70's Foreign Horror Part Twenty-Four

THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING

(1971)

Dir - Freddie Francis

Overall: MEH

A failed horror/comedy set up by producer Pier A. Caminnecci and British cinematographer/director Freddie Francis as a staring vehicle for the former's wife Pia Degermark, The Vampire Happening, (Gebissen wird nur nachts, They Only Bite at Night), is at least too innocently stupid to be unwatchably terrible.  Francis disowned the project since he found it to be a problematic production as Caminnecci allegedly insisted upon cameos from friends and whatnot.  The resulting movie goes for a juvenile combination of blood-sucking and horndog hijinks, none of which are remotely funny yet are clearly trying to be.  It is no accident that it cast The Fearless Vampire Killers' Ferdy Mayne in a supporting role as Count Dracula himself, turning in a fittingly hammy performance with one of the most exaggerated Béla Lugosi impressions dubbed over it.  Most of the movie hinges upon Degermark playing two different characters, one undead, one not, and both perpetually horny as Yvor Murillo whimpers around trying to murder the vampiric one.  Francis seems to have given up before the project even got going since there is no cinematic showiness to the proceedings, making for something both visually dull and groan-worthy in its doofy attempts at humor.

 

THE HOURGLASS SANATORIUM

(1973)

Dir - Wojciech Jerzy Has

Overall: MEH

 

Poetically labyrinth-like, Wojciech Jerzy Has' non-literal adaptation of Bruno Schulz's novel Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą takes a similar approach that David Cronenberg would utilize with William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch two decades later.  Namely, this entails utilizing various other aspects from the author's writings into a story that is fundamentally impenetrable and made up of hallucinatory set pieces.  The Hourglass Sanatorium, (Sanatorium pod klepsydrą, The Sandglass), explores non-linear time, childhood memories, and a post-Holocaust, Galicia landscape where Jan Nowicki visits his dying/already dead father in a dilapidated sanatorium only to embark on a spontaneous trek through his own interweaving psyche.  Each sequences feeds into the next in an effectively dreamlike manner where the locale changes in mid-shot and various imaginary characters float in and out.  Stylistically, it is purposely challenging and especially difficult to latch onto for those that are unfamiliar with Schulz' source materials.  While this makes it unavoidably frustrating as none of the many dialog exchanges provide any conventional, cohesive purpose, it is visually vast in its ethereal, war-torn setting.  The atmosphere is particularly unsettling without utilizing any horror motifs in a narrative manner, but those who are lost within the first fifteen minutes will likely be just as lost by the final one-hundred and twenty.

VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN

(1977)

Dir - Calvin Floyd

Overall: GOOD

The penultimate film from Swedish-born director Calvin Floyd, Victor Frankenstein, (Terror of Frankenstein), is a Swedish/Irish co-production that remains largely faithful to Mary Shelley's source materiel, at least compared to most other versions that had arrived by 1977.  Done on a noticeably modest budget, the most noticeable differentiating quality is its low-key tone.  Incidental music is used minimally and the narrative it told out of sequence, with a massive time jump taking place midway through, at which point the monster's exploits post-creation are told via a lengthy flashback sequence.  Both Lion Vitali and Per Oscarsson are well-utilized as the doctor and creature respectively, with Vitali having a youthful exuberance that quickly gives way to somber exhaustion and despair while Oscarsson is a more calmly sinister presence as opposed to the often-seen, purely tragic and pathetic one.  The pacing may be too deliberate for some and most of the elements in Shelley's novel are underplayed to fit it all into a ninety-minute framework.  Still, the slightly unorthodox approach makes the deliberate pacing more agreeable than it otherwise would be and the somber, less sensationalized atmosphere is a welcome addition to something that has been adapted to the screen countless times.