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…

Psychotronic Ketchup: Once This Bell Tolled, I Found My Purpose Again...

A couple of weekends ago, I developed a true annoyance at the rote giallo entry from Maestro Bava's son Lamberto, Blade in the Dark, which left me practically banging my head against the wall in ennui. I also spent much of its length yelling at its incompetence in the dubbing department, which instead of at least illuminating me to some of the more obscure story elements, left me seething with rage over what could only be described as a hack job for a hack job. Saturday afternoon, the next day, I watched the third Spider-Man film and also watched my enthusiasm for the franchise wane to levels I never expected it to dip, even if I ended up enjoying the film overall.

Not that this would be enough to make even a cinema nut with the weakest of constitutions swear off films for a while, but it could have at least been enough to move my cynicism-meter up a notch or two. (Some who have known me for eons would call this an impossible feat.) However, my frustration after the junior Bava effort did leave me a tad punch-drunk, and it made me fear changing my player to the next disc in line, another foreign thingy of dubious heritage, which I was sure would find me registering for a weapon (completely out of my character, mind you) with which to Elvis-blast my television. My surprise then that I not only found myself intrigued enough at its conclusion to immediately submit to a repeat viewing, but that upon waking in the morning, I dove in once more for a trip through the film-fanatic's commentary that came attached to the Spanish horror thingy from the early 70's. Three straight times with a five-hour nap?

Why? What is so remarkable about A Bell From Hell, a film that I had barely heard of before I clicked to add it to my rental queue a month ago? Everything, that's what. Only you don't realize this going in. From the DVD cover photo, one should feel right in expecting a film where a series of women are tortured in a creepy and overly gratuitous fashion. It seems like this film is nothing more than an early-day version of the currently popular "torture porn" genre. And this would be a seriously incorrect assumption. What is unique about the film is how it gets to the point in the film that appears on that misleading cover, and where it goes after that illuminating point. Chiefly, the film does nothing or goes nowhere that you expect it to in the course of its 100 minutes – not even end the way you expect. And it doesn't go down easily when it does end. It's like the film itself is expending anxiety over the way things occur, and refuses to accept its own conclusion.

Waltzing into A Bell from Hell, unaware of the ragged rocks ahead as I was munching on a Trader Joe's pizza, and truly believing that I was in for more of the same as in the previous film, a trail of tiny weirdnesses caught my eye: little creeping things which served to mount up in my brain as the film took its casual stroll across my screen. I wanted to believe I was watching just another revenge epic, but there was something different about it. The fellow doing the rather stiff commentary points out again and again the director (who died at the end of filming, either jumping or falling from the film's tower which holds the titular bell) uses the film to make political jabs at the petit-bourgeoisie (a phrase he slathers far too generously onto nearly every other comment, like Tom Sawyer finding a twentieth kid to whitewash Aunt Polly's fence) and certainly I picked up on this as I was watching it, but not to the extent that he swears it does.

There is undoubtedly class jealousy and hatred at play here, both between the protagonist and the townspeople, and between the protagonist and his aunt and cousins, who consider themselves above him (even though all three of his gorgeous cousins are either in love or lust with him to some extent). His aunt, played to shockingly chilly effect by Viveca Lindfors, controls his estate, and the fact that she has helped spur on his removal from society and his rightful inheritance to an asylum in order to rein him in, in no small way inspires him to not only exact some sort of penance from the woman, but also to punish all who conspired with her, including his cousins.

There is a frankly shocking scene where he gets a job at a slaughterhouse -– be warned: the scenes of cattle slaughter, even those involving the main actor, are not staged; they are real and, if you are an off-again and on again vegetarian such as myself, painful to watch –- and the scene, apart from acting as a foreshadowing of the impending violence (we believe), serves as solid punctuation to the fact that there is no limit to what this individual will do to inflict the pain he seeks to cause. He will also use the affections of his cousins against themselves and each other; he will not hesitate to make himself seem foolish (especially in a strange public bathroom sequence) if it will make his enemies uncomfortable; and he will employ a wide variety theatrical devices, technological props, and a surprising cast of operatives to exact his revenge. If this sounds like the hero/villain, for he actually seems at times as both, is along the lines of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, don't be fooled. This is an earthier, more painful form of vengeance; unlike Robert Fuest's classic, outrageous Avengers-style camp affair, A Bell from Hell is a dark-toned mood piece, with incest and rape and murder and revenge, both personal and political on its mind.

And yes, for those of you who, like the fellow on the commentary track, can't get enough of the fact that the film sports a reminder of the uneasiness between the classes in Spain in the early 70's, I will say this: I wish that they had hired Chevy Chase to do the commentary. He would not only prove to be a far livelier host, but he could also nudge the viewer with an old-school Saturday Night Live fact from just a couple years after this movie was released: the fact that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

La Campana del Infierno (A Bell from Hell)
Dir: Claudio Guerín [& Juan Antonio Bardem, uncredited, post-production] // Spanish, 1973
Cinema 4 Rating: 7