THE CATACOMBS OF FILM

The New York Ripper (Italy 1982)
Directed by Lucio Fulci

A couple of years ago I took a trip to New York and immediately found myself faced with a quandary as to what I should do first. Visit The Statue of Liberty? The Met? Or take advantage of an opportunity to watch a movie that I had been unable to see in my youth on account of its being banned outright in the UK? Well, I got to see the Statue of Liberty eventually. As far Lucio Fulci’s slasher effort, well all I can say is that time appears to have been kind to it. I was expecting the dull-witted, badly made reprehensible piece of trash that had been described in so many reviews at the time of its (non) release, but what I actually got was a well made, tightly constructed crime thriller with an unrelentingly bleak world view and some horrible murders. Don’t get me wrong – this is a horrible film. A horrible, nasty, unpleasant depiction of the seamier side of one of the world’s most famous cities, but it’s not a badly made one, not by any means. Its director, given the remit to make a police procedural whodunit cum slasher movie, turned in the most brutal, nihilistic piece of work he could muster. One that, for better or worse, contains far more elements of its director’s integrity than most pictures of this type. But no matter how pessimistic the worldview, or how disgusting the murders, the violence is never glorified in the way it would have been in the Hollywood action pictures of the time. Fulci’s New York is peopled with weirdos, drug addicts, murderers and hypocrites, where the only love or concern demonstrated is of a man for his dog before the titles have started. There is little or no sense of celebration at the killer’s demise, it’s ‘just another day in New York’ and to rub our faces in it pretty much the final shot is of a small girl screaming for her lost father.

Acting wise Fulci is served a lot better here than in some of his efforts, with Jack Hedley and Paolo Malco in particular fleshing out their characters well.

Anyone accusing the film of being poorly made should check out the scene where Zora Kerowa has to use a lighter to find her way around her dressing room, filmed using vivid green and red filters.

So it’s not a bad film, but it is a horrible one. Approach with caution.

The Curse of the Fly (UK 1965)
Directed by Don Sharp

Isn’t it funny how films that finish with the caption ‘Is this the end?’ almost inevitably always are? That said, the final film in Twentieth Century Fox’s original Fly trilogy is an atmospheric little B picture that’s perfect for Sunday morning viewing. A group of British character actors do their best to pretend they’re in Montreal, except for lovely Carole Gray who escapes from a loony bin at the start of the film clad only in her underwear. She’s meant to be mad so she’s allowed to keep her English accent. Inspector Wexford himself George Baker veers between cod-American and English while mad scientist, nominal star and well-known alcoholic Brian Donlevy just veers. Unlike many of today’s films this is a ‘Fly III’ that can be enjoyed without the need to have watched the previous two. For a Robert Lippert produced film this doesn’t actually look that cheap, although that may be down to the presence of director Don Sharp and some excellent crisp black and white photography that shows off the few sets and the country locations to their very best. The best scene in the film has Baker’s wife on whom he has experimented trying to play the piano and all we hear is the music – the right hand perfect and the left hand a mess, which it physically is. The stables, with their mutated inhabitants, are appropriately unsettling, and it all ends predictably, except that Donlevy doesn’t get a death scene, he just disappears. Perhaps the pubs were open early that day.

Night of the Sorcerers (1973)
Directed by Amando de Ossorio

Those of us who extol the dubious virtues of 70s Euro-horror do sometimes have to put up with stuff that even we might have to grudgingly concede is most aptly described by the phrase ‘ropey old bollocks’. Take this item, a 1974 Spanish (Portuguese?) production meant to be set in Africa but quite obviously filmed on the set of ‘Carry on up the Jungle’. We find ourselves in the unfortunately-named African country of ‘Bumbasa’ (shades of Talbot Rothwell before we even start) where young gorgeous Spanish ladies’ clothes ‘all fall off’ Kenny Everett-style at the merest breeze. I know certain colleagues of mine have claimed there is no such thing as pointless nudity but they may wish to revise their opinion after watching this. Or maybe not. Anyone who has seen the Amando de Ossorio documentary in the Blind Dead box will know he was frequently given crippling budgets to work with and the money is so tight here it’s almost painful to watch. The plot is ludicrous, there’s very little atmosphere, and sadly the film fails to live up to a lively pre-credits-sequence which features nudity, whipping, and a decapitation where the young lady’s head continues to scream after it’s been hacked off while boasting a big set of Woolworths-bought fangs, although at least this is the kind of film where if someone gets their neck bitten the blood goes everywhere. The DVD offers you the option to watch certain scenes ‘clothed’, for the aficionado who presumably exists somewhere who prefers to view their bloodletting and whipping scenes without the tiresome distraction of attractive ladies’ breasts being on view.

The Loreley’s Grasp (1974)
Directed by Amando de Ossorio

Here’s another slice of 1970s euro-horror, and while it has been oft-commented upon by those who know me that I do have something of an unforgiving predilection for this sort of thing, I have to say that out of all of these dodgy films I’ve seen of this type here is one I can actually recommend to those who might not otherwise go in for this sort of thing . Lorelei is a character from the Ring of the Nibelung who is cursed by Wotan to guard treasure beneath the sea. A beautiful woman by day, she has the unfortunate habit of turning into a dodgy rubber-suited thingy with spiky teeth at night so she can rip people’s hearts out. Her lair just happens to be next to a young ladies’ finishing school (insert your own joke about ‘finishing them off’ here if you really want to, I like to think I’m above that sort of thing – for this review anyway). You can probably guess the rest. Like most films of this period the murders are gory, the women are beautiful and the music sounds like the Hammond Organ player from Sale of the Century gone mental. What this picture has going for it is a sense of wistful lyricism in its more atmospheric scenes, embellished by the often damp and foggy landscape. Helga Line has an otherworldly loveliness that suits the Lorelei character beautifully, counterbalanced by the more strait-laced charms of Sylvia Tortosa (from Horror Express) as the schoolteacher heroine. Add in the usual euro-daftness (a scientist researching ways to kill the Lorelei keeps a live sheep in his lab, near the end for no reason at all three scantily clad young ladies start wrestling) and a guest appearance from a hand belonging to one of the blind dead (hooray! You’ll know the scene when you see it) and this is a splendid off the straight and narrow way of spending 90 minutes.

Mother of Tears (Italy 2007)
Directed by Dario Argento

Who would have though Dario Argento would have ended up so desperate for ideas he would need to rip off Kenny Everett? His apparently ‘eagerly and long awaited’ – probably by about three people at least two of whom probably aren’t allowed to leave their special rooms surrounded by brightly coloured soft bouncy objects - follow up to Suspiria & Inferno is such a tedious waste of time it’s hard to believe this man was once lauded as the Italian Hitchcock. The opening title, while more reminiscent of the worst of Charles Band or an above-average feature on The Horror Channel (or Zome Horror as I now believe it’s called as it’s many moons since I was desperate enough to sample their wares), is still bound to evoke some nostalgia amongst the true Euro-Horror fans out there with names like Asia Argento, Coralina Cataldi Tassoni, Udo Kier, Sergio Stivaletti & Claudio Simonetti. But anyone with any fondness for the good old days of Italian horror is advised to stop watching once Argento’s director’s credit has faded from the screen. What follows is awful – flat, uninspired, with the simplest of plots, pathetic, infantile violence, and music as insipid as the events it is underscoring. The acting is terrible with poor old Udo being made to overact abominably. And yes – the mother of tears is eventually despatched by making all her clothes fall off. Oh this is awful.

Doomsday (UK 2008)
Directed by Neil Marshall

Having read the disparaging reviews of this it was with some trepidation that I watched this, only to find, once again, that the on the whole the reviewers have got it wrong. Unjustly compared to movies like John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars or various Italian Mad Max rip-offs, Doomsday isn’t really like such mediocre pictures at all.

Because Doomsday is bloody brilliant.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s an awful lot wrong with it. If you’re the sort of person who marks a film down for being derivative, preposterous, and sometimes just plain stupid then this will probably go to the top of your ten worst list of the year if not of all time. After a pretty good opening we are subjected to the kind of ‘board room’ chit chat that reminded me of Lenzi’s Nightmare City (in fact at one point Marshall throws in an exploding rabbit to perhaps echo that movie’s exploding rat? Perhaps not). Rhona Mitra is in no way the most charismatic of leads and Bob Hoskins wanders around being the UK’s equivalent of Mel Ferrer. But once our crack team of commandos enter the plague-ridden demilitarised zone of Scotland it’s the cue for some tremendous action set pieces that sweep you along such that the dafter everything gets the more you love it. In fact I honestly don’t think I enjoyed myself this much watching a movie at the cinema for about twenty years.

Seriously - I cannot begin to tell you how much I loved this, which probably says more about me than about the picture, but if there were more films like this around the world would be a better place. Crazy, delirious, over-the-top, kinetic, knowing, and made with that sense of integrity that people like Michael Bay will never, ever understand. This is a fantastic British fantasy film, Neil Marshall is a bloody genius and I when I eventually caught up with it on DVD I felt exactly the same, so having survived both the test of time and the reduction in screen size I can wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who wants a good time at the movies.

Dawn of the Mummy (1981)
Directed by ‘Frank’ Agrama

When nations come together anything is possible – world peace, an end to poverty and hunger, even a new respect and tolerance for different cultures. It’s also possible to end up with ‘Dawn of the Mummy’ – a South African-Egyptian co production with Italian special effects and disco music from the Palestinian bloke who wrote the theme for the ‘He-Man’ cartoon series. It’s difficult to know where to begin with this film that rode on the coattails of the popularity of the zombie subgenre kick-started by George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and kicked along like a rapidly deflating football by a bunch of delinquent Italian schoolboys led by Lucio Fulci with his chums Bruno Mattei and Marino Girolami. What could have been a fantastic bit of gory knockabout fun is fumbled a bit by director Farouk Agrama, who basically crosses the standard ‘mummy’s curse’ storyline with Bagpuss. When this mummy wakes up, all his friends wake up too, and then proceed to wreak havoc. This all sounds great but for the most part it’s sadly not, due to a marked degree of incoherence in the plotting and no acting or characterisation to speak of. Horror prospectors keen to sift through the detritus of stuff like this will be rewarded with two fantastic bits: the reanimation of the mummy’s undead servants against a setting sun is superb, as is the ending where everything goes mental (starting with a wedding reception where the bride ends up on the menu) to the aforementioned pounding euro-disco music, which is remarkably catchy and deserves a CD re-release. Apart from that it’s a bit rubbish but still 1000000 times better than anything Stephen Sommers could have dreamed up.

The Black Cat (Italy 1981)
Directed by Lucio Fulci

Don’t you just love those crazy Euro-horror directors who took a trip to the UK in the seventies and early eighties? Directors like Jorge Grau (Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue) and Jose Larraz (Vampyres) made bona fide classics. Lucio Fulci didn’t go quite that far in 1981 when he dragged DP Sergio Salvati and actors Al ‘I’m in everything’ Cliver and Daniela ‘I bet I die horribly in this’ Doria along with the rest of his gang to a sleepy English village to make The Black Cat. I watched this for the first time in over 20 years the other night, and for the first time ever in widescreen. Previously I had watched the VTC pan and scan version that, because of Fulci’s penchant for the ocular close-up, meant that most of the time the TV screen was filled with close-ups of people’s noses. The basic plot is: bonkers Patrick Magee uses his powerful mind to take over a cat who does some murders for him for the most ridiculous of reasons (‘Don’t try to understand,’ says Magee at one point, and we should respect that) and then rebels against its master, particularly after he tries to hang it. It’s actually not a bad film at all (but remember that JLP is writing this and he has a predilection for this kind of stuff), with that curious Euro-horror view of England as a place of open tombs in the middle of fields and fog-strewn graveyards (beautifully lit by the way). There’s some marvellous dialogue (“Could be worse,” says Detective David Warbeck to Sergeant Al at one point, “It could be chicken rustling”), and Daniela Doria does indeed once again end up naked and horribly dead, this time by suffocation and then being eaten by rats. Most amazing of all is Fulci’s direction of the cat which is quite incredibly good for a low budget film, especially if anyone remembers what a balls-up Denis Heroux did with multiple moggies in The Uncanny. You will believe a cat can unlock a door! Pino Donaggio’s music score is great, and reminiscent of the other impressive work he was doing at the time with conductor Natale Massara for The Howling & Dressed to Kill. I was hesitant about rewatching this but it’s a lot of shameless Euro fun.

It! (UK 1966)
Directed by Herbert J Leder

I had wanting to see this 1966 British golem movie for about 30 years, ever since I bought the Alan Frank book ‘Monsters and Vampires’ from Octopus Publishing and saw the stills of both that and its Gold Star produced double-billed companion The Frozen Dead. For now Dana Andrews and his reanimated Nazis will have to wait for another day but it was a pleasure to finally catch up with it this. Having waited so long to see it I had expected to be disappointed, or perhaps mildly entertained by some mid-60s horror antics, but It! exceeded all my expectations and has to be one of the most brilliantly barmy pieces of British exploitation I have ever seen. So I feel it my duty to direct fans of such insanity to this top quality way of wasting 96 minutes.

Not that you’d perhaps expect it from the first hour or so, which features a bravura performance from Roddy McDowell (who on the basis of this really was wasted acting under a rubber ape mask for the next 8 years) as mad museum curator Arthur Pimm who lives with his long-dead mummified mother, fancies Jill Haworth (her best film which isn’t saying much but she’s..er..displayed here to better effect than in either Haunted House of Horror or Tower of Evil.) and discovers he can reactivate the statue of the golem, even though it kills a couple of people before he performs the necessary ritual that brings it to life. But that’s par for the course in a film that says one thing one minute, then seems to discard the idea and do something completely contradictory the next, until fifteen minutes from the end. Then the film suddenly goes completely bonkers with McDowell driving a hearse containing the golem, his mummified mother and kidnapped Jill Haworth in her nightie into a country house where he proceeds to set fire to an old woman. The might of the British army is called in (well, six of them) and when old faithfuls like an anti-tank missile bounce off the golem now standing guard at the gates (Golem Indestructible! Artillery Like Peashooter!, the newspaper headline caption helpfully explains- the same newspaper in fact that has the headline ‘Golem Curse Continues!’ before any of the historical experts have actually identified it as such) the powers that be take the perfectly rational step of deciding to set off a nuclear bomb which flattens the house & Mr McDowell but not the golem who then decides to sod this film for a laugh and walks off into a convenient sea. The End. Cue the music, which throughout the movie is almost note-for-note the score composer Carlo Martelli wrote for Hammer’s Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb two years before. Add in a cameo from legendary zombie hunter Ian McCulloch and the golem’s random destruction of Hammersmith Bridge under the direction of McDowell in the belief it will get Jill to shag him (and why not? As Barry Norman apparently never actually said) and it’s probably best to watch this sober. If you’re still not sure then to summarise you will like this film if you like:

Movies about statues in museums that come to life
Movies in which the lead character is raving mad
Movies in which Jill Haworth has no clothes on
Movies with a host of bit part actors from other Britcrud, eg Noel "Corruption" Trevarthen and Ernest "Dr in the House TV Series" Clark
Movies with lines like "I'm going to take her to America with me" "But you can't do that - she's English!"
Movies in which a common or garden gorblimey English workman says lines like "Looks like some primitive God of wrath or somethin' - look at the 'ate in its face!"

To be honest I don’t know why this wasn’t a blockbuster. Go and give it the success it so truly deserves.