60's Horror Shorts

WOTON'S WAKE
(1962)
Dir - Brian De Palma
Overall: MEH

Chaos, hedonism, and ridiculous avant-garde aesthetics co-mingle in a quite over-the-top manner with Brian de Palma's early short Wonton's Wake.  Technically a student film and very much adhering to such ambitious pretentiousness coupled with inexperience and lack of budget stereotypes, it is a collage of images, no dialog, stock footage, abstract sound effects, and goofy folk music thrown in to provide some desperate narrative comprehension.  It is better to just give up on that and instead sit back and take in the barrage of sights and sounds revolving the title character who is some sort of weird magician/madman with prosthetic face appliances, a blowtorch, and the ability to turn random metallic trinkets into humans.

WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU
(1968)
Dir - Johnathan Miller
Overall: GOOD

The precursor to the BBC's annual A Ghost Story for Christmas series was this television production of M.R. James' Whistle and I'll Come to You which initially aired on May 7th, 1968 as part of the BBC arts strand Omnibus.  Identical in tone and structure to the later rightfully lauded broadcasts, (the first five of which were likewise James adaptations), it features no musical score and an excellently eccentric performance from acclaimed stage actor Michael Hordern.  It is also rather indulgent in its frustrating listlessness, with so little happening for enormous periods of time as to make modern audiences particularly frustrated.  That said, Beyond the Fringe's Johnathan Miller's bare, nearly unmoving presentation does create an impressive level of dread.  For very gradually paced, exclusively atmospheric horror, it is assuredly a textbook example.

INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER
(1969)
Dir - Kenneth Anger
Overall: GOOD

Another in a stream of experimental occult films from Kenneth Anger was 1969's Invocation of My Demon Brother.  Featuring not only Anger, but also Anton LaVey, Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil, and quick snippets of the Rolling Stones, it is a collage of Satanic, hippy-culture images like people smoking out of a skull bong, some kind of Crowley-inspired stage production involving a Nazi flag, and a hooded and masked band procession down a staircase which ends with some sort of creature holding up a sign that says "Zap you're pregnant that's witchcraft".  So Anger's sense of humor is a nice addition.  The surreal soundtrack by Mick Jagger is its own sort of strange collage of Moog synthesizer ambiance, clashing percussion, and eerie mantra chants.  It is all avant-garde, drugged-out, LaVeyan Satanism-inspired pretentiousness and quite fun at being so.

THE IMAGE
(1969)
Dir - Michael Armstrong
Overall: GOOD

The movie debut for both English director Michael Armstrong and David Bowie as actor, The Image is a dialog-less, black and white art film with a simple, creepy premise.  "The Artist" Michael Byrne is basically haunted by his painting come to life being "The Boy" Bowie and he then spends the majority of the fourteen minute running time trying to kill him.  It gets a bit repetitive rather quickly, but the stark, percussive soundtrack and off-kilter visual style is effectively disturbing.  The short will mostly be of interest to Bowie fans of course, but it also shows a skill at haunting imagery for Armstrong who would go on to more overtly horror and then exploitative terrain with The Haunted House of Horror and Mark of the Devil respectively.