The Devil Rides Out

The Devil Rides Out has always been a favourite of the Hammer Horror films. An absolute gem that doesn't waste any of its screen time. As soon as the ominous titles are over we are straight into the action as the Duc De Richleau and Rex Van Ryn (Christopher Lee and Lorne Green) arrive for a reunion and find that their friend Simon Aaron (Patrick Mower) has not turned up. When they visit him at his new pad, they find him mixed up in satanism. They kidnap him to keep him safe, but the leader of the coven, Mocata (Charles Gray) is very unhappy about this and so begins a cat and mouse game.

The sheer pacing of this film alone makes this Hammer entry a must-see; it rattles along at a fair lick barely pausing for breath. Each of the actors play their parts with an intense glee, and if the dialogue they are given to speak seems a little thick-ear and melodramatic, it's perfectly in keeping with the source novel by Dennis Wheatly, whose books were very much Boys Own fare, albeit with an adult slant. Charles Gray's turn as Mocata is surely one of the most sinister portrayals in an English horror movie, reminiscent of Karswell from Night Of The Demon, but with more blackness of heart - it's a truly chilling performance.

There are many fine set pieces on offer - the orgy where they rescue Simon (again) is superbly realised and a thrilling, heart stopping ride as Mocata raises the Goat Of Mendes. Also of note is the evening they spend within a sacred circle, knowing that Mocata will be trying to break their spirits during the night, as he sends giant spiders and horsemen of hell to try and tempt them from theirholy barricade.

The battle rages until the big climax where the devil is summoned and Mocata is foiled and ends up being taken to hell himself and time itself is reversed to give us the happy ending. If you only ever watch one Hammer Horror, you cannot go wrong with this one. Everybody is on top form, including, and most importantly, director Terence Fisher who keeps such a tight hand on proceedings there's no wonder it's such breathless entertainment.

Somewhat bizarrely, as much as I love this film, it is one that I reckon could be remade without the usual problems inherent in such undertakings. Of course, it would have to be sympathetic with both the source novel and original film. but if they didn't try and set it in more modern times it could be pulled off. In fact when the news came through the other year about Hammer beginning to produce movbies again, I actually thought that they would redo this, and I firmly believe they would have been better off doing so.

Merge

I've been blogging now for 6 months and I decided to make a change. The main blog was simply meant as a record of every film I watch and then I started another to hopefully record different aspects of my thoughts in a very genre specific medium. Suddenly the whim took me to merge them. This I know is going to throw up some very different bedfellows - Laurel and Hardy sat next to Dario Argento isn't you're usual progressions, and indeed if there a person out there who enjoys the similar kind of range as I do, well I'd be happy to hear from them - we are a strange breed! But as much as I am blown away by the cinema of Buster Keaton, I am similarly struck by the work of Jean Rollin. For every great Hitchcock movie, there is a Jess Franco film that demands the same attention. I know that, compared to some of the great blogs out there, my meagre additions to the world of film appreciation don't amount to a hill of beans but as I gain confidence in puting my thoughts down it all starts to become more important to lat my obsessions live side by side, of which there are many:

My Obsessions

• Silent Comedy
• American Comedy up to 1950
• British Comedy up to 1980
• Giallos
• Eurohorror
• Eurotrash (which encapsulted some of the above [possibly below too!], and although I'm not a huge fan of the term, it fits the purpose here)
• Brit-Horror
• French Cinema

NOT an exhaustive list. I basically just love film. Currently my obsession with Giallos, Franco, Rollin and the ilk is prominent but like all multi-obsessives, allegiances shine bright and wane only to return stronger. As I look forward to my France trip this year I fully expect an abundance of French films to be watched, 'cause that's what I'm like. I also have a family who have their own tastes, which, sometimes regretably, has to be taken into consideration. So there will be a mixed bag, and if you do stumble upon this site I hope some of it is to your liking. And if it all is, you just might be my long lost brother or sister.

Spasmo

Bonkers giallo that goes beyond the usual giallo convolutions and takes twists and turns to a new height. But this is one of the reasons we watch giallo. A couple, after finding a mannequin hanging in an old building come across a women lying unconscious on the beach. She quickly recovers and vanishes but Christian trackes her down at a boat party and soon they become a couple and get embroiled in murder. Is she all she seems? Is Christian all he seems? And what of the mannequins that keep turning up 'murdered'?
I can safely say that you'll never work this one out but it sort of wraps itself up well at the end, albeit with many threads unexplained. It is though made with enough style to keep you happy and the Morricone soundtrack is a pearler.

Anna

A bizarre oddity from 1967 French television. Serge Gainbourg wrote and scored this musical for Anna Karina, one time wife of Jean Luc Goddard. There are many surreal touches that are horribly dated but after discovering that this was the first colour production on French television, they become understandable. The main thrust of the film is Serge's (Jean-Claude Brialy) search for Anna, who is mistakenly photographed as she disomunts from a train as she arrives in Paris hoping to find a soulmate. Unfortunately she wears thick glasses so the picture of her makes her difficult to find. His obsession grows as he realises this is love at first sight and this is all-consuming. He doesn't realise she works in his company's building and even has a few encounters with her, not recgnising her. She knows he's looking for the girl in the picture, but doesn't realises it's her and she is sad because she is falling for him. As the film progresses both characters get lost in their misery.

It is easy to see how this became a French favourite, it has immense (sometimes intense) charm and it draws you in to root for the star-crossed lovers. The music is brilliant (and is now firmly in place in the car stereo) and includes many numbers that refuse to budge from your brain. Top song is Roller Girl where Anna dances maddly as she imagines herself a wild child. Both leads play their part marvellously but the film belongs to Anna Karina whose cutenss, carefree ways and melancholia will stay with you forever.

Black Belly Of The Tarantula (1971)

A thoroughly well made giallo that maybe lacks some of the devices that make gialli such a pleasure, such as twists. That aside it does deliver a few original ideas. The detective here isn't the usual hard-boiled hard living type chap, he is a man in a dilemma - he's not sure if he's cut out for the force. He knows he's neglecting his woman and it pains him, but any indecision is blown away by the ending.
The film is also exceptionally well directed with detailed close-ups (which to me where a clue in themselves to the killer's identity) and some edgy shots that unease, especially when they go hand-in-hand with the occasionally dischordant soundtrack by Morricone.

A class film.

The Girl From Paris

There's not a lot to say about this film apart from It's one of my all-time favourites. A simple tale of Mathilde Seigner giving up her teaching job in Paris to take up goat farming in the Vacleuse doesn't have much originality but the playing of both leads (the other being the grumpy old ex-owner of the farm who isn't moving out for 18 months) are beautifully realised and make what could easily be a mildly diverting feel good film into a tale that sucks you right into the lives of the protagonists. A perfect film.

Trailer Park Of Terror

It may be slickly made with oodles of gore but this film just bores. You just don't care about anything that happens. I am giving up on modern American horror, for the time being anyway.

The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue

Finally got round to rewatching this after visiting some of the locations a while back, and it hasn't dimmed one iota. I rate this as the best Zombie movie ever and if there are slight faults here and there, the film as a whole more than makes up for it. Sure it can be said that Romero's Night Of The Living Dead hasn't dated as much, in fact NOTLD just refuses to date at all, but The Living Dead.... ends up as a more cohesive entity. The culture clash against the order and the hippies does come across as archaic and does age the film and there is quite a lot of unintentional humour involved. At the start, our hero George (Ray Lovelock) is probably the most hilariously rude person to grace a screen, but he redeems himself.


George leaves his London pad to spend the weekend in the Lake District. After Edna reverses over his bike he gets her to give him travel to his destination, but on the way they stop off at Edna's sister's place. All is not well. Nearby they are trying out a new invention to get rid of bugs by radiation. This has the unfortunate effect of bringing the dead back to life.

The German film poster, no idea how it translates!


Even during the opening credits it's plain to see that this is an environmental warning. We are witness to world in decline, a world so far in decay that even the appearance of a streaker in rush hour doesn't make the commuters bat an eyelid. Commuters that wear masks to try and stop the pollution filling their lungs. And it's worse than that, because this decay is spreading to the countryside. The locations used for filming is one of the big bonuses of this film. Geographically laughable perhaps, but they add an incredable amount of ambience to the proceedings as well as driving home the idea of a world in turmoil.


If you wish to dissect the film you get a feeling that the greatness it has is almost an accident. A veritable mish-mash of a production - Directed by a Spaniard, partly funded from Spain ands Italy with Italian, Spanish, American and British acting talent, filmed in various parts of Northern England as well as Spanish and Italian sound stages and a script that is filled with groaners, but despite this a remarkable film results. Lambsted at the time for its violence and gore (tame by todays standards) it bombed, but nevertheless hung around in people's consciousness and is now rightly regarded as a classic of its genre. All the more remarkable is the length of time that it takes for the actual living dead mayhem to occur. But this film has a steady pace, without any down time. We, as viewers, know what's coming and the film never lets our thoughts wander whiloe we wait for the inevitable. From the first off, we are hooked and hooked we stay. And for once the frustration of authority lasts until the last scene.


One of the standout scens happens when it all starts to kick off in the vault of a crypt. Like Romero, the director Jorge Grau knew that with slow moving attackers you have to contain the action and he does so in a genuinely suspenseful way. For such a relative unknown, and without many credits to his name, Jorge Grau does a very impressive job.

In short, this is is of the highest calibre that Eurohorror has to offer and can't be recommended highly enough. Also known as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie.

Cats in Gialli

Watching Your Vice Is A Locked Room... the other night and it occurred to me that not only is the cat, Satan, a character in the film, it is an important and pivotal character and not just a prop of a plot device. She is the wronged woman. She is the femme fatale burning with vengeance, the man she loved now dead and she is intent in bringing justice to his killer. She is not a lady to be trifled with. The killer knows how dangerous this cat is and tries to kill it, and if she had succeeded, her nemesis would not have been there to spoil her plan.

The cat in a giallo is symbolic of the giallo femme fatale. Lovely to look at, sweet to hold, but capable of sinking her claws in if the fancy takes her.

(In the picture The two leading ladies of Your Vice Is A Locked Room And I Have The Key: Satan and the ever delectable Edwige Fenech.)

Bloody Moon (and Bloody Vipco)

Jess Franco's 1981 slasher opus is a mixed bag. Suffering from the usual dubbing problems that can render even the best film laughable, the main problem seems to be that Franco is not working with complete control. The main sticking point for me was the awful hatchet job done by the fools at Vipco. Practically all the gore is missing, includinhg the infamous beheading by a giant stonesaw. And it's not the first time Vipco have been guily of this. Struggling to be fair, oit may be that this is the only print they are allowed to release in Britain but somehow I doubt it if you think about what other films you can see in their entirety. So what we're really looking at here is a 79 minute version. Would the added gore have added anything to the film? Well, yeah I think so. Without it you are left with all the padding without the rewards.

Set in a Adults Language School (filling in for the more usual campsite) someone is going about killing the ladies. Is it the disfigured Miguel, recently released from an asylum after a similar killing? Is it Antonio, the randy tennis coach? Or what about the weird gardener who only shows up right after a killing? There's many suspects but anyone familiar with slasher films will have no trouble guessing who is behind them. But that's okay, 'cause we're here for the gore. Oh no, wait. Vipco aren't showing that. Bastards. Now, I'm a big Franco fan and I believe that had this been 100% his film we would have had something better, but everytime a Franco-moment seems about to happen the action just stops and moves back to the female lead wandering about being scared which hampers the flow big time. This is an inherent problem rather being down to Vipco. It just doesn't have that Franco feeling. Shame, because it would be real interesting to see Franco do a routine slasher film, but his way. Franco would have made so much more of the incestual relationship between Miguel and his sister Manuela and their feelings towards the invalid mother. the pace may have slowed, but I think Franco does slow paced movies better than most (with the exception of the great Jean Rollin) and I would have loved to see him build a bit of suspense up slowly.

Sorry if the above seems a bit chaotic. I was looking forward to this one and I feel slightly cheated by not getting a chance to see the picture as a whole. I will try and rectify this, although I have the suspicion that it will remain a lesser Franco flick, purely because he seems like a hired hand.

Mark Of The Wolfman (1968)

Or Frankenstein's Bloody Terror as it is called here, making it the American drive-in version. Not that there's any sign of Frankenstein, which is explained away right at the beginning saying that Frankenstein changed his name to Wolfstein! The first Waldemar Daninsky movie is a fun romp woth watching for fans of Paul Naschy and cheesey horror flicks. Naschy's movies would improve a lot when he got into the 1970s, his 60s movies being somewhat tame. Good fun is to be had here though as the wolfman battles the evil vampires bent on using him for thier own nefarious purposes.

Timber Falls (2008)

Yet another variation on Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this time the twisted locals are religious freaks who want the doomed campers to produce a child for them. Pretty grisly and well made, but the feeling that you've seen it all before hangs over the proceedings constantly. Still, for what it is, it's watchable enough.

Death Walks On High Heels (1971)

Highly enjoyable giallo and only one of three that came from the helmsmanship of Luciano Ercoli. After a jewelry robbery one of the perpetrators is killed in his train compartment. His daughter (Susan Scott) is warned that the killer may be looking for her while trying to track down the missing jewels. And this is precisely what happens. But who is terrorising her? Starting in France, the action then moves to the south coast of England and the locations are a definite boon for the film. The denouement, while complicated, makes perfect sense and you are left thoroughly satisfied. There's even room for some humour from the English (sic) detective and his sidekick. Nice one.

Short Night Of The Glass Dolls (1971)

Aldo Lado's directorial debut is a classy and slightly convoluted giallo-ish thriller that begins with the body of the hero being found in a park. After being pronounced dead we then hear narrate the film as he isn't really dead, or is he. A series of flashbacks tells the tale of how his girlfriend, Barbara Bach, goes missing without a trace and how he tries to track her down. The film is a slow mover, but Lado has the confidence to tell his story slowly and does so with style. If I have any problems with this film (and they are very slight problems) is that the supernatural element that arrives at the end doesn't fit snugly, even though you may be heading your guesses this way at the end. The final scenes at the live autopsy are well done and prove a fitting finale to an enjoyable flick.

All The Colors Of The Dark

A quite delirious cross between giallo and Rosemary’s Baby, all wrapped up in that comfortable Martino/Fenech/Hilton team that brought us The Strange Vice Of Mrs Wardh. Fenech, as ever, is beyond any kind of reproach and the rest of the cast are as required. It probably lacks a certain something in the plot department, or maybe a mite too hysterical at times, but hey, this early 70s Italian exploitation cinema. A good solid, enjoyable film.

Eyeball (1976)

A late (for the director) Giallo entry from Umbert Lenzi, and, highly watchable as the film is, you get the feeling Lenzi was starting to get bored with the genre, and indeed the genre itself was starting to signs of strain. The dialogue is poor, but given that it is dubbed we have no choice but to wash over that. A vicious killer is going round killing members of a coach tour party and plucking out their eyeballs. With more red herrings than you’re find in a handful of giallos, this one tries hard to be one step ahead of everyone, although the killer is easily guessable as you near the end. Not even close to bad, but you can see all too clearly what it could have been had the director been firing on all cylinders.

Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye (1973)

Tasty little giallo/gothic thriller set in a Scottish castle with the cast being bumped off one by one. We've seen it all before but it's done with enough panache to pull it off. Nice one.

Seven Murders For Scotland Yard

A giallo-esque outing for that most enjoyable of Spanish actors/writers Paul Naschy.
There's a serial killer on the loose that has a simalr modus operandi of Jack The Ripper. Paul Naschy is wrongly suspected of the crimes and goes on the run and tries to solve the crime. Naschy refuses to act in this piece of hokum about a modern day Ripper but this is still a highly enjoyable romp. From the cheesey dialogue to the excellent seventies London locations there is much to be relished throughout this barmy opus. A film that gives a pretty good definition of Eurotrash.

Rabid Dogs (1974)

Or possibly 'Last Car On The Left'! One of Mario bava's last film and the last one to surface as it was held in post-production hell for a variety of reasons.
Three robbers escaping after a heist take a women hostage and comandeer a vehicle taking the driver and his son hostage also. That's about it. Many Bava fans hail this as an unqualified success, but I would challenge that. While the film has redeeming factors, what we have here is a pretty nasty, mean film that seems to misfire on some of it's more important points. Bava is striving for realism here and nearly achieves it, but the frantic over-playing of two of the thieves, Blade and Thirty Two, removes much of the desired realism. The film takes place largely within the escape vehicle and the driver, female hostage and leader of the gang retain enough realistic acting that you can see what could have been, but the other two's histrionics blow this out of the water. Bava was never one for realism in his films and maybe this provided the naivety not to reign in these two. He does however manage to achieve the difficult task of filming mainly in an enclosed space very well and the film doesn't lag too much.
A mixed bag.

Mediterraneo (1992)

A group of soldiers come to secure a remote Greek Aegean island and get stranded there as their boat is destroyed. They are quickly accepted by the islanders who are just pleased they are not Germans. By the time of their rescue three years later, they have all grown and taken on different viewpoints of life.
A charming, gentle anti-war movie full of whimsical humour and mild political noises. The Italians make this type of film very well and it carries echoes of Cinema Paradiso, Il Postino, Malena etc. and the scenery will make you fall in love with the island yourself as the cinematography capture’s its different moods with affection.

Night Of The Hunted (1980)

Coming at the end of Jean Rollin's best period, this is a different outing for France's favourite surreal auteur. A man comes across a lady in the middle of the road one night and discovers that not only is she amnesiac but it is a degenereative conditon. After bedding her (hey it's a Rollin movie and she is Brigitte Lahaie) he goes off to work and a man and women arrive on the scene and take Elisabeth (for it is she) back to where she came from, a mysterious tower block in palace, where all the residents have similar problems, and some have degenerated a lot more. She manages to nearly escape again and call the man from the night before who comes to rescue her, but he is unprepared for the truth.

It's a slow moving film, much like all of Rollin's work but there is little scop for Rollin's remarkable imagery. There are a few sex scenes which, although it can be argued as being part of the plot (touch and sensual feeling are all that these people have left), can be a bit of a bore to sit through. However, bizarrely, the film doesn't seem to last as long as it does, a sure sign of grabbing the viewers attention (although the missus said she thought it lasted about 5 hours!) As ever I won't spoil the twist but I will say that it seemed to me about the impersonalway of modern buildings and how the authorities use tower blocks as sterile pens to fence in the hordes and keep them out of harms way. Or something along those lines. Not Rollin's best, but a haunting statement of the nuclear family and uncaring treatment of the impersonal authorities.

Without A Paddle

Three childhood friends meet up at the funeral of their fourth friend from childhood, re-bond and decide to take the trip that their friend had planned - to go looking for some lost treasure in the wilderness.

An amiable romp that would have probably been better to forget the treasure hunt so we could have spared the 'actually, it's not the cash that's the treasure, it's our new found desire for life' bollocks that comes inevitably at the end as surely it must.