Hammer House of Horror Part Three

CARPATHIAN EAGLE
(1980)
Dir - Francis Megahy
Overall: MEH
 

Boasting a female slasher premise, (meaning a woman who is a slasher killer, not your typical male killer who slashes women), "Carpathian Eagle" packs in a few sleazy and singular tweaks, even if it still ends up being unremarkable.  Suzanne Danielle is ideally cast as the enticing vixen who leads a double life and seduces a slew of horny men merely by walking down the street and swaying her hips, only to bust out a sacrificial blade to remove their hearts once she makes them close their eyes and promises them a "surprise".  Several episodes of Hammer House of Horror featured the bad guys/monsters getting away with their deeds, and the final act here provides an adequate surprise in this regard, even if some of the Easter European yarn-spinning is not delivered upon.  A young Pierce Brosnan shows up too for what it is worth.

GUARDIAN OF THE ABYSS
(1980)
Dir - Don Sharp
Overall: GOOD

 

For "Guardians of the Abyss", John Carson once again plays a practitioner of the black arts in a Hammer production.  Instead of utilizing such magik for zombie slave labor as he did in 1966's The Plague of the Zombies, Carson is up to an even more sinister deed here, trying to resurrect a demon that is, (as the title would suggest), hell's guardian.  Specific rituals that are at the whim of the screenwriter, upside down crosses, robed cult members, hypnotism, ancient relics, and a twist ending of sorts that spells our hero's doom, it has the usual ingredients except wields them in a consistently sinister manner.  Doctor Who writer David Fisher and Hammer director Don Sharp each showcase a penchant for such genre material, (the type of material that the studio was often times best at in their heyday), and it plays like an updating of the exceptional Dennis Wheatley adaptation The Devil Rides Out. 

 

VISITOR FROM THE GRAVE
(1980)
Dir - Peter Sasdy
Overall: MEH

 

Ruined by a perpetually grating performance from Dark Shadows' Kathryn Leigh Scott, (as well as Simon MacCorkindale playing her ill-tempered and aggressively annoyed boyfriend, even if understandably), Hammer House of Horror's "Visitor from the Grave" at least has some atmospheric menace that director Peter Sasdy manages to conjure up.  This was the third and last episode of the show that Sasdy was behind the lens on, but the script by Anthony Hinds, (the son of Hammer founder William Hinds and a producer for the company himself), unfortunately leaves little for Scott to do besides act hysterical and scream in an unhinged fashion in practically every scene.  Even if a guy with half of his face blown off who is supposed to be dead and buried keeps tormenting her and anybody would be upset with such business, it makes for a labored watch.  The scheming gaslighting may be predictable, but it does manage to deliver a supernatural comeuppance coda, so that is something.

 

THE TWO FACES OF EVIL
(1980)
Dir - Alan Gibson
Overall: GOOD

 

A doppelgänger/Invasion of the Body Snatchers hybrid with a title that references Hammer's 1960 Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, "The Two Faces of Evil" has some predictable beats here or there, but it is also consistently eerie and plays one of the genre's most frequented narrative cards of "this poor upset woman must be suffering a mental strain and ergo what she is ranting and raving about cannot actually be happening" better than most.  The opening scene has a family on their way to holiday picking up a man in a trench-coat who nearly runs them off the road in the pouring rain, and after such a bad decision on their part is made, things gradually spiral from there.  Cinematographer Frank Watts, (who shot nine episodes for the series), does some splendid work with long hallways and tweaked lenses, plus writer Ranald Graham makes the sinister presence undeniable yet still manages to throw enough psychological doubt into the proceedings to keep us guessing until the final set piece which is the most creepy.

 

THE MARK OF SATAN
(1980)
Dir - Don Leaver
Overall: MEH

 

Hammer House of Horror gets around to its inevitable Anti-Christ/"Book of Revelations"/The Omen installment with the closer "The Mark of Satan".  While Dan Shaw's script is not specifically concerned with unleashing its own Damien on the planet, it does reference the usual motifs such as bible verses, an obsession with numbers, (nine here instead of six, being the inversion of the latter), and a conspiratorial plot where no one can be trusted.  Peter McEnery plays the hapless sap who undergoes such paranoia, and at no point does the supernatural become tangible, which renders this a psychological tale where one man goes insane, possibly due to a viral outbreak.  There are a few ghastly moments sprinkled around, and director Don Leaver stages a Rosemary's Baby-styled hallucination scene full of warped camera angles, cackling white people, and Vaseline on the camera lens.  Tone wise it steers away from camp as much as it can, but it still fails to be as evocative and unsettling as it should be.

Hammer House of Horror Part Two

THE HOUSE THAT BLED TO DEATH
(1980)
Dir - Tom Clegg
Overall: MEH

 

One of many supernatural tales that takes its inspiration from The Amityville Horror, "The House That Bled to Death" is one of the few that touches upon the hoax aspect of the actual case, one that was perpetrated and embellished by author Jay Anson and proven hucksters Ed and Lorraine Warren.  While this gives the Hammer House of Horror segment a differentiating quality from just anther haunted house yarn, David Lloyd's script easily falls apart under even the most minute scrutiny.  It is a disappointing twist in any respect, revealing icky people doing icky things and traumatizing their own child in the process.  If one can forgive the narrative shortcomings, lack of likeable characters, and stock nature of the material, there are a few fiendish set pieces to enjoy, namely a birthday part that goes straight to hell via bloody water pipes.

CHARLIE BOY
(1980)
Dir - Robert Young
Overall: MEH

 

Five years after Dan Curtis' seminal Trilogy of Terror found Karen Black fending for her life against a cartoonishly creepy Zuni fetish doll, the Hammer House of Horror installment "Charlie Boy" presents yet another small screen foray into an African idol on the loose.  This one pulls off more of a drawn-out string of unfortunate events instead of just going full tiny slasher mode.  Leigh Lawson gets his hand on said mystical antique which as it turns out is possessed by a no-good sorcerer, and in a fit of rage against some people who he felt wronged him, he stabs the thing, the thing bleeds, and one-by-one people start getting picked off by elaborate means.  The plot follows a framework that is easy to foretell and there are odd musical choices made along the way that disastrously dilute any sense of proper atmosphere, but both the aforementioned doll and the basic premise are unsettling, plus the death sequences have some ghastly charm to them.

 

THE SILENT SCREAM
(1980)
Dir - Alan Gibson
Overall: GOOD

 

Notable for being the last Hammer production that Peter Cushing would ever appear in, "The Silent Scream" is one of the more ghastly entries in the Hammer House of Horror program.  Cushing of course is wonderful and ideally cast as an elderly pet shop owner that is not entirely what he seems, even when we are shown that he likes to keep a collection of exotic pets surrounded by electric gates.  A spry Brian Cox is also on board as a recently released petty criminal, and Francis Essex' script takes some foreseeable turns that nevertheless remain intentionally unpleasant.  It is a torture porn precursor of sorts, but it is done in a non-graphic, television friendly manner that pulls off a nifty trick of having an ending where justice is served yet everybody still loses and loses hard.  Despite its unpleasantness and some sequences that will not please animal lovers, it achieves its objective to disturb, plus Cushing fans would be doing themselves a disservice to miss the beloved actor in one of his final horror forays.

 

CHILDREN OF THE FULL MOON
(1980)
Dir - Tom Clegg
Overall: MEH

 

With a title like "Children of the Full Moon" in a program like Hammer House of Horror, one can accurately guess that werewolves will be afoot.  That said, Murray Smith's script does some singular things with such obligatory monsters, even going so far as to have a rug-pull midway through where we are made to believe that what we had previously witnessed was merely an acute nightmare.  Besides that narrative cliche, we also get the ole gag of a couple's car breaking down, them huffing it up to a spacious and isolated mansion to use the phone, said phone not working, the person living there being disturbingly chipper, and other curious hints that something odd is going down.  As far as actual lycanthropian shenanigans, they are few and far between, plus the scant makeup shots are hardly up to par with Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf from nearly two decades prior.  It gets by to a point on its inventiveness, but it is still an unremarkable production overall.

Hammer House of Horror Part One

WITCHING TIME

(1980)

Dir - Don Leaver

Overall: MEH

 

Though it boasts a cromulent premise, the Hammer House of Horror program gets off to a clunky start with "Witching Time".  A condemned practitioner of the black arts who gets burned alive during the era of witch executions, only to vow vengeance and return centuries later to wreak more havoc is a premise as old as time.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show's own Patricia Quinn portrays such a resurrected evil sorceress, tormenting and fornicating with a mulleted Jon Finch as he deals with some extramarital drama.  Quinn's performance is fittingly caricatured, but there are numerous scenes that are handled awkwardly by director Don Leaver, providing some unintended hysterics that to not jive correctly with a tone that seems to be taking itself seriously instead of winking at the audience.  The ending particularly goes off the rails as Quinn and Prunella Gee clumsily catfight and scream at each other as the later miraculously bests her opponent in unholy magic with no knowledge or skill whatsoever.

 

THE THIRTEENTH REUNION

(1980)

Dir - Peter Sasdy

Overall: MEH

 

It takes awhile for the second episode of Hammer House of Horror to officially lay all of its cards on the table, but viewers will pick up on the ghoulish gag in a more prompt fashion.  While this does not make "The Thirteenth Reunion" a waste, it does dilute its final two set pieces which should rely on white-knuckled tension but instead are pedestrian.  Until the anti-climactic finish though, we are given some clever tidbits where Julia Foster's reporter is delegated to check up on a shady weight loss clinic where James Cosmo screams at fatties until they cry and one of their clients dies mysteriously after being given the green light to pork-up.  As the title would suggest, we also meet a group of people reuniting for a dinner party, welcoming a snooping Foster with open arms and haphazardly letting her escape because the script is going to get her back anyway.  Many of the details to said script from Jeremy Burnham do not add up, plus Hammer regular Peter Sasdy has done better work from behind the lens.

 

RUDE AWAKENING

(1980)

Dir - Peter Sasdy

Overall: GOOD

 

A ghoulish precursor to Groundhog Day, Hammer House of Horror's "Rude Awakening" finds returning director Peter Sasdy and television producer/screenwriter Gerald Savory delivering a stream of waking nightmares for Denholm Elliott to endure.  Not that Elliott's, (perhaps), unfaithful real estate agent is not deserving of his eventual comeuppance, yet the story wisely plays the psychological horror game where the protagonist succumbs to his desires due to a loveless marriage that he feels trapped in.  Elliott reliving different variations of the same supernaturally-charged day, it is presented as if he is having an affair with his secretary, (Lucy Gutteridge of Top Secret! fame), but there are obvious clues along the way that he is existing in a perpetual dream state that is fueled by his already troubled mind.  Though the specifics may not add up under a microscope, each sequence is full of the type of macabre inventiveness that those always wonderful Amicus anthology movies were ripe with.  

 

GROWING PAINS

(1980)

Dir - Francis Megahy

Overall: MEH

 

The Hammer House of Horror program knocks-off their obligatory "evil kid" story with their forth entry "Growing Pains".  One of only a handful of roles for retired child actor Matthew Blakstad, he portrays the adoptee of Gary Bond and Barbara Kellerman as the typical weird and humorous child that says and does inappropriate and upsetting things while remaining annoyingly calm.  A supernatural element becomes clear after awhile where more unwholesome stuff happen like various animals getting murdered, the new parents understandably regretting their decision to take in a new son as a replacement of sorts for their tragically deceased one.  Though it is competently done and there is a certain level of mystery throughout the first half, little else in the story works.  This is mostly due to the tricky subject matter, (asshole kids and pets getting killed are a rough combination to make entertaining), but it has a humdrum reveal, plus Francis Megahy's script shows a lack of creativity as far as set pieces go.