Category: Media: TV

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.

We watched this movie – in part or whole? I forget now – once before. Here we are watching it again. As we approach Hallowe’en it seems there’s a bit of a Hammer-fest going on round here!

I’m not naturally a massive fan of these hammy technicolour schlock-horror sorts of movies. But Teresa is gradually indoctrinating me in the ways of Hammer and similar stuff.

None of the cast are familiar to me, except perhaps Jennifer Daniel. And even then I’m not sure I’ve really seen her before (other than the last time we watched this).

To enjoy these things one has to either have some degree of susceptibility to the superstitious, or else suspend all pretence at any idea of rational integrity. The world these supernatural or paranormal stories inhabit is, well, frankly really rather silly.

But if you can settle into the silliness – I can’t be bothered to synopsise the typical haunted castle pretty dame horny ol’ vampire schtick – then there is here an alternate ‘reality’ in which one can revel in a whole bouillabaisse or witches brew of nuttiness.

If one knows and loves Cushing, Lee et al, as we do, their charisma can help make even the most excessively camp nonsense more palatable. Surprisingly, perhaps, the B-list cast of Kiss of the Vampire are actually okay, on the whole. Within the formulaic corridors of this rather tawdry hallucinatory world this isn’t so bad.

Still, that’s hardly a glowing recommendation!

Teresa loves her Hammer horror movies. We tried one called The Black Glove, about a ‘jazz trumpeter’, wrongfully accused of murder. But she didn’t like the look of it. So she picked this Bavarian adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe story instead.

The soundtrack has the feel of being dubbed very poorly into English, with very questionable choices of music. Only some of the Germanic locations (oh, and the fulsome boobies, I guess!) save the film from being utterly dire. It’s a pretty bizarre but lame film. Very stilted, but very Hammer-esque.

Christopher Lee is hardly in it, just at the beginning and end. Pity! Perhaps his fee was so big they could only afford him briefly? The Poe pit ‘n’ pendulum stuff also appears, but to no real effect. Pretty poor, overall, frankly.

But it has a vibe closer to what Teresa wanted, so she’s happy. I was less enamoured of it.

Hmmm!? We adore Vincent Price, but alas, the appallingly colorised (I use the American spelling deliberately here) version of The Bat we watched yesterday/this morning – we both dropped off to it last night! – is pretty dire.

I’ll prob’ check a few other versions (there are multiple versions on Amazon Prime alone, never mind other channels or sources!) to see if the original black and white fares any better.

One of the issues for me is how dated it all is. This can be a strength; we do love the era this was made and set in. But again, it does depend exactly how it’s done, and what aspects of the era it focusses on. In this instance the prissy ‘pointy-bra’ brigade, the core female leads, are rather off-putting.

Most of the men are no better, leaping like wooden marionettes straight from the pages of 1950s Reader’s Digest, all brill-creem, excessively good manners and overly earnest grins. Only the polite doc’ Malcolm Wells (Price), apparently offering any real diabolical relief from the saccharine crowd. Or is he alone in being evil?

The plot, such as it is, centres on Cornelia Van Gorder (Agnes Moorhead), a writer of horror fiction, who’s staying at The Oaks, a classic horror-movie haunted house, with an appropriately grisly legendary past. In a connected plot line, the head of the local bank (and owner/builder of The Oaks) has embezzled $1 million, which becomes the plot-driving ‘McGuffin’.

‘I’ve seen better performances’, says Lt. Andersen (Gavin Gordonson, whose every bone and sinew is, apparently, made of wood), at one point, with far more unintended irony than he knows. Amen!

This is based on a stage play, and boy does it ever have that very hokey ‘stagey’ feel. The acting is simultaneously theatrical and wooden. The only real point of interest is the issue of who, exactly, is The Bat? Even when, at one point, we think we’re finding out, we don’t. Meanwhile Agnes searches for the loot…

I reckon this movie will be way better in original black and white. I tried to find it in that format, but all other versions on Amazon were pay to view (naughty!)*. And it is, ultimately, a pretty poorly put together assemblage of clichés. But despite all of this, it has enough period charm to be an enjoyable watch.

In this terribly ‘auto-colorised’ form, two stars. Assuming black and white will be better – say three stars? – I’ll go with two and a half stars here, for now.

* I notice that of the four versions of this same movie I found just on Amazon’s streaming video services, only this terrible colorised (sic) version is free. That’s pretty shocking, given the film is out of copyright and therefore freely available for download/viewing. Anyone paying to watch this is being profiteered off, on the basis of their ignorance. But hey, that’s everyday capitalism for you.

What a bonkers movie!

Teresa said she wanted to watch a ‘50s sci-fi movie. I browsed Amazon Prime, and found this. And it’s Hammer! She’s keen on Hammer, esp’ the Cushing, Lee and Price stuff.

This oddity stars Brian Donlevy, a kind of pudgy moustachioed gone to seed Errol Flynn type guy, as the titular Quatermass. It’s a sequel to the Quatermass Xperiment (which we haven’t seen), in which Donlevy also starred. He’s the lone Yank in an otherwise British cast.

The plot is a kind of ‘invasion of the bodysnatchers’ type thing, also borrowing heavily from War of the Worlds. Boffins detect a kind of rain of meteorites, and… well, it’s too silly to bother synopsising, frankly.

It is worth remembering, however, that this is pre-moon landing, etc. So it’s more like Hergé’s Tintin on the Moon than things turned out; the rockets, for example, like Hergé’s, resemble souped-up German V2s more than the real rockets that would soon take man to the moon.

Donlevy is clumsily enjoyable (legend has it he was practically paralytic during filming*), in a ham-fisted B-movie way. And Sid ‘Carry On’ James has a part, as a boozy newshound. There are several other familiar faces, such as John Longden and Bryan Forbes.

But the acting isn’t the film’s strong suit. The best things about the film are the look of it; black and white, largely shot in a cool steel spaghetti pipe-filled oil refinery, with quite a few effective visual aspects, and the eerie post-WWII apocalyptic fear vibes.

As clumsy as it is, and as clunkily directed and acted as it may be, there is something paranoiac lurking within this film, just as the malevolently parasitic alien life form lurks in their asteroid pods. A certain post World War II Cold War era fear of pervasive ideological contamination.

I’d argue that most traditional myth is no more sophisticated than this, and that therefore what’s best about this film – aside from or in addition to the visual allure – is the idea of insidious colonisation of the mind and body as myth or metaphor.

Far from being great, or classic, there’s still a certain something about Quatermass II that makes it worth seeing.

*Not really 100% true, according to fellow cast members.