70's Foreign Horror Shorts

LA CABINA
(1972)
Dir - Antonio Mercero
Overall: GOOD

This Spanish production directed and co-written by Antonio Mercero first aired in December of 1972 in its native country, later getting rebroadcast by the BBC during the 80s.  La cabina, (The Telephone Box), is rather ingenious in design.  Full of what could be seen as anti-Fascist and degrowth symbolism, the film very cleverly skews such things while at the same time slowly morphing between one genre to another as it goes on.  The barren structure is a bit tedious at times, (there is very little that actually happens and one could argue that it is perhaps just a few minutes too long), but the deliberate way Mercero escalates dread as he begins to step away from the humorous start is quite engaging to say the least.  Played out almost in real time, once it is clear what the fate of our protagonist is, we realize it the moment he does and this becomes appropriately puzzling and terrifying.

LA FEMME QUI SE POUDRE

(1972)

Dir - Patrick Bokanowski

Overall: GOOD

 

The debut from French filmmaker Patrick Bokanowski, La femme qui se poudre, (The Woman Who Powders Herself), is impenetrably surreal.  An endlessly flowing stream of deliberately obscured visuals which mix live action and both conventional and stop-motion animation, the shots are difficult enough to decipher on a purely visual level let alone a contemplative one.  The soundtrack is void of dialog, but the score by Bokanowski's wife Michèle plays a pivotal role in establishing the quite menacing and strange tone.  Since there is no narrative cohesion or structure, it is a purely cinematic endeavor and there are some marvelously stark, captivating, and eerie images and sounds to take in.  Bokanowski's experimental work would continue in such challenging directions and though his initial offering here is frustrating in many respects, it is all the same admirable in its boldness and disturbed beauty.

A CHILD'S VOICE
(1978)
Dir - Kieran Hickey
Overall: GOOD

Though this is remarkably akin to the numerous BBC ghost stories that were regularly aired throughout the 60s and 70s, A Child's Voice was actually produced by a film studio in Dublin Ireland, BAC Films.  Since it fits so utterly perfectly with such things as England's A Ghost Story for Christmas entries, this also means that it is quite superb.  As the directorial debut, (and only short), from Irish born Kieran Hickey, it is also narrated by Valentine Dyall, the "British Vincent Price", a voice actor who was made famous for portraying the Man in Black on radio in the 1940s.  This is another one where no incidental music is used and it tells a very simple, open-ended, predictable, and highly spooky story that is made all the more chilling by the low-key manner in which it is presented.  It is really all in the delivery where these types of things are concerned and the perfect, very subtly foreboding mood effortlessly sells it here.

HARPYA
(1979)
Dir - Raoul Servais
Overall: GOOD

Belgium filmmaker/animator Raoul Servais' most celebrated short, Harpya is an amusing and interestingly made work.  It would win the Palme d'Or at Cannes that year and be the last short that he would make for nearly two decades.  Servais shot his actors in front of a velvet black backdrop and used multiplane film to then animate them in a deliberately jerky fashion, an understandably painstaking process that nevertheless comes off remarkably well.  Meanwhile, the backgrounds or "sets" are sparse and stylized in an equally half-photograph, half-cartoon manor.  Harpya is anything but scary, though it is eerie from a visual standpoint which qualifies it enough to be included in the horror camp.  The story uses the mythological harpy creature as an annoying and sinister "pet" who is relentlessly hungry and it plays out pretty funny without the use of any dialog.  Nothing to keep you up at night, but a pretty fun, creative outing to be sure.

70's American Horror Shorts

THE GRANDMOTHER
(1970)
Dir - David Lynch
Overall: GOOD

The third short from David Lynch was hist first to exceed a mere few seconds in length, The Grandmother being produced off a grant from the American Film Institute.  Working with sound designer Alan Splet for the first time, (who would later go on to collaborate with Lynch on Eraserhead, Dune, and Blue Velvet), and shooting the film himself, The Grandmother may be less iconic than Eraserhead, but it is as much a kindred spirit to the said, future AFI-funded film as can be imagined.  It is pure surreal cinema and pure Lynch in every regard.  There is no dialog, but the story is ambiguously conveyed through grotesque, disturbing sound effects and simple yet still ambitious visuals.  Even at this very early stage in his filmmaking career, Lynch was able to put images on the screen that defied genre classification and showed a remarkable knack for conveying a dreadful mood.  The only problem is that it is a little too slow and literally too dark at times, becoming very difficult to decipher what it is you are even looking at.  Still, it is David Lynch so you cannot really go wrong.

DAFFY DUCK AND PORKY PIG MEET THE GROOVIE GOOLIES

(1972)

Dir - Hal Sutherland

Overall: MEH

This installment in The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie series brings together Filmation's Groovie Goolies yuckfest and the Looney Tunes, the former of which was cancelled later in the year.  A rare collaborative effort for the Warner Bros. famed cartoon properties, said characters are sadly not an ideal fit for the groan-worthy escapades of their dated co-stars.  While writers Chuck Menville and Len Janson are largely to blame for their lame gags and jokes that only work if everyone on screen is as dumb as everyone watching, the stock laugh track is particularly ruining.  The Goolies program was grating at best because of these issues, but no one needs to see fake "audience" hysterics added to Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester, and the titular Daffy Duck and Porky Pig trying to do their thing.  At least Mel Blanc was still providing all of the voice work for the latter stable of beloved characters, though his timbre is unfortunately pitched higher for some of them, which pushes things into Alvin and the Chipmunks terrain.  A live action Goolies segment near the end is also something to take note of, but this is overall skippable silliness.

THE VIRGIN SACRIFICE
(1974)
Dir - J.X. Williams
Overall: GOOD

One of the most positively curious horror shorts floating around out there was made under the pseudonym J.X. Williams, (the same that Ed Wood used to pen pornographic novels), and the conflicting stories surrounding its existence are as weird as the movie itself.  The mere eight minutes and fifty-odd seconds of footage of The Virgin Sacrifice may be all that is left of an intended fuller length version that may or may not have been partially funded by Church of Satan affiliates and ALSO may or may not have involved copious amounts of drugs and Hell's Angels as part of the crew.  At the same token, none of that may be remotely true.  In any event, it begins hilariously enough as two women welcome their new roommate to their flat and beyond casually tell her that they worship the Devil and it is "the IN thing to do", (a direct quote).  The rest of the movie is nothing more than a surreal, Satanic fever dream with dancing naked, people, murder, animation, pentagrams, and fuck knows what else.  The less that's truly known about it, the more fascinating it is, but in any event, the whole "drugs playing a role" part is most likely very accurate.

WITHIN THE WOODS
(1978)
Dir - Sam Raimi
Overall: MEH

Notable as being technically the very first entry into the Evil Dead franchise, Within the Woods was a self-described prototype film made by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell to secure funding for what would become the first Evil Dead proper four years later.  After the movie was screened in a Detroit theater before a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and also after Raimi had begged and pleaded with anyone who would listen to him, the gamble paid off and the rest, (as the cliche goes), is history.  Watching it now, Within the Woods is a very rough experience.  Because it was shot on 8mm film and then later resized to 35mm, any existing prints you are likely to watch are nearly impossible to make out from a visual perspective.  The special effects are far more primitive than even in the initial Evil Dead, but a lot of the same ideas are executed well enough including the POV camera rig and gnarly sound design.  All would later be improved upon tenfold, but for completests who are prepared for the bare-bones, amateur version, then this is worth seeing.

70's Herschell Gordon Lewis

THE WIZARD OF GORE
(1970)
Overall: WOOF

Starting out the 1970s with one of the worst movies you could possibly make, (and it would only get worse), Herschell Gordon Lewis's The Wizard of Gore is powerless against its technical obstacles and almost mind-numbingly boring and asinine plot.  It of course would not be a HGL production without abysmal cinematography and acting, (both of which are leisurely present), but this could also be the most poorly edited movie yet made at the time.  The fact that the special effects are especially terrible only makes matters worse, but only from a technical level as you are bound to laugh at how clueless the entire production comes off, nearly pushing it into surreal territory.  The experience would be enhanced if it was just a non-stop mesh of scatterbrain cuts, several seconds of pitch blackness on screen, non-existent set design, unconvincing, bloody guts and dummy heads, every character repeating the exact same information in every scene that they are in, and a drunk cameraman.  Yet the combination of all of the above is an unforgiving chore to endure.  In all fairness, you could skip past the entire movie after the first ten minutes and miss absolutely nothing of importance.  You may not get an occasional chase of the chuckles that way, but at least you will not fall asleep either.

THIS STUFF'LL KILL YA!
(1971)
Overall: WOOF

Poor Tim Holt, (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Magnificent Ambersons), finished off his film career staring in This Stuff'll Kill Ya!, a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie that boldly tries the viewers patience like never before.  With only mere sprinklings of the director's trademark disgusting gore and just a thinly veiled "thriller" plot at best, the rest of the man's many exasperatingly awful cinematic stamps are given free reign to make the movie practically unwatchable.  This of course includes dialog that you can barely understand because no one is miked, the lifeless camera not being able to keep anyone in frame, and the cheapest possible set design.  Jeffery Allen is endlessly cringe-worthy as a con-man preacher who cannot get through a sentence without quoting the bible and at the same time making all his yee-haw squawking minions howl with atrociously fake laughter at his near every utterance.  The story could have made for an interesting one if any other filmmaker was handling the material since Lewis does not inject nearly enough of his charming ineptitude.  Oh it is inept alright, but instead of being in on its own bad joke while being loaded with enough vile, blood and guts drenched visuals to keep you invested, it is wretchedly dull and pointless at best and incredibly obnoxious at worst.

THE GORE GORE GIRLS
(1972)
Overall: WOOF

Herschell Gordon Lewis put a lid on his filmmaking career that would stay shut for thirty years afterwards with The Gore Gore Girls, arguably the most deliberately terrible movie out of his many terrible ones.  Adding to the mix of unattractive actors who are embarrassing themselves with every utterance of atrocious dialog that they are given and of course the hilarious technical incompetence, the "movie" fills up close to half of its ninety-five minute running time with strippers performing with the type of enthusiasm that comatose victims would easily one-up.  Thankfully though, Herschell Gordon Lewis seems to know how terrible of a movie he is making this time and plays it as a comedy first and foremost, with the forth-wall breaking and casting of Henny "Take my wife..please" Youngman being pretty hard to miss.  This is not to say that the film is remotely funny of course, at least in the intentional sense.  If anything, it is just as awkward as any of the Godfather of Gore's other works, but at least the combination of really ghastly violence and a story so shamefully dumb that it is inconsequential makes for a trainwreck of an experience and one that honestly gets so stupid that it is amusing here or there.  Which to begin with, is really the "best" you can hope for when it comes to a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie.

70's Asian Horror Part One

BLIND WOMAN'S CURSE
(1970)
Dir - Teruo Ishii
Overall: GOOD

This almost comically bizarre venture Blind Woman's Curse from Japan's "The King of Cult" Teruo Ishii is a jumble of slapstick comedy, yakuza film, ghost story, and the filmmaker's patented ero guro, (erotic grotesque), sub-genre.  Many of the characters spend a great deal of time saying things like "Who the hell are you?", "Who did this?", and "I never heard of you" and the confusion that befuddles them carries over to the audience watching such daftness.  With set pieces involving slow motion sword fighting, black cats licking skin tattoos removed from people's back, a traveling sideshow of zombies or something, a weird hunchback that also licks and bites things and can supernaturally leap backwards onto roof tops, an opium den, torture and gore, a ganglord who lets his bare, unbathed ass hang out in a loin cloth at all times, and the blind woman of the title who of course cannot be bested in combat, it is a pretty amusing mess to say the least.  It crosses into absurdity enough that it becomes difficult to tell what the intended experience was supposed to be, but it also transcends schlock while representing a positively entertaining curiosity amongst Asian cinema in general, one of the overall, many strange, cinematic exports from the Orient.

DEATH AT AN OLD MANSION
(1975)
Dir - Yoichi Takabayash
Overall: GOOD

A remarkably low-key whodunit, Death at an Old Mansion, (Honjin satsujin jiken), is filmmaker Yoichi Takabayash's adaptation of Seishi Yokomizo's mystery novel The Honjin Murders.  It poses a puzzling enough scenario where a locked room killing occurs to the befuddlement of family members and the law enforcement, yet the way the material is explored is quite stylish and deliberately paced.  Virtually the entire film takes place at one location, with numerous flashbacks fleshing out certain details that ultimately have more confusing light shown on them later.  Takabayash films everything very patiently though as the unexcitable cast calmly contemplates things.  The cinematography is quite lovely as is the musical score from none other than Nobuhiko Ôbayashi who would go on to make one of the most acclaimed avant-garde horror films of all time with Housu two years later.  Some of the plot points may be a bit too quirky or ill-defined to fully work, but everything still creates an eerie, ethereal tone even if supernatural components are ultimately not present.

UNDER THE BLOSSOMING CHERRY TREES
(1975)
Dir - Mashario Shinoda
Overall: GREAT

Japanese New Wave filmmaker Mashario Shinoda's Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees is a typical, tragic ghost story, the type of which dozens upon dozens were produced in the country and many of them excellently so.  Based on a story by Ango Sakaguchi and set during the Edo period, there is a barrage of themes explored here.  From the modern day, opening narration, it is clear that the clashing of eras is one of them, but those of class and certainly the sexes play an even bigger role as more things emerge.  All being under the backdrop of a deliberately ambiguous, supernatural tale, it is quite potent throughout.  The characters are never given names and the passage of time is left rather vague, with months if not years going by in various frames.  Horror movie wise, there are moments that are almost ridiculously macabre, but these are also balanced with creepy, utterly superb music and sound design, plus some equally outstanding cinematography.  The cherry trees of the title are gorgeous to behold, but are never once presented outside of a sinister context, reinforcing the questionable narrative and how the visuals are disguising something far different than what we are perceiving.

70's Mario Bava Part Two

HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON
(1970)
Overall: MEH

Following up the pretty lame giallo Five Dolls for an August Moon released the same year, Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon, (Il rosso segno della follia), is yet another subpar affair from the usually excellent director.  While there is no mystery at all as to who the killer is this time, (this is explained in the opening narration by the main antagonist), the one we are presented with instead involving a childhood trauma never picks up any much-needed momentum.  We are shown slight, ghostly flashbacks at random times, but the bizarre and very specific type of madness that inflicts the dashingly handsome Stephen Forsyth is not given enough screen time to really become enthralling.  This leaves only a handful of murder scenes that come off as too mundane, despite Bava utilizing his trusted and true, nifty camera tricks here or there.  The added element of a murdered spouse who stubbornly insists on haunting him is clever yes, but her motivation for doing so is glossed over, ending up being just another somewhat messy ingredient to the whole.  There is certainly some merit to Hatchet, but it is still more on the unremarkable side for Bava who would often take such thriller cliches to much more exciting terrain than here.

A BAY OF BLOOD
(1971)
Overall: MEH

What essentially amounts to "Everybody is horrible, the end", Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood, (Ecologia del delitto, Reazione a catena, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Carnage, and Blood Bath), was another giallo that wound up being wildly influential on the slasher genre.  Motifs such as the murder of young, carefree attractive people being naked and having sex plus the overall brutality of the killings themselves would be routinely adapted later on and for that reason, one could argue that this is the goriest overall Bava film.  It is also one of the more convoluted and frustratingly paced.  While it is certainly an interesting and odd choice to have virtually no music accompany any scene, Bava ultimately spends TOO much time building suspense and especially by the last act when random characters are showing up while it becomes almost impossible to keep anyone's purpose let alone identity straight, it is downright aggravating to watch people very, very slowly walk around in the dark when we know they are just going to get a big hunk of something sliced into their head at any second.  Then with the actual ending being positively ridiculous as if to convey that the entire movie was one big joke, the film is more of a curious entry into Bava's catalog than a good one

LISA AND THE DEVIL
(1974)
Overall: MEH

For his penultimate film released during his lifetime, Mario Bava was rewarded free reign by producer Alfredo Leone, but the result Lisa and the Devil, (El diablo se lleva a los muertos), is only partially successful.  Telly Savalas is a joy as a fiendishly conniving butler, confidently going about most of his scenes either talking to himself, singing, or sucking on a lollipop while all sorts of supernatural shenanigans are taking place around, (and most likely because of), him.  Bava could not make a movie of his look bad if he tried and the ideally sprawling, Gothic mansion where most of the movie takes place is eye popping in nearly every scene.  There are also some great, macabre visuals such as an entire dinner table adorned with almost comically creepy corpses.  The "huh?" story line is where things really fall apart though.  There are sinister reveals and enough appropriately cliche melodrama for such fare, but good luck trying to piece everything together as the plot is steadily perplexing.  Add a rather uncomfortable rape scene, (are any such scenes ever not uncomfortable?), and there are assuredly some elements that could have been improved upon if not removed all together.  The film was later re-cut with new footage for a more explicit, Exorcist cash-in called The House of Exorcism, but the version here is confusing enough as it is without all of the awkwardly forced nudity and gore.

70's Mario Bava Part One

FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON
(1970)
Overall: MEH

When going through the filmography of Mario Bava, one is inevitably bound to come across some of his rightfully forgotten works.  The giallo Five Dolls for an August Moon, (5 bambole per la luna d'agosto), was not even given an American release at the time and Bava himself allegedly saw no artistic merit in the finished product.  Proving that he could be hired to churn out a competently made if highly forgettable movie on a dime for a European studio though, (which countless other directors made a living doing), the result is probably one of the worst giallos ever or at the very least one of the dumbest.  Using the loose framework of Agatha Christi's And Then There Were None, the script here is baffling, boring, and moronic by film's end, leaving us with a barrage of uninteresting characters that allows it to be anything but engaging.  Bava of course does his best to make the film work at least from a visual standpoint which gives it a sole saving grace.  There are some flashy camera angles and stylized set design that he is able to make use out of, occasionally letting us forget how asinine the plot is.  Still, keep this one at the bottom of your list for such fare as there are oodles better out there.

BARON BLOOD
(1972)
Overall: MEH

Though it is fun at times due to its Gothic atmosphere and Mario Bava's usual, clever direction and cinematography which he once again mostly performed himself, Baron Blood, (Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga), cannot quite triumph over its volley of problems.  Even the gleefully macabre and enjoyable ending still cannot help but to present lazily bypassed plotholes which also show up on the regular for the entire running time.  All of these are there only to give the finished product a few more shocks as well as textbook, horror movie bullet points to check off, but the indifference to logic gets too laughably distracting.  As is confoundingly common, the musical score is either perfectly fitting or atrociously wrong for such a movie.  While there are too many similar offenders to count, you cannot possibly compose a more ridiculous theme for a work of horror that conveys the polar opposite mood than this.  Pacing wise, Bava drops the ball during the second half which is ironically where most of the murders take place, yet also where we are told about seven dozen times that a parchment was destroyed that cannot undue a curse.  Characters then walk from place to place occasionally acting cheerful and normal when so much murder is happening.  The good bits are pretty good as usual for a Bava movie, but such a thing is only as solid as its whole and Baron Blood just does not pull it all off.

RABID DOGS
(1974)
Overall: GOOD

Venturing into the poliziotteschi film genre for the first and only time in his long career, Mario Bava's Rabid Dogs, (Cani arrabbiati), is a fascinating work for a numerous reasons.  The movie was left incomplete at the time it was shot due to its producer and funder Roberto Loyola declaring bankruptcy, with the rights to it being left almost permanently in limbo.  While Bava never lived to see it released, decades later through various efforts including those of the filmmaker's son Lamberto, Rabid Dogs, (also shown as Semaforo rosso and Kidnapped), finally saw the light of day and it is like nothing else in his catalog.  Intentionally forgoing his Gothic, stylized horror efforts, the film is shown in real time, in broad daylight, and presents a claustrophobic, high tension, vile crime  atmosphere that is more nihilistic than anything else the director would ever attempt.  It is the only of Bava's works that really has any kind of political commentary, portraying the Years of Lead period in Italy as a thoughtfully bleak one where no one is a good guy.  Though it is still a plenty dramatic enough yarn, (based off of Michael J. Carroll's short story "Man and Boy" that appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine), and has a twist that is one for the books, the realism and stripped-down presentation is ambitious in and of itself while it shows a dynamic side to Bava that is quite impressive.

70's Jesús Franco Part Three

EUGENIE...THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION
(1970)
Overall: MEH

Fittingly adapting the work of Marquis de Sade at the very turn of the 60s into the 70s when such hedonistic subject matter and perverse sexuality was fortifying itself in much of European cinema, Jess Franco's Eugenie...the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion, (Eugenie de Sade, De Sade 2000, Eugenie de Franval, Eugenie Sex Happening, Eugenia, or just Eugenie), was the second such de Sade title that he brought to the screen.  The first was the previous year's Marquis de Sade: Justine, also with Maria Rohm as well as Jack Palance of all blokes.  This was also the last collaboration between the Spanish filmmaker and Christopher Lee, the latter of whom apparently became appalled the the finished product was shown exclusively in London's "blue" district, essentially meaning porn theaters.  Of course watching it particularly by today's standards, it hardly qualifies as pornographic and if anything, the overt sadism in de Sade's original text is quite toned down.  In that regard, the movie rather poorly conveys its subject matter, being the complete corruption of an innocent girl, (who in the novel was anything but innocent from the get-go), as her ultimate, evil about-face comes off kind of sudden and sloppy.  Though it is photographed better than most Franco productions, there are the usual problems of drab pacing, unsuitable music, and ultimately rather yawn-inducing sex scenes that take up lots of screen time.

THE DEMONS
(1973)
Overall: MEH

The early 70s were ripe with nunsploitation and witch trial films so rather hot off the tails of Ken Russell's The Devil's comes Jess Franco's non-union, French/Portugal equivalent The Demons.  The story could not be more predictable considering the source material and being both written and directed by Franco, it is a pretty preposterous story at that.  Women get accused of being witches and then forgotten about, they fall head over heals in love with multiple men at a time, and everyone is so sexually repressed that all of their on-again/off-again morals come off as impossibly messy.  This latter element may be somewhat of the point, but it still makes for an unintentionally goofy presentation where it seems more important to make everyone be whatever cliche is necessary at that particular time than anything else.  Also typical of a Franco film, the nudity, (which there is a consistent stream of), provides one of the most boring parts with more women kissing and fondling each other's rare ends when they are not writhing around on a bed and moaning.  To say that these frequent moments get in the way of the plot is not really that fair since such exploitative, skin-exposed nonsense is as much if not more so the selling point as anything.  Still, Franco knocks out a quick, easy cash-in here as he was beyond competently able to do during his prime.

LORNA THE EXORCIST
(1974)
Overall: MEH

Teetering heavily on the verge of being legitimate pornography, Lorna the Exorcist, (Les possédées du diable), was Jesús Franco's sleazy, exploitative version of Faust more or less, with the "Exorcist" tag being thrown in there merely as a typical European cash-grab to bank off of William Friedkin's mega-huge The Exorcist released the previous year.  The sex scenes are mostly as dull as ever for a Franco film, but the mere abundance of them, the heavily padded plot, (including a long flashback sequence that relays the exact same information that was just painstakingly explained to us via exposition in the scene before), and that fact that at least the women here are actually having sex on screen with full genitalia and all, certainly qualifies it as more than simply an erotic horror movie.  Franco spices it up a little bit by going full-tilt into the bizarre though.  There is incest between Lina Romay and more than one of her parents, including her "mother" feeding her her breasts while calling her her sweet daughter.  Then she does things with a dildo as well as monthly bodily fluids that no one let alone a parent should be doing to anyone let alone their kin.  Another memorably ridiculous moment involving real life crabs takes place on a part of a woman's body that you can easily predict.  Elsewhere, Franco is still hardly much a story teller and it is technically another hodgepodge of tons of zooms, uninspired cinematography, and tedious music, just with more uncomfortable sexuality than one would prefer.

70's Jean Rollin Part Two

REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE
(1971)
Overall: MEH

The forth film in a row to involve vampires, naked women, and abandoned ruins and chateaus, Jean Rollin's Requiem for a Vampire, (Requiem pour un Vampire), sufferers too much from the director's customary, lackadaisical pacing to truly stand as one of his better works.  That said, it has plenty of the filmmaker's other wonderful, curious trademarks on display.  There are shots of hands protruding out of the stone walls, robed skeletons standing in a church, bats eating out a woman's vagina, (or something), two women dressed as clowns in a high-speed shoot out, a piano being played outside in the middle of a wooded area, and almost childish visuals with vampires opening up their red capes and revealing their silly, awkward looking fangs.  Rollin was often a fan of fusing some of these campy, horror cliches as well as preposterous dialog with copious amounts of eerie, tranquil scenery, nudity, and a dab or two of nasty violence, making the whole thing that much more odd to behold.  For nearly the first thirty minutes here though, nothing seems to be happening and random sex, rape, and torture scenes slow things down even further later on.  It is still frequently fascinating, just a step or two down from some of his more commendable movies.

DEMONIACS
(1974)
Overall: MEH

Jean Rollin's follow-up to his first non-vampire film The Iron Rose continued in that vein with Demoniacs, (Les Démoniaques).  Wrought with the usual budgetary problems as well as some non-ideal casting choices allegedly, Rollin attempted a fairytale-esque adventure film that appealed to his more youthful exuberance from reading pirate stories and the like when he was a kid.  That mixed with even more nudity and violence than usual.  As with every movie from the director, Demoniacs has a number of surreal, notable moments, the best of which is probably in a pub adorned with Halloween decorations where a mad Captain hallucinates and sees the ghosts of the two young women he may or may not have just killed.  Another steadfast Rollin motif of a woman in clown make-up also shows up and there are more vague, unimportant religious symbolism that further baffles and enthralls in equal measure.  Elsewhere, too much rape and boring sex scenes plod everything down and while the ending makes as much sense as any for a Rollin movie, (meaning none at all), it is still a bit underwhelming.  Not without its merit here and there, Demoniacs' imperfections unfortunately render it a missed opportunity of sorts.

THE GRAPES OF DEATH
(1978)
Overall: MEH

Made before George Romero's Dawn of the Dead dropped, Jean Rollin's quasi-answer to the zombie film was The Grapes of Death, (Les Raisins de la Mort).  While it is an interesting enough take on the sub-genre, (there are no reanimated corpses here, just infected people who lapse in and out of mindlessly violent outbursts), it is structured very much like your typical, apocalyptic zombie film with characters on the run, growing paranoid, and consistently hiding from all of the crazies after them.  The budget is sparse yet effectively utilized, the simple make-up is more pus-like than bloody, and the deserted village and countryside that the movie takes place in elevates the doomsday feel.  Being a Rollin film of course, it drags along at large intervals with only a small handful of set pieces and lots of slowly-walking-around-moments in between.  The conclusion is sadly very weak as well, forcefully undoing the would-be happy ending with an unnecessary and rather dumb final moment of unpleasantness.  Rare for a Rollin movie, there is even some mild social commentary on hand and honestly it is a bit disappointing that Grapes of Death is so straightforward.  The tone may be low-key and the pacing as deliberate as ever, but the dreamlike, truly bizarre aura of most of Rollin's work is far more lacking.  It is a step in a different direction for the filmmaker, but also one that does not play to the man's strengths as much as it should.

70's Jean Rollin Part One

THE NUDE VAMPIRE
(1970)
Overall: GOOD

Jean Rollin's sophomore effort and first film in color, The Nude Vampire, (La Vampire Nue), is more ambitious than his debut Le Viol du Vampire though still as leisurely absurd as any of his works.  Very common for a Rollin film of course, the pacing is pretty stagnant throughout.  Characters routinely say things like "all will be revealed to you another time" instead of just explaining things when they have the opportune time.  The film pretty much revolves around Rollin's half-brother Olivier looking like a kid who is excited to be in a movie, going from one scene to the next while being told that he will be told what is going on eventually.  It is all nonsense primarily and gets more ridiculous as it goes on, but it is also breathtakingly weird at regular intervals.  Not one but two bizarre, creepy cults partake of standing around in animal masks and hoods, walking about a chateau either naked or in robes while holding candles, plus the Castel twins wear outfits made of glass.  As usual, the very slow presentation and nonexistent interest in telling a clever story can either enhance or hinder the experience depending on the audience member, but it is assuredly a textbook example of Rollin's singular and at the very least unusual, auteur style.

THE IRON ROSE
(1973)
Overall: MEH

Finally breaking the erotic vampire mold, Jean Rollin made his most deliberately placid and inconclusive movie, (saying something), with the exceptionally lethargic The Iron Rose, (La Rose de Fer).  Outside of an early scene at a normal enough wedding reception and a few strange cameos including a clown putting flowers on a grave and Rollin himself as a questionable looking hobo, the film only features two actors and one location, a gargantuan, labyrinth like cemetery in Amiens, France.  A knowing gamble was taken since Rollin himself has gone on record as saying that he knew the movie would be a commercial disaster, but as always, he took his non-existent budget and concocted something truly dreamlike and unapologetically strange.  While the man's dedication to his own eccentric, art-house whims are routinely admirable, so little actually happens in The Iron Rose that it inescapably becomes a chore to sit through after awhile.  Any moments of menace are so subtle that they may in fact not even be there.  It is wholly possible that the viewer could be imagining that the movie is more intricate and creepy than it actually is.  Still, there is sensational beauty to be found here as with most of the director's works.  The opening, (and especially re-occurring), sequences of Françoise Pascal naked on a beach and the camera exploring the vast graveyard at night, (and not shot in day-for-night as many films of the day were), are wondrous to be sure, but it goes a little too far in its ambiguity to maintain one's full attention.

LIPS OF BLOOD
(1975)
Overall: GREAT

The first of Jean Rollin's films that could fairly be called a masterpiece, (at least by erotic, Euro-horror standards), was his return to vampirism in Lips of Blood, (Lèvres de Sang).  Rollin's movies were always deliberately paced, void of any noticeably budget whatsoever, and nonsensical.  Yet at his best, he was able to transcend these would-be shortcomings into something rather hypnotic and enticing.  It also always helped when he was benefited with extraordinary locations to shoot in.  Utilizing both contemporary Paris, graveyards, crypts, abandoned buildings, castles, and villas, Lips of Blood has beautiful scenery in nearly every shot.  Any moment that take place in apartment buildings or standard, boring rooms are shot in such a flat, brightly lit manner, making the dark, bleak shadows of all the truly eye-popping settings that much more visually remarkable.  This is also that very rare Rollin work where the story is downright comprehensible, though he still takes great liberties in having a number of moments remain unexplained by film's end.  The final sequence involving naked people, a coffin, and the rising tide under a gloomy dawn is the kind of highly memorable and strange visual tapestry that the best of art-house horror has to offer.  Rollin would transcend even what he accomplished here in a few later releases, but this unquestionably ranks among his finest.

70's Lucio Fulci

A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN
(1971)
Overall: MEH

Lucio Fulci's second giallo A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, (Una lucertola con la pelle di donna, Carole, Schizoid, and also released as a hardcore version in France five years later called Les Salopes vont en Enfer), is ripe with memorable, elaborate visuals that nearly compensate for the preposterous, melodramatic story.  There is no time wasted as the first act contains a series of surreal, acid-laced dream sequences full of naked people, ghoulish figures, blood and guts, and lesbian shenanigans.  Even once the film settles into a conventional giallo by numbers murder mystery, there is still a number of thoroughly Italian set-pieces that are hilariously bizarre.  The most infamous is a moment where a bunch of live dogs are hung up in a laboratory with their stomachs ripped open and vital organs exposed, a scene which is never explained nor brought up again.  It also spawned a real life criminal investigation as Fulci and his special effects supervisor Carlo Rambaldi had to testify and prove in court that they did not actually mutilate real animals for the shot.  While it is somewhat refreshing that it does not end with the standard, heart-racing murder chase where we finally see the killer's true identity for the first time, sadly the last act is still pretty dull as characters have to explain the plot out loud to other characters in long, boring monologues.

DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING
(1972)
Overall: MEH

Two giallos in a row, the appropriately titled Don't Torture a Duckling, (Non si sevizia un paperino), once again saw Lucio Fulci working with screenwriter Roberto Gianviti, switching to rural, southern Italy where of course murders are happening that present everyone as a suspect and continually confound the authorities.  This one is noteworthy for introducing the type of nasty violence that Fulci's later film's would become highly renowned for.  Though the gore level may be comparatively less prominent than later releases, it is still unpleasantly violent and sleazy as we see a woman get brutally beaten to death and another one blatantly tease a young boy whilst fully nude.  It is the type of misogynistic and exploitative stuff that was often common in such European commodities of the day and it gets a laugh now for how in bad taste it is.  The plot is very standard of the giallo genre and kind of a bore because of it, depending on how much of a fan one is.  Characters get posed as suspects so early on that of course it cannot ever be that simple, so there is little to no suspense when the movie presents these people as such.  By the time you are at the ending, there is hardly anyone left and the script kind of goes with an easy twist, all things considered.  Of course, what giallo would be complete without wildly clashing music, Riz Ortolani's lush, romantic score here naturally playing over some of the most brutal murder scenes?

SETTE NOTE IN NERO
(1977)
Overall: GOOD

Working again with screenwriters Roberto Gianviti and Dardano Sacchetti, both of whom he collaborated with several times before and since, Lucio Fulci's Sette note in nero, (Seven Notes In Black, The Psychic, Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes, Death Tolls Seven Times), is probably the director's strongest, straight-forward giallo.  Revolving around a clairvoyant woman who can see the past, present, and future though not necessarily positive of which time-frame she is having visions of, it gives the film a solid and unique enough premise to put the mystery together, differentiating itself from others in the genre.  There are some hokey moments of bringing back vital dialog in voice over at crucial scenes just in case the audience are morons, plus at least one gargantuan plot hole happens near the end where a man is left severely injured in an abandoned church only to find himself fully diagnosed, bandaged, and taken care of in a hospital mere moments later it seems.  Yet aside from these kind of goofy details, the script unveils its secrets excellently and Fulci and cinematographer Sergio Salvati keep everything visually enticing.  For a Fulci movie, it is very low on gore and utterly absent of any sexually-charged imagery, but it needs neither of these things to keep it on the higher end of such Italian thrillers.

ZOMBI 2
(1979)
Overall: GOOD

Outside of his initial giallos, Lucio Fulci's first bonafide horror film was Zombie 2, (Sanguella, The Island of the Living Dead, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Zombie: The Dead Walk Among Us, Gli Ultimi Zombi, Woodoo, L'Enfer de Zombies, Zombie 2: The Dead Are Among Us, Nightmare Island, and just Zombie). A typical, Italian cash-in/unofficial Euro-sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, it has held up as one of the quintessential walking corpse movies in its own right. While the story follows a coherent structure, it is as illogically silly as any other film of its kind.  There is a graveyard full of conquistadors that rise up JUUUUUUST at the moment our main characters happen to take five there, a brilliantly ridiculous zombie vs. shark fight, (why was that zombie there to begin with?), and the usual question as to why some recently dead were left lying around without bullet holes in their heads to keep them from coming up while others were bulleted immediately.  Lest we forget, why would our heroes make a last stand in a building they willingly set fire to with themselves still in it when they then simply leave out the back and jump on a boat anyway?  Just as he would in his "Gates of Hell" trilogy, Fulci's zombies move at a typical snails pace and nearly every character who gets bit by them could have easily NOT gotten bit by them, simply by side-stepping a tad.  All this aside though, it is still a lot of damn fun.