In 1973 the horror anthology was all the rage. This was mainly thanks to the efforts of Amicus, the main rival to Hammer Films in the 60s and 70s, who churned out their series of portmanteau horrors. With titles like Dr Terrors House of Horrors, From Beyond the Grave and Vault of Horror, the films would each typically contain four of five different chilling tales and feature a host of familiar faces including horror stalwarts Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. The stories would usually be linked together with an often very loose framing device.
In Dr Terrors House of Horrors a fortune teller (Cushing) reveals the fate of fellow travellers on a train (who include, in a bizarre casting experiment, the late disc jockey Alan Freeman). Torture Garden does something similar in a funfair, while Vault of Horror has its subjects recount their disturbing dreams. There’s a great sequence with Terry-Thomas as an over fastidious husband who gets a rather nasty comeuppance. The creepy Asylum visits the tortured worlds of inmates in an institution, while The House That Dripped Blood suitably haunts all of its occupants. All deserve articles in their own right. And I promise that they will come.
Tales That Witness Madness is often mistakenly credited as an Amicus film, although it was actually made by the Rank Organisation. It’s an easy mistake to make. The director is Freddie Francis, who made many films for both Hammer and Amicus, and the cast includes Donald Pleasence, Jack Hawkins and Joan Collins, who were no strangers to this sort of thing. Like Asylum, it uses the framing device of the secure hospital, where a white-coated, bearded and manic eyed Pleasence is running the show. Jack Hawkins, rather foolishly, turns up for a tour of the cells.
Much of Tales That Witness Madness is poor quality. Hawkins, very ill at the time, has his voice dubbed awkwardly by another actor, Charles Gray. The final story is far too long, but there is a moody and memorable opening title sequence and Pleasence is as excellent as you would expect. And, like every British film made in the early 70s, there’s something that makes this essential viewing. Two of the stories, for different reasons, are very good indeed. Mr Tiger concerns a small boy, isolated from the world by his parents who choose to have him educated at home by a private tutor. He invents a furry imaginary friend – or does he? There’s no points for guessing how wrong things go here, and it helps that Rank stretches the budget to employ a real tiger.
The other memorable sequence features Michael Jayston and Joan Collins. Beginning with the eerily memorable line “does anyone here love me?”, this is the most bizarre thing Collins has ever appeared in. This in itself is an achievement from the actress who starred in the insane I Don’t Want to be Born and featured in the Tales From the Crypt segment as a murderous housewife pursued by a maniacal Santa Claus.
Jayston plays a man who, and I can find no better words for this, falls in love with a tree. He names it Mel and moves it into the house, much to – and you can’t forgive her for this – the chagrin of his wife Ms Collins. This being a horror film in the Amicus tradition, things eventually work out better for Mel than they do for Joan. And you can kind of justify why Jayston has ended up in a padded cell, although it’s unfortunate that he only has Donald Pleasence to look after him. From my point of view, the softly spoken voice and intense glare would only make me madder…
Everybody loves The Wicker Man. The 1973 film, that is, and not the 2006 remake starring Nicolas Cage. From what I can gather, everyone hates that Wicker Man. But what exactly was wrong with it? Was it just another case of a bad remake of a classic film (just like with Psycho and Get Carter)? Is it really that bad? Against my better judgement, I recently spent an evening with the Cage Wicker Man.
According to its director Robin Hardy, the 1973 original was treated badly by its distributors. The film was edited fairly brutally and eventually released as a B-movie to support Don’t Look Now. Rumour has it that some of the deleted scenes were buried under the M4. The film drifted in obscurity for a while and then began to gain something of a cult following, receiving frequent tv showings, and eventually a director’s cutDVD release. Hardy can’t really say the film is ignored any more. It’s rightly cited as a classic and is possibly the only British film made in the 70s that continues to receive five star reviews in film guides and listing magazines. Its own star, Edward Woodward, is now always asked about the film in interviews and recently made a short documentary with the film critic Mark Kermode where they revisited the original locations. Christopher Lee, who also appeared in the film, says it is his best role and can’t stop talking about it.
“Oh God! Oh no!”
The Wicker Man sits awkwardly alongside the horror films being made in Britain at the time, and this is probably why it has endured so well. For the first half, it’s possible to be forgiven for thinking that this isn’t horror at all. Woodward plays a devoutly religious policeman who’s lured to a remote Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. He finds a cut off yet seemingly self sufficient pagan society, laughing at his Lord and indulging in sexual ritual (some of it looks fun, especially when Britt Ekland gets her kit off, but Woodward’s having none of it). The Wicker Man stands up to repeated late night viewings, both for its careful build up to a dreadful ending and for its most unusual and wonderful soundtrack. It’s the role of a lifetime for Woodward and probably Lee as well.
Surprisingly for a Hollywood movie, the new Wicker Man doesn’t change an awful lot, although what it does change leads to its ultimate downfall. Cage plays a cop (Edward) who’s called to a remote island … yes it’s the same. But the alteration is that the missing girl (Rowan Woodward – geddit?) is revealed as his daughter, thus altering the original premise that the policeman – a king-like, willing fool – was pure for sacrifice (a virgin). Director Neil LaBute also decides to make his island a feminist nightmare – run by women where the men are mute and dominated. This is one of the reasons why the film was slated, especially as Cage enjoys throwing a few punches, and it’s difficult to defend this plot change, although it was effective to have a woman (Ellen Burstyn) in the Lee role.
But I found the reception to this Wicker Man far too unkind. There is an underlying creepiness to the film, and the end is almost as effective as the original (I was on the edge of my seat because I really thought they were going to fudge it and have Cage rescued). And really strangely, there are a few fleeting references to Don’t Look Now with Cage pursuing a small child in red. Perhaps they forgot at times which film in the original double bill they were remaking. Now this film has earned its place in late night tv slots, I suppose LaBute will take Hardy’s place in moaning about its treatment. Although I can’t see this one being hailed as a classic in 35 years. But everyone who loves The Wicker Man, the 1973 one, should give it a chance.
Fairground settings can be deliciously creepy. Whether you find them in fiction (one of the best examples of using the fairground for macabre purpose is Rad Bradbury) or in cinema (try 1967’s Torture Garden from the horror studio Amicus). Even the most cursory of searches will result in other films using fairgrounds, the circus or bizarre museums for their settings. House of Wax (1953) with Vincent Price, Circus of Horrors (1960) or perhaps Circus of Fear (1966). However, there are no truly memorable films using the abandoned carnival as a setting, a place where you really really wouldn’t want to go. Especially alone on a dark night. At least I thought that. This was until I saw Carnival of Souls.
As cult films go, Carnival of Souls is very hard to find, so I was surprised when I discovered that I owned a copy on DVD. Made in 1962 by Herk Harvey, it is an early addition to the American low budget horror genre, a more successful film in the same ilk being Night of the Living Dead. However it’s possibly incorrect to label it as a horror film at all; this is just an incredibly creepy film. It’s scary yet there’s little horror in it. It’s memorable because it is so odd.
The film has a basic premise. The unusually named Candice Hilligoss (Mary Henry) survives what looks like a pretty fatal car crash. Although visibly unscathed, there’s something a little strange about her. The frightened and distant look in her eye, perhaps, the magnetic pull an abandoned funfair appears to be having on her… it’s inevitible what’s going to happen in Carnival of Souls but that’s the fun of the ride. The jumps come in the predicted places, although you may find yourself jumping a little more than you expected.
Candice works as a church organist, allowing Harvey to use the organ for one of the most effective soundtracks you’ll hear. The music isn’t particularly pleasant, but it’s highly original, and the director gets the best effect when the music actually stops. The eerie silences in this film cleverly raise the tension, and it is a very tense film indeed. Candice takes a room in a boarding house and it pursued by a fellow lodger called John. He’s a bit of a creep, descending upon her in the morning with half empty bottles of whiskey, but continues with his painstaking advances even though this woman can only offer a vacant stare or two. (At one point he exclaims That’s just what I need! Get mixed up with some girl who’s off her rocker!)
The scenes with John provide some comic relief for what is essentially, as he predicts, scenes of Candice going off her rocker. Spectacularly. She begins to see the same pale faced man wherever she goes, driving in her car, in her room and memorably in one scene in a Doctor’s consultancy. The first appearances are very fleeting, and the image above is the last of several attempts I made to catch an appropriate still of the film.
Eventually Candice is drawn to the abandoned carnival, where the film wraps up effectively. There’s a final twist that, although not particularly surprising, is still suitably shocking. And the creepy faces blend so well with the organ music that it gives further weight to the argument that low budget films are often the best.
By way of a taster, here’s the original trailer:
As the good man says, you can’t afford to miss it…
There is a type of film particularly suited to late night viewing. Late night winter viewing, where the viewer might be alone, and where the wind may be rattling at the window. The window is comfortably locked, and the film’s imagined terrors remain harmless, at least until the viewer becomes a little too engrossed. Night of the Demon is one such film.
Night of the Demon is a brilliantly scary movie. Some may try to convince you that it’s the scariest movie ever made. It could very well have been, although there are two things that let it down. The first is the casting of Dana Andrews in the lead role, who is awful. Demon is a British movie, and I’m all for American stars cast in the lead with a host of good supporting English actors around them, but why Dana Andrews? He sleepwalks through this film, at times no different from the characters stuck in real hypnotic trances. For a man with a curse on him who has three days to live, he’s a little too relaxed about the situation. Especially as the other people in the film who have been exposed to such curses are raving and screaming (one of them even jumps out of a window).
The other problem with Demon is the one that most reviews tend to mention. The demon itself (pictured below) is exposed very early in the film, which does tend to spoil some of the suspense surrounding what exactly the curse is all about. The early demon sighting was also against the wishes of the director Jacques Tournier, and the film’s producer decided to tag the monster on. But after seeing the film again I decided that the demon sighting isn’t wholly the mistake that it’s reported to be. It’s still scary (I wouldn’t want him around on a dark night, even if the windows are locked) and does whip you up into a state of tension that gets you through the slow opening scenes that follow. It also sticks in the mind, even if you have seen countless films like this.
It is essential to mention that Night of the Demon is based on a short story by M.R. James called Casting the Runes. The film more or less follows the same story, which is about one man’s attempt to debunk the occult beliefs and activities of another. John Holden (Andrews) sets out to expose Julian Karswell (Niall MacGuinness) who is the leader of an apparant demonic cult. Karswell tries to warn Holden off, but he’ll have nothing of it and is eventually beset by a curse. Holden learns that he has been passed a small “parchment”, which he must return to Karswell before the time is up in order to reverse the curse. The film differs from the James story in that it leans on hypnosis as a theme. There’s an excellent scene where a man accused of murder is hypnotised to reveal what really happened to him, and another very creepy episode involving a séance.
The supporting cast are all excellent and make up for the dullness of Andrews (and the female interest Peggy Cummings, who’s also rubbish). Niall MacGuinness dominates the movie as the villain Karswell. He is simply brilliant, one of the best screen nasties of all time. With his urbane manner and his demonic goatee, he covers his true evil with a veneer of seedy politeness. The film borrows one scene from the James story although it does change it slightly. This is where Karswell is hired to perform magic tricks as a children’s entertainer. Even though he’s performing white magic he’s still darkly menacing. Maurice Denham and Brian Wilde (best known for mild mannered comedy performances in Porridge and Last of the Summer Wine) are also excellent as doomed demon victims. Reginald Beckwith is also good as the medium Mr Meek (pictured), and the cry it’s in the trees … it’s coming! was poached by Kate Bush almost thirty years later to open her song Hounds of Love.
Made in 1957, this is a British horror that predates Hammer films (just) so it’s more of a throwback to the old Universal pictures, and kind of marks the turning point of the genre. If Hammer had got their hands on this instead I would imagine Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in the two roles, with Lee most likely as Karswell. Night of the Demon is a well crafted film, with the last five minutes or so being some of the tensest in cinema. This is where Holden must return the parchment to Karswell in order to survive. Your hair will stand on end, especially if you don’t lock that window.
This is a segment from the 1972 film Tales from the Crypt, featuring Joan Collins as a murderous housewife who gets her just desserts. Silly and suitably seasonal.
