1970s British Horror Part Thirteen

PERSECUTION
(1974)
Dir - Don Chaffey
Overall: MEH

When a thriller only poses a half-assed mystery at best and that mystery is not even the least bit interesting, you know you have a problem.  It is also not a very pleasant idea to open your movie with a young boy drowning a cat in milk before an excruciating "let's get on with it already" opening title sequence over children singing "Good King Wenceslas" that seems to go on for centuries.  More complications than this derail Don Chaffey's Persecution, (also released as Sheba, The Terror of Sheba, and The Graveyard throughout the years), which is probably one of the most lame-scripted, badly-paced psychological horror films ever made.  The plot is all over the place, having characters be conniving villains and then helpless victims at the drop of a dime with hardly anyone's actions making any sense.  Poor Lana Turner, (in a role she fairly considered one of her worst), is practically humiliated on camera near the end as she is forced to meow and behave like a cat.  It remains unfocused throughout the entire film though just what in the hell her problem is to begin with.  Because both her and on-screen son Ralph Bates are playing such poorly written characters, we feel absolutely nothing for either of them with the breakdown and torment of both just becoming straight-up boring to watch.

SATAN'S SLAVE
(1976)
Dir - Norman J. Warren
Overall: MEH

Norman J. Warren's first horror film and the first to be independently funded by his and former cameraman Les Young's production company Monument Pictures had a working, appropriate title of Evil Heritage which was changed to the more crowd-enticing Satan's Slave by distributors.  It is a common example of many occult themed, 70s horror outings where posh, upper class socialites act out their devil worshiping shenanigans, this time operating more on the traditional, "direct decedent" angle where sacrifices, resurrections, and blah blah blah have to be made.  The filmmakers chose to shoot additional, more ghastly scenes once the film was first cut, omitting much of the expository dialog that they found redundant.  This pushes Satan's Slave squarely into the exploitation vein as it is chock full of nudity, very nasty violence, and sadomasochism towards women.  Which are all hallmarks of such cinema to be sure.  Michael Gough was a sport and agreed to appear for less than his normal fee and it is certainly fun to see him giving praise to Satan while wearing a red robe and a wicked goat mask.  The script is rather juvenile as one would expect as it is easy to lose count of how many times the unnecessarily cockamamie scheme of Gough's character could have went wrong.  Plus Candace Glendenning's main heroine falls for the "I must've had a bad dream" ploy far too frequently and easily.  All that said, it would be a lie to say it does not present an adequate amount of unholy, goofy fun.

MURDER BY DECREE
(1979)
Dir - Bob Clark
Overall: MEH

The last foray that Bob Clark would take into semi-horror was with the unique Sherlock Holmes/Jack the Ripper hybrid Murder By Decree, a co-production by both England and Canada that was based somewhat on The Ripper File by Elwyn Jones and John Lloyd as well as Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution by Stephen Knight.  It is a frustrating film that muddles its tone too much, features a ramshackle plot, and is way too long.  The latter element being the most prominent shortcoming as the unnecessary length only hurts the end result further. Clark makes wonderful use out of his small, fog-ridden, late 19th century London sets though and he still displays a knack for menacing visuals such as the Ripper's stone black eyes and mysterious, slow motion horse and cart.  The cast is without flaw as Christopher Plummer and James Mason make a fine Holmes and Watson when they are humorously playful with each other at least.  Elsewhere, Holmes is rather uneven and comes off bafflingly emotional at the worst times when the script is getting even more confusing.  The movie then goes on for twenty more minutes longer than it should have and only gets more "huh?" from there.  It is a shame as a more consistently funny, user-friendly adaptation would have worked far better from the evidence presented here.  Instead, all of the added ambition pretty much undoes what actually works.

1970s British Horror Part Twelve

DARK PLACES
(1974)
Dir - Don Sharp
Overall: MEH

Don Sharp was a bit uneven as a director, having made a couple of OK to good films in the horror vein plus a few unremarkable ones as well.  Dark Places is one in the OK variety.  A small yet fully recognizable cast starting with the top-billed Christopher Lee and Joan Collins, Czech born character actor Herbert Lom, (Hammer's Phantom of the Opera, Jess Franco's Count Dracula, Mark of the Devil, The Dead Zone), and Robert Hardy, (Berserk!, Psychomania, Demons of the Mind, and Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter franchise), the film has some potential with a simple plot device of a dead, rich guy who left all his money hidden in a haunted house that every character is after.  It is almost creepy in a couple of scenes, but Sharp does not film nearly enough of it in any kind of creative manner.  The textbook script just kind of goes along in a predictable manner even if the angle of jumping from past to present in a single scene is still a nifty idea.  It is not a poor production and the script by Ed Brennan and Joseph Van Winkle is fairly tight.  That said, it is just pretty ordinary and instead of building on a potential, spooky atmosphere, it plays the psychological elements too straightforward to really grab you.

LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF
(1975)
Dir - Freddie Francis
Overall: MEH

The smaller Tyburn Films scored Freddie Francis, Peter Cushing, and screenwriter Anthony Hinds for their rather unnecessary re-working of Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf, here changed to Legend of the Werewolf.  Both films were based off of the Guy Endore, 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris, feature nearly identical make-up design.  Hinds also scripted each one, making the similarities between this and the Oliver Reed-stared film from fourteen years prior unmistakable.  Each movie suffers from far too little on-screen wolfman time as well as a too familiar story that even tweaked significantly as it is here in some parts, still comes off as predictably as can be.  This is not to say that a decent production cannot be made out of wholly recognizable horror cliches as many of these British studios alone had been essentially making the same handful of movies over and over again for decades at this point.  While Cushing is always quite marvelous and gets enough to do here and Francis tries to spice things up with some red-tinted POV shots, the derivative and nature simply cannot elevate it above just being another OK werewolf movie.

TERROR
(1978)
Dir - Norman J. Warren
Overall: MEH

Shot independently with the revenue made from Norman J. Warren's previous Satan's Slave, (and utilizing one of the same locations from said film), the bluntly titled Terror was a deliberately stupid, supernatural giallo-channeling hodgepodge.  The film cannot really decide if it wants to be straight Gothic horror, a simple "who dunnit", a haunted house movie, or a colorful, extravagant Italian slasher so by attempting to be all of the above, it is assuredly messy.  It is no accident that it comes off as a second-rate Suspiria at times, with Warren and screenwriter David McGillivray, (who also worked with Pete Walker on House of Whipcord and House of Mortal Sin), intentionally borrowing as much surface level elements from Dario Argento's masterpiece as they can.  The result is thoroughly less successful of course, but Terror is the type of movie where if you give in to its utter disregard for coherency, it is passably enjoyable.  Still, everything is simplified to the point where it becomes rather silly.  Several scenes are pointless, hardly any of the murders are necessary, sometimes they appear supernatural and other times they do not, there are random characters that serve no purpose at all, the editing is confused, the cinematography uneven, and the ending falls a bit short of being as creepy as it was intended. 

1970s British Horror Part Eleven

GOODBYE GEMINI
(1970)
Dir - Alan Gibson
Overall: MEH

Deviating itself quite a bit in structure and tone from Jenni Hall's Ask Agamemmon novel for which it it based, Goodbye Gemini is a strange, occasionally annoying thriller in the vein of others near the turn of the 60s which portrayed London's bohemian counter culture as unflatteringly as possible.  Whether it was intended or not, the film is loaded from top to bottom with unlikable characters.  The young hippies are spoiled, violent brats and the older gentleman are either sleazy, sexual deviants or in Michael Redgrave's case, (in one of his last roles), they just appear to be bored.  It does not help that at the heart of the cinematic version of the story, the incestuous relationship between the twins takes center stage instead of the more interesting, tripped out, non-linear dream sequences of the novel that more underplayed the exploitative elements.  Alan Gibson would go on to direct the last two Christopher Lee Dracula films for Hammer, but aside from a few decent moments that serve as exceptions, there is not enough style over substance with Gemini to lift it over its rather abundant, unpleasant qualities.

TOWER OF EVIL
(1972)
Dir - Jim O'Connolly
Overall: MEH

The only redeemable elements to Jim O'Connolly's Tower of Evil are many of the visual ones as the film has some nice, atmospheric sets, gruesome murders, and slimy, decomposed corpses for us to look at.  The opening is somewhat promising as well since the movie's setting is properly introduced in the most creepy of ways.  Very sadly though, the story itself is insultingly moronic.  A slasher movie with all of the stupid, stupid cliches in full-throttle, this is the type of crap where nearly everything that happens shows a severe lack of sound judgement on the character's, (and screenwriter's), part.  Everyone suspects a maniac is running about so characters wonder around by themselves, (unarmed of course), split up at the dumbest possible time, (unarmed of course), tell each other their imagination is playing tricks on them when they claim to see something, decide to bone each other while all of this is going on, laugh manically when they find hidden treasure, keep vital information from each other, and of course the mongoloid killer is astronomically proficient at outsmarting nearly everyone until the end.  You could say more about it, but really why bother?

NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT
(1973)
Dir - Peter Sasdy
Overall: MEH

Promising to a point yet sloppily handled in several respects, Peter Sasdy's Nothing But the Night, (The Devil's Undead), is another Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee staring vehicle where the two wonderful actors at least share plenty of scenes together.  The bulk of the film is rather dull.  There is a mystery as to who is killing a bunch of people, Lee and Cushing are there to uncover said mystery, and it goes on for quite a long time before the movie almost inexplicably unveils the true agenda of its premise for an awkward finish.  What ends up happening is quite sinister on paper, but there lies the problem since in the actual execution, it is a botched effort.  Clumsy editing equipped with the tedious nature of the pacing in general makes the creepy reveal more "huh?" than anything.  It springs up rather suddenly, with characters discovering it even more randomly as things only get more curious from there since the final scene is a conflicting mess of what should be disturbing yet is instead rather goofy and weird.  There are some nice, sinister twists and the talent is certainly present, (Sasdy made Countess Dracula after all and again, Lee and Cushing), but it is still unmistakably flawed.

1970s British Horror Part Ten

INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED
(1970)
Dir - Robert Hartford-Davis
Overall: MEH

Incense for the Damned, (also released as Bloodsuckers, Freedom Seeker, and Doctors Wear Scarlet), is a mess of a film, one that ran out of money midway through and had to resume shooting at a later date with a new director, new actors, and new scenes to accommodate the situation.  It certainly shows as it becomes very clear just where the production had to change the entire movie they were making.  The primary chunk of it takes place in Greece and follows a single, linear thread, but then the film appears to end about thirty minutes early and the last act seems awkwardly tagged on since that was exactly what it was.  Peter Cushing is wasted, only appearing in a single scene at the beginning and then again later on in a far more perplexing fashion.  The entire script never explains itself properly and gets more haphazardly handled as it goes on.  There is some dated, trippy orgy scenes near the beginning and a couple rather lame action moments, but the rest of the movie goes virtually nowhere and just features people talking, talking some more, talking some more after than, and then occasionally behaving irrationally towards each other while still talking a lot.

THE FLESH AND BLOOD SHOW
(1972)
Dir - Pete Walker
Overall: MEH

Though Pete Walker had directed the thriller Die Screaming, Marianne the year before, The Flesh and Blood Show can more properly be seen as his first bona fide horror film.  There is plenty of nudity right out of the gate to fit the sexploitation label appropriately and the script by Alfred Shaughnessy establishes to a tee the "old crazy people vs. the attractive youth of England" motif that Walker would routinely use.  The plot is void of the director's typical, tongue-in-cheek morality themes though and instead it is just a straight slasher outing where someone is picking off young, good looking people while we are just waiting to find out who it is.  While it occasionally seems that Walker is giving us red herrings as one is supposed to do with this type of fare, he does not play that angle enough and because of this, the mystery is resolved very predictably as well as unsatisfyingly.  Up until the final reveal, (which was initially presented in 3-D in theaters), it is just a bunch of naked boobs and people getting scared really.  Walker would do far better and interesting work with these themes over his next several movies, but for completists, it is worth a look.

THREE DANGEROUS LADIES
(1977)
Dir - Robert Fuest/Alvin Rakoff/Don Thompson
Overall: WOOF

Most horror anthologies, (particularly ones produced in England in the 1970s), were not only comprehensively solid but more often than not they represented some of the finest cinematic horror ever seen, with Amicus' marvelous series of films particularly coming to mind.  Three Dangerous Ladies on the other hand, bletch.  Each segment was originally part of a 1975 UK television program called Classics Dark and Dangerous that ultimately proved short-lived for reasons that become apparent upon viewing the collection put together here.  Even with some solid talent on hand such as actors Keir Dullea, (2001: A Space Odyssey), Charles Gray, (The Devil Rides Out, The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Glynis Johns, (Vault of Horror), John Hurt, and Dr. Phibes director Robert Fuest, the best Three Ladies can muster is in its first story "Mrs. Amworth" which is just a thoroughly unmemorable, poorly written vampire yarn.  The two that follow it are aggressively worse.  "The Island" is enormously boring and has a underwhelming, head-scratchingly stupid ending while "The Mannikin" has some truly awful, awful music, confused editing, and a surprisingly terrible performance from Nashville's Ronee Blakley.

1970s British Horror Shorts Part One

SALOME

(1973)

Dir - Clive Barker

Overall: MEH

 

Made in Liverpool when he was a mere teenager, Clive Barker's Salome was an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play of the same name in the loosest sense of the term.  A textbook experimental student art film in the vein of so many others, it plays out in intentionally super-grainy black and white, without dialog, and brimful of bizarre images that young energetic filmmakers would find profound.  This is not anything to make fun of per se, in fact the contrary; Barker and his crew of friends, (which also includes future Pinhead Doug Bradley), get by on their amateur charm more than anything else.  That said, it is a primitive effort that while managing to succeed with a few striking visuals, does not come off as a benchmark of avant-garde cinema.  That is unfair to expect of it though, and any horror connoisseur who would logically also be a Barker fan would be doing themselves a disservice by not seeking out this and its similar follow-up The Forbidden.

 

APACHES
(1977)
Dir - Neville Smith
Overall: GOOD
 
A government commissioned PFI, (public information film), made for the Central Office of Information and Health and Safety Executive, Apaches is meant to showcase the dangers of children playing unsupervised in a farm, something that must have been a point of concern at the time.  Six kids partake of cowboys and Indians while meeting gruesome ends, all with no adult narration and minimal musical accompaniment.  This gives it an eerie intimacy, and the cast of non-actors, (all of whom where chosen from a local school in Maidenhead, Berkshire), sell the material accordingly, staying in character as they use their imagination while falling into sudden danger and soldiering on, too young to comprehend the magnitude of their friend's demises.  There were several such educational films made at the time, but this one is more atmospheric than explicitly academic, letting its sobering images sink in more than any overt commentary would. 

 

PANIC

(1978)
Dir - James Dearden
Overall: GOOD

The second short feature from James Dearden was the seventeen-minute Panic, (literally "on the streets of London", nyuck nyuck), which would later be remade by Sean Ellis in 2001, again as short and titled Left Turn.  Speaking of Dearden and speaking of remakes, he would follow this one up with the cold semi-thriller Diversion, which would likewise get turned into Fatal Attraction seven years later.  Most likely based on an urban legend and utilizing the well-established and often effective premise of "picking up hitchhikers = scary", this one has some misdirects as Dearden leads the viewer down one or two different roads, (pardon the pun), as to what creepy doings are transpiring.  That said, the final sequence is easily foreseeable, yet it is also well done, bringing in more welcome and inconclusive supernatural elements that leave the viewer with a nice creeped-out feeling, as is appropriate.

A Ghost Story for Christmas Part Two

THE ASH TREE
(1975)
Dir - Lawrence Gordon Clark
Overall: GOOD

The final M.R. James adaptation done for the A Ghost for Christmas strand was The Ash Tree, yet another included in his 1904 collection Ghost Stories of Antiquary.  It is identically stylized just as the other Lawrence Gordon Clark directed installments were, playing out over virtually no dramatic music whatsoever and slowly becoming more and more otherworldly-centered as it goes on.  The then shortest in the run at only thirty-two minutes, it is one of the few that could benefit from a perhaps tighter screenplay.  Irish playwright David Rudkin's work is certainly decent enough, but it still feeling as if some core information is missing.  The main difference with The Ash Tree comparatively though is not only some brief nudity, but most certainly the finale which is shocking in the best of ways, going for a less subtle, more visually gruesome route than would be expected.  Then as a plus, Ramona II/Miss-Briefly-Tom-Baker Lalla Ward shows up as well.

THE SIGNALMAN
(1976)
Dir - Lawrence Gordon Clark
Overall: GREAT

The first A Ghost Story for Christmas segment to not be based off of an M.R. James work but instead one by Charles Dickens was The Signalman and it is possibly the most thoroughly well-done entry in a ceaseless slew of them.  Essentially using a two person cast, (Denholm Elliott and Bernard Lloyd), Lawrence Gordon Clark once again directs with a calm control, letting each of their exchanges play out deliberately and just as gradually upping the ghostly occurrences until they become appropriately bone-chilling.  The strengths that Clark routinely displays helming such entries in the Ghost Story series cannot be under appreciated as the mood is always impeccably maintained.  Whether working within a thirty-odd minute or near hour format, no moments are either wasted or rushed.  Dickens' story here is particularly strong as it uses respectable if standard motifs of specters behaving in a foreboding nature, (the man did write A Christmas Carol after all).  Done so stylistically well as it is here, few can argue that this is as exceptional of a supernatural horror work that can possibly be done.

STIGMA
(1977)
Dir - Lawrence Gordon Clark
Overall: GOOD

For whatever reason, the BBC decided to change up the formula to their successful A Ghost Story for Christmas strand with the penultimate installment, Stigma.  This was the first one not to be based off of an older literary work as it is instead an original screenplay by Clive Exton.  It is also the first to be explicitly set in modern day and the last that Lawrence Gordon Clark would direct.  While the eerie tone is as in check as ever, (likely due to Clark still being on board, who always handled the material in a deliberate, composed manner), the story is even more ambiguous than usual.  The supernatural forces at play are unquestionable yes, but they all remain off-camera and one could even argue that there are no ghosts at all present for this go-round.  Not that any of this particularly matters at the end of the day as quality is quality and Stigma still delivers as a slow, unearthly horror short, just in a different manner than what was seen before in the series.

THE ICE HOUSE
(1978)
Dir - Derek Lister
Overall: GOOD

Closing out the annual, A Ghost Story for Christmas anthology series was The Ice House, the first to be directed by someone other than Lawrence Gordon Clark, Derek Lister stepping in instead.  Similar to Stigma from the previous year, Ice House is set in modern day and resembles an old fashion ghost story even less than its predecessor.  This one in fact has no ghostly apparitions at all, yet it is still just as puzzlingly spooky and full of curious supernatural occurrences all the same.  It bares more in common with Invasion of the Body Snatchers or even the Batman the Animated Series episode "Eternal Youth" which is a good thing as it certainly warrants plenty of chills, literally in this particular case.  Some may find it too at odds with the previous installments or even too unresolved.  Though Lister does an adequate job, the flow is noticeably less creeping as well.  It is the only such entry that feels a tad rushed, be it only in a minor way.  The Ice House is a minute quality drop if anything and if not the strongest way to close out the strand, it is still a rewarding and challenging one.

A Ghost Story for Christmas Part One

THE STALLS OF BARCHESTER
(1971)
Dir - Lawrence Gordon Clark
Overall: GOOD

A Ghost Story form Christmas was an annual BBC One strand of short films that all aired during the week of Christmas, representing a sort of cinematic version of the tradition of telling such supernatural tales around the holidays. The first official entry to belong to the series, (though other similar works had been done before, most notably 1968's, M.R. James' Whistle and I'll Come for You as part of the Omnibus series), was The Stalls of Barchester, likewise an adaptation of one of M.R. James literary works.  All but one Ghost Story were expertly directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and Barchester is no exception in quality.  Though it perhaps spends a little too leisurely of a time fleshing itself out, (unlike others in the series which were pretty compact), it delivers superbly with hair-raising chills that both spring up in a sudden fashion and other times emerge rather tranquilly.  Some of the other James stories that were later adapted for the program were a bit more engaging, (the main protagonist here is somewhat underwritten, making it difficult to perhaps sympathize with him if we are even supposed to), but there is still a satisfying level of ambiguity where far more is alluded to than not.

A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS
(1972)
Dir - Lawrence Gordon Clark
Overall: GREAT

The second M.R. James reworking done officially for the annual A Ghost Story for Christmas program on BBC One was A Warning to the Curious, which still might be the series' most celebrated along with The Signalman from four years later.  Bringing back The Stalls of Barchester character Dr. Black to perhaps link the two, (though all future entries were presented more as stand-alones), this one also stars Peter Vaughan, (Fanatic, Brazil, Game of Thrones), as the main protagonist Mr. Paxton who was substantially changed from the source material version where he was a much younger man that accidentally stumbles upon what Vaughan's character deliberately seeks out.  Director Lawrence Gordon Clark once again creates a fantastically slow, spooky mood.  The supernatural elements are calmly suggested for most of the running time so that when they do become more blatant, they are positively chilling, nearly making you jump without resembling any moronic "boo scares" tactics in the slightest.  The story may not be equipped with any twists, but it is handled so expertly that the predictability of it is hardly a problem.  This stands as one of the most successfully atmospheric horror films ever made for television.

LOST HEARTS
(1973)
Dir - Lawrence Gordon Clark
Overall: GREAT

Still consistently excellent and questionably the most macabre and actually scary entry in the A Ghost Story for Christmas series was the third of them, Lost Hearts.  It may be because it revolves around a soon-to-be twelve-year old boy cooped up in a weird castle with his exponentially weird, far older cousin who seems to be gleefully obsessed with alchemy, astrology, and Satan knows what else.  Because after all, children getting spooked out of their wits generally seems to resonate most with many a viewer.  On that note, Lost Hearts uses the "creepy kids" horror gimmick better than most and there are a number of wonderful moments here that are borderline terrifying even if they still follow the same kind of ghost story logic of specters doing things that are certainly unnerving yet illogical at the same time.  Irish-born actor and playwright Joseph O'Conor is marvelous as the eccentric Mr. Abney and his childlike buoyancy makes the later plot reveal that much more ghoulish.  Throw in some positively creepy hurdy-gurdy music and long fingernails as well and you really cannot lose.

THE TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS
(1974)
Dir - Lawrence Gordon Clark
Overall: GREAT

Another very solid M.R. James adaptation, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas changes around a number of characters from the source material, removing some and adding others as well as switching the location from Germany to England and substantially tweaking the ending.  The latter detail is for the better as the last several minutes here are the strongest and director Lawrence Gordon Clark does marvelous work keeping it perplexingly creepy long after it is all over.  A number of later horror films such as The Church, The Borderlands, and As Above, So Below to name a few bare similarities to the premise here as people unlock ancient messages in search of some sort of hidden reward in or around a church or burial area.  As one of the shorter entries in the A Ghost Story for Christmas series, some may find that Treasure feels a bit rushed while others could argue that it refreshingly trims all of the fat and therefor delivers a more chilling result due to how quickly it is wrapped up.  The latter sentiment is one that is quite difficult to argue with.