chuckle over it as well. Late in the film, there is the revelation that one of the characters may have lost a baby through miscarriage due to Mrs. Taggart's onerous fiddling. When they accuse her of this occurrence, her response is a tossed-off jab about the odd shape of the mother's ears and how the baby is better off without them being passed on to it. Any sensible person would call her out for this added bit of cruelty, as well as everything that preceded it, but there isn't a sensible person left in the Taggart household. Mum made damn sure of that a long time ago.

The World According to Jim should be this much fun.

The Anniversary (1968)
Director: Roy Ward Baker (Seven Arts-Hammer Studios)
Cinema 4 Rating: 7