Author: Seb Palmer

This movie is a pedigree blackbird, Turdus turdus.

Having recently been indulging in a veritable orgy of horror films, as we approach All Hallow’s Eve, Hellraiser has reminded me of one of the chief reasons I’ve eschewed the genre most of my life. It’s totally utterly awful.

I’m guesstimating that I managed about 30 minutes. After which I decided I’d rather gargle acid whilst having my plums crushed in a vice than suffer any more of it. So I bailed, and instead I’m going to bed with Michael Palin, in the good ship Erebus.

Another October evening in half-term, another Hammer-esque horror movie. This is actually another from Tigon (as was Curse of the Crimson Altar). Fortunately this is a much better than film.

It’s still far from top-notch, frankly, despite having garnered a cult following thanks to the ‘folk horror’ aulde Englande atmos’, very pleasingly conjured by director Piers Haggard. This evocation of a vanished England is my favourite aspect of the film.

Also worthy of note are some of the camera angles, from a crow, rook or raven or summat similar, viewed from below against a lowering sky, in the opening credits, to similarly vertiginous close in views at other moments, both the look of this film and it’s overall direction are great.

What is ultimately most shocking is the fact that the evil-doers, the ‘possessed’ are children. There are several scenes, all of which are quite shockingly graphic, not in necessarily typically explicit or gory ways, but rather in an old-school suggestive pre-cgi manner.

The twin ‘daemons’ of sex and death rear their horny hairy heads, as paganism returns to haunt Olde Englande. As the film progresses I think I grow to like it more and more. The denouement, however, brings everything rather clunkily back down to earth.

We start with Ralph (rugged, handsome, tousle-haired Barry Andrews), a ploughman, turning up something rather oddly disturbing, as he goes about his work. He reports his find to the local justice of the peace (Patrick Wymark), who is sceptical of Ralph’s country bumpkin superstitions. But it turns out Ralph’s right, and has unwittingly unleashed a formerly dormant demonic force.

I won’t synopsise the whole plot. Watch the movie to find out what happens. The chief attractions are the evocation of ye Olde Englande, and a gorgeous vision of rural 17th C. life, plus (un?)healthy doses of pagan sex and death.

Unlike most films of this ilk/era, this is actually a little bit scary in places, in the way The Whicker Man is (although this is not as good a film as that genuine ‘folk horror’ classic), because, as mentioned before, it’s chiefly kids that become ‘possessed’ and act out the evils of their demonic master.

Linda Hayden is Angel Blake, who becomes the leader of the devilish coven, and Wendy Padbury plays Cathy Vespers, whose fate is one of the film’s darkest moments. Characters are well named in this movie!

The Blood On Satan’s Claw touches upon one particular area that is potentially very fraught, especially in our current climate, child sexuality. And it does so in two surprisingly shocking scenes: Angel’s attempt to seduce Rev. Fallowfield (Anthony Ainley, perfectly cast), and the ritual rape and murder of Cathy.

Taken as a whole, this is a beautifully filmed work, with some great turns from actors who aren’t giants of their art. I can certainly see why The Blood On Satan’s Claw has attained a cult status. Not quite a classic of the same order as The Whicker Man , but definitely amongst the best of its kind, I did really enjoy this, as silly as it is at its core.

Phew! This was a pretty hardcore watch. I loved the whole Peter Bird part; he’s very easy to like. But he died doing what he loved, or was was obsessed by, rowing across oceans. Mental!

The hard part, harder than his death, for me, is the legacy, particularly as to how it affected his wife and son. Peter’s son Louis has clearly been profoundly effected by his loss, and the film’s subtitle is My Dad’s Last Journey.

It’s a very powerful story, equal parts sad and seductive; dreams of adventure, fame and freedom, pushing oneself to achieve something unique, and at the same time being solitary. Those things appeal to me.

But there are other darker sides, such as a trauma in the family; Cyril, Peter’s father, and Louis‘ grandfather, was what we’d now call bi-polar, and committed suicide by drowning himself in the Thames. Peter then went out and ultimately did something similar, albeit in a very different way. And perhaps neither deliberately nor intentionally?

Using archival film and audio, and with old newsreels and family and friends as talking heads, this excellent film tells a compelling story. I really loved this documentary. It’s very potent. Very sad. But it also has something magical about it. Hard to convey.

Essential viewing.

PS – Louis decided to row the Pacific, like his father, but – unlike dad – as part of a two man team. To face his own fears, and to try and understand what drove his father.

PPS – This superb doc’ was directed by Johnny Burke, Amy Ellis’ brother. We spent a terrifically convivial night out recently with Dan, Amy, Johnny and a number of others, during which this programme came up Prompting me to track it down on All 4. Very glad I did!

Hmmm!? I took out a free week long trial with Shudder, so as to watch more horror over Halloween this year. But this Tigon movie from 1968, despite horror ‘heavyweights’ Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee playing key roles, was pretty dire.

It starts out with much mammary action, like a weird collision of Star Trek and Hammer (turns out the writers also write for Dr Who!), titillating, if you’ll pardon the pun, as if it’s going to be a kind of trashy sexploitation flick, with a bit of hippy era debauchery thrown in.

But then it goes all stodgy and lame – not warranting the effort a plot synopsis might entail – and wanders around aimlessly for ages, with sod all happening. Mark Eden as Robert Manning is a good looking but rather charisma-less lead, and his dolly bird love interest, Eve Morley (Virginia Wetherell), is sexy but soulless. Like the film. Actually, the film isn’t even sexy. Tawdry, perhaps?

The done to death ‘witches coven in the modern world’ trope is flogged like a long dead carcass, yielding nothing more than the stale odour of decay. Sad, as this was one of Karloff’s last roles. Mind, I’ve never seen him in anything good. But to go out with a whimper on a damp squib like this? A shame.

Can’t say I’d recommend this. Instead I’d recommend not bothering.

I’ve been getting into horror films recently. Much to my own surprise. I’ve even been watching those awful YouTube videos of people talking about their favourite horror stuff. That’s how I found out about this film.

Stranger still, I’ve gone as far as taking out a free week long trial of Shudder, so I could watch this, and some other horror movies, over the upcoming Halloween half-term holiday.

VHS ‘94 is part four of what’s become a growing series (I haven’t seen any of the other instalments). It looks and feels, for the most part, like a relatively low budget affair, many of the stories using suspense and ‘jump scares’ or ‘jump cuts’, or whatever they’re called, more than special effects. It’s also done, in the main, as if recorded to VHS, in the popular ‘found footage’ style.

The wobbly camera work and glitchy images might annoy some, but I quite liked the retro granular video vibes. Plus it can help make lower budget horror and gore less obvious/risible.

And on top of all of this, it’s also a horror anthology. There’s ‘ratman’ (Storm Drain), a risen corpse at The Empty Wake, a mad prof/doc’ making human/robot ‘neo-humans’ (Subject), and cultish ‘homeland patriot’ nutters in Terror. A fifth story, Holy Hell, frames all the others. There’s cultish weirdness, monsters, violence, gore, fear, and above all a general desire to scare.

I wonder what it says about us as a species that we’re so given to the contemplation of death, and our fears? I suppose those things in themselves aren’t too surprising. What is surprising, and possibly disturbing, is the fact it takes the form, these days, of a whole subculture and industry, as prolific as it is … erm..? grotesque.

Certain passages in several segments are very like action from first-person video games. It seems the intersection between the worlds of video game culture and the rest of life, movies in particular, proceeds apace. This is especially true of Subject, which is probably the strongest individual segment of VHS ‘94. Subject is the only story not set in the US, and is also the slickest of the shorts, production wise.

I actually enjoyed VHS ‘94, or at least parts of it, quite a lot. There were, I feel, more interesting ideas in several of these shorts than in most full length horror films. One of the most interesting segments, Terror, is presented as if it’s the home videos of an extreme right wing neo-Nazi group, as they prepare for a terrorist attack.

These Trumpist/MAGA style lunatics are as comically inept as they are morally bankrupt. But their nefarious plans go bloodily awry. Does it make any sense? We see the same man executed repeatedly by different members of the group. Does it ‘mean’ anything? From exploding bunnies to a freaky monster; I’ve no idea right now.

Ironically one of the weakest stories, Holy Hell, is the one that’s spliced up and used as a recurrent ‘back to the story’ type glue, framing all the other threads, and starting and finishing the whole set. Or perhaps it feels disjointed and less effective because it’s chopped up, where the others are complete?

Anyway, better than a lot of much better funded mainstream stuff, and, in my view, worth watching. Especially for the Subject and Terror segments.