(1971)
Dir - Michael Winner
Overall: MEH
Overall: MEH
The horror label is quite misleading for Michael Winner's The Nightcomers, a prequel to Henry James' more psychologically supernatural The Turn of the Screw. Notable as being Marlon Brando's last performance before landing The Godfather which he would shoot soon afterwards, he may not be in peak form, but he is also a far cry from the embarrassing low-point he hit in Candy from three years prior. That said, the Irish accent here is a bit goofy. Michael Hastings' script examines the scoundrel aspects of Brando's Peter Quint and how impressionable his behavior in turn corrupts Miles and Flora. By setting up the questionable shenanigans the two unassuming children would get up to in Jame's novel, the story here takes most of the mystery out of it, which is quite a faux pas on paper. Even if one is to ignore how it misses the point of the ambiguous spookiness found in the source material, the results are still mediocre at best. Not much interesting happens despite a few macabre touches and though the ending finally seems to arrive somewhere, it is nowhere as chilling in presentation as perhaps intended.
(1973)
Dir - Anthony Balch
Overall: GOOD
Film distributor and occasional exploitation director Anthony Balch's Horror Hospital, (Computer Killers), is an adequately humorous horror spoof. Part of the movie's charm lies in how its presentation is indistinguishable from other strictly serious films of its kind from the same era. By playing things straight, Balch gets to slyly lampoon some of the genre's inherent silliness. British horror mainstay Michael Gouh optimizes such dynamics as a fiendish, wheelchair-bound mad scientist who is making a horde of young, attractive zombies for no other reason than to just be an evil asshole. Most of the humor hits its mark with lines like "There's no reason to get uptight about anything. I'm not going to rape you." and details like a random goo monster and a limo that decapitates passersby providing some sleazy chuckles. Balch's directorial skills leave a bit to be desired though as the movie drags in place and the plotting gets monotonous. It could probably afford to be more ridiculous than it is, but it delivers some proper high-jinks all the same.
(1976)
Dir - Nicolas Roeg
Overall: GOOD
For his follow-up to the excellent psychological horror film Don't Look Now, Nicolas Roeg chose to adapt Walter Tevis' novel The Man Who Fell to Earth with screenwriter Paul Mayersberg. In his first lead role, a cocaine-addicted David Bowie is perfectly cast as the emotionally aloof and distraught alien Thomas Jerome Newton. The story slowly weaves through his doomed life, whose family and home planet are endlessly on his mind yet just as endlessly out of reach. He physically stays unchanged while those around him grow old, die off or are killed, lose interest in him, or succumb to their own vices. The performances are strong all around, with Candy Clark being particularly superb as the lone country girl who becomes obsessed and sucked into Newton's aura. From a production standpoint, the movie is fully realized. Anthony B. Richmond's photography is quite beautiful and though the story spans a considerable timeline, it seems stuck in the era it was made. This enhances the rather immortal existence of Bowie's isolated protagonist. By taking a surreal, deliberately enigmatic approach to exploring the turmoil of loneliness and unfulfilled longing, Roeg made a challenging film quite fitting for the material.
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