1960s Foreign Horror Part Four

BLOOD AND ROSES
(1960)
Dir - Roger Vadim
Overall: MEH

Rober Vadim's Blood and Roses, (Et mourir de plaisir, All Die of Pleasure), was not the first or last cinematic interpretation of Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, but it was the first in color and the first to make its lesbian story components more prominent.  Vadim and cinematographer Claude Renoir shoot Italy's Hadrian's Villa beautifully, briefly and memorably even indulging in an artsy dream sequence near the end that mixes black and white photography with bright, blood-red Technicolor and people swimming upside down outside of windows or something.  Sadly, the movie is flat-lined by dispassionate performances, most of all from the lead and Vadim's wife Annette Strøyberg who is about as emotive as a dry erase board.  It also does not bask in enough atmospheric, vampiric moments, outside of a small handful of superstitious townsfolk scenes right out of a cliche book.  While it is the most sexually awoken version of the source material then filmed and not that it needs to cross over into exploitation territory, it nevertheless lingers in a sort of awkward form that is too tame and pretentious in place of being perhaps more graphic.

MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS
(1961)
Dir - Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Overall: GREAT

A logical contender for the first unequivocal nunsploitation film, Jarzy Kawalerowicz' Mother Joan of the Angels, (Matka Joanna od Aniołów, The Devil and the Nun), is a rather masterfully made, evocative look at human adversity.  As one of the prominent members of the Polish Film School, Kawalerowicz uses the historical backdrop of the Loudun possessions and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz' novella about the same, examining the voluntary struggling of a severely humbled priest and a willingly possessed abbess.  Characters frequently stare directly into the camera and exhibit behavior that is conflicting with the positions that they are desperately struggling to uphold, raising questions for the viewer about dual human nature and perhaps the alluring need to self-torment.  Completely void of incidental music, much of the film plays startlingly quiet, but the sounds that are utilized, (such as church bells, self-flagellation, whispered prayers, and one character singing a song about preferring to be a nun over being an abused house wife), speak volumes as to the symbolic nature of the story.  It would primarily take Ken Russell's The Devils, (which was also based on the Loudun possessions), to more heavily influence the exploitative, golden age of nunsploitation, but the genre's origins here were far more metaphorically challenging and in many ways more rewarding.

 

STEREO
(1969)
Dir - David Cronenberg
Overall: MEH

After making two short films while gaining his bachelor degree of arts at the University of Toronto, David Cronenberg took on his first full-length project with Stereo.  Shot without sound at that same university and in black and white with a rented Arriflex 35 camera, it is a typical arthouse debut in most respects.  There is no dialog, only a series of narrations in the form of a faux educational film that concerns telepathic subjects who undergo an experiment by an unseen doctor.  Cronenberg's first leading man Ronald Mlodzik is on board, but his is the only recognizable face and the actors serve more as props than actual characters anyway due to the avant-garde presentation.  Ambitious and pretentious yet done on a shoestring budget of course, Cronenberg handles every level of production and his photographic eye still comes off sharp, making use out of sparse, contemporary scenery that manages to have a mysterious and futuristic slant under such a cold atmosphere.  Sadly, the narrative is uninteresting and takes itself too seriously, causing the movie to feel much longer than its mere sixty-five minute running time.  It is interesting though that even at the onset of his career here, Cronenberg was already examining human evolution, just on low-scale and psychic means instead of in body horror form.

1960s Foreign Horror Part Three

THE VIRGIN SPRING
(1960)
Dir - Ingmar Bergman
Overall: GOOD

As ground zero for the rape and revenge film, Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, (Jungfrukällan), does not qualify as a horror movie, but only as an unbeknownst origin for such plot components that later filmmakers would utilize to exploitative means.  This does nothing to lessen the impact of the film though; one of the most stark and intelligible of the director's career.  Based off the 13th century ballad "Töres döttrar i Wänge" about a respected Christian whose wife and three daughters are raped and murdered by three highwaymen, (here changed to three herdsmen and but one daughter, his only), it explores guilt and the juxtaposition of Norse, pagan rituals and Christian faith.  The literal spring of the movie's title signifies the victim's innocence, only emerging after the deeds are done and the remorse of those surviving has questioned the existence of any sort of god or magic at all.  This marked the second collaboration between Bergman and screenwriter Ulla Isaksson and the first with cinematographer Sven Nykvist who he would continue to work with.  Its blunt, overall direct presentation makes it as emotionally compelling as anything Sweden's greatest filmmaker ever made.

 

JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET
(1962)
Dir - Sidney W. Pink
Overall: MEH

A Danish/American joint production by Sidney W. Pink and co-screenwriter Ib Melchior, Journey to the Seventh Planet channels the famed MGM production Forbidden Planet, with its subconscious-mining extraterrestrial entity and vibrant color scheme.  Unfortunately, it is all done on a tacky budget that is more unintentionally hilarious than thought-provoking, but this clashing of sincere ambition and insufficient means, (and talent), is what makes it at least unique amongst dopey drive-in cheapies.  Shot in Denmark with an entirely local cast besides B-movie American star John Agar, the English dubbing is appropriately stiff for its already cornball dialog and unfortunately there is a lot of that dialog, which makes the pacing issue numero uno on the list of blunders.  Elsewhere, the story actually possesses some trippy ideas about a Uranus alien that high-jacks the character's minds with manipulative visions, irresistibly beautiful ladies, nostalgic scenery, and big dumb rubber monsters, all in a scheme of Earthly domination because of course.  The D-grade sets, costumes, special effects, and swiped footage just provide the dated and goofy window dressing.

 

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
(1968)
Dir - Robert Vadim/Louis Malle/Federico Fellini
Overall: GOOD

This Italian/French co-production from Alberto Grimaldi and Raymond Eger thankfully nabbed three prominent enough directors who rarely if at all worked in the horror genre, Robert Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini.  The resulting Spirits of the Dead, (Tre passi nel delirio, Histoires extraordinaires), is based on yet another combination of stories from Edgar Allan Poe, easily the most cinematically adapted horror author of the 1960s if not ever.  Each segment is a loose interpretation at best, (which is nothing new), and each centers around a character recklessly indulging in debauchery.  Though all three directors have established themselves as having a unique voice behind the lens, for an anthology film, it impressively has a consistent, ethereal tone which links them all rather ideally.  Naturally being an anthology film in the first place, there are highlights and admitted downspots.  Each section could afford to shave off five to ten minutes, give or take.  Even the best of them, (which would be Fellini's "Toby Dammit", acting as more nightmarish version of 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita in vivid color), overstays its welcome just a bit.  Visually though, the entire movie is superb and an expertly dreary, arthouse horror template to continue to take note of.

1960s Foreign Horror Part Two

CAVE OF THE LIVING DEAD
(1964)
Dir - Ákos Ráthonyi
Overall: MEH

One starts to sound like a broken record when pointing out how so few low-budget, B-movies of the horror variety had any capacity whatsoever to pick up the damn pace.  Hungarian director Ákos Ráthonyi's Cave of the Living Dead, (Der Fluch der grünen Augen, Night of the Vampires), is a criminal-level offender of this particular cinematic faux pas.  In the hands of a skilled filmmaker who can propel their story without the use of a musical score and through sheer control of tone and mood, the results can be exceptional.  In the case of Cave of the Living Dead, the mostly dialog-only soundtrack gives it a catastrophically lifeless flow.  There are attempts at humor, sexual undertones, and issues of race are even touched upon, but the presentation is so comatose that they barely register.  Likewise, a small handful of spooky, vampiric visuals are peppered throughout which look rather good on their own, but the film is almost entirely driven by very meandering and frequently embarrassing dialog as a skeptical, wise-ass detective investigates a small village full of superstitious folk, uncovering the goings on in the most tedious of manners.

BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS
(1967)
Dir - Emilio Vieyra
Overall: MEH

Argentine-born, exploitation director Emilio Vieyra's take on the vampire genre with Blood of the Virgins, (Sangre de vírgenes), is full of naked boobs, unconvincing fangs, no budget sets, agonizingly long scenes that serve no narrative purpose, and swinging music that evokes absolutely no fear whatsoever.  So essentially, the usual checklist of Euro-horror cliches from the era.  Outside of a rather nifty, animated opening title sequence, there is virtually no visual flair.  The film is photographed incredibly bland with vampires walking around in fully lit rooms and crystal clear daylight.  The only idea Vieyra seems to have to spice anything up is a couple red-light shots of a bird that is supposed to be a bat probably and of course a bag fool of zooms used as leisurely as possible.  The script, (also by Vieyra), is uninspired enough to be borderline awful, with what seems like less set pieces than can be counted on one hand featuring any kind of undead activity in the first place.  Instead, it is mostly just people slowly walking around, very, very slowly having sex, sitting around, talking to each other, driving, and then walking around slowly a few more times just to make sure enough slow walking around is caught on camera.

MANEATER OF HYDRA
(1967)
Dir - Ernst Ritter von Theumer
Overall: MEH

Making foliage seem sinister on screen is quite an uphill battle.  It is even worse when the budget is working against you and the best you can muster is a few close ups of rubbery branches and vines while victims simply stand there either transfixed or screaming, (but of course never moving an inch out of the way).  This is not the only ailment that the Spanish-German co-production Maneater of Hydra, (La isla de la muerte, Island of the Doomed, and The Blood Suckers), suffers from.  Very little suspense is mustered since the kill scenes come off not only as non-threatening as possible, but are also few and far between.  The characters are all boring and poorly dubbed, none more than an elderly photographer with a Jewish accent that makes her sound absolutely ridiculous when she is delivering cryptic dialog or screaming hysterically about a murderer.  Cameron Mitchell plays another cookie-cutter mad scientist who mutates man-eating plants for no reason, with a grand scheme involving being nice to his vacationing guests while waiting for them to get close enough to his malevolent shrubs to stand there and do nothing while they attack them.  It is a dud from top to bottom and a B-movie wholly worthy of being laughed at, not with.

1960s Foreign Horror Part One

THE MASK
(1961)
Dir - Julian Roffman
Overall: MEH

Having the distinction of being the first horror film ever produced in Canada, The Mask, (re-released as Eyes of Hell for television in the early 80s), was the second and last feature made by Julian Roffman.  Besides its historical significance, the film is notable for its tour de force 3-D sequences designed by Serbian-born montagist Slavko Vorkapich.  A hallucinatory hybrid of images based off ancient civilization temples and costumes as well as macabre weirdness such as fire breaking priests, robed figures wearing featureless face-masks, a haunted canoe ride with hands protruding from the water, otherworldly noises and screams, spiders, fogs, zombies and the like, all three scenes where the psychiatrist Dr. Allan Barnes puts on the unholy headgear are strikingly fantastic.  It is a shame then that every other aspect of the movie including the entire plot is persistently unexciting.  While the title mask casts a diabolical spell over its wearer once released back into the real world, the only thing it manages to unleash for the rest of us is a steady stream of arbitrary boredom and slightly melodramatic acting.  Whenever it is time to put on the 3-D glasses, the movie could not be more superb, but do not expect it to deliver in any other respects.

THE BLOOD DEMON
(1967)
Dir - Harold Reinl
Overall: GOOD

The Blood Demon, (Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism, The Snake Pit and the Pendulum, and Castle of the Walking Dead), is a West German, barely-qualifying adaptation of Edgar Alan Poe's The Pit and Pendulum by Austrian director Harold Reinl.  While it drags a bit too much as could be expected, it is also visually magnificent.  The set design by art directors Gabriel Pellon and Rolf Zehetbauer are a Gothic horror fan's wet dream with intricate sets full of ghoulish paintings, dungeon contraptions, bizarre decor, and of course cobwebs, fog, and Mario Bava-esque lighting all being liberally used.  Unfortunately, otherwise excellent, spooky images like a trek through a haunted forest where human limbs are literally protruding out of trees and a slew of bodies hanging from nooses are undermined by the horse and cart just carrying on through them after the driver refuses to go on about eighty-seven times without anyone listening to him or seeing any of the crystal clear, macabre evidence on display.  If the film was not so beautifully creepy to look at and full of such dark, strange set pieces, its sluggish pacing, lazy script, and unintentional humor would probably undue it.  Still though, Christopher Lee is in it too so go sports!

HOUR OF THE WOLF
(1968)
Dir - Ingmar Bergman
Overall: GREAT

While Ingmar Berman was no stranger to utilizing macabre and certainly heavily surreal imagery throughout his work, he never embraced these elements more collaboratively than in his follow up to Persona, Hour of the Wolf.  The first part in the unofficial Fårö trilogy, (which was proceeded by Shame and The Passion of Anna), it also has much in common with its predecessor Persona in its fourth wall breaking and examination of twisted realities and identities.  As was usually the case, Bergman himself was working out his own personal issues, namely his doubts, fears, and confusion as an artist as well as his relationship with actress Liv Ullmann after having left his wife.  All of this manifests via overlapping, expressionistic scenes combining folklore, other literary works, paintings, operas, and Bergman's own nightmares.  The film is sparse on music, but uses its soundtrack in an intentionally narrative fashion; every sound contributing explicitly to its emotional nature.  Look no further than when Ullmann and Max von Sydow arrive at their summer island and the motor of the boat that brought them is primarily heard as they empty their supplies, we watch the boat slowly disappear behind a rock formation, and then a harsh cut to the couple trudging uphill with the wheels of their cart signifying that they are now alone and cut off.  Bergman has so many paramount works in his filmography that it is understandable to short-end Hour of the Wolf amongst them, but it is unmistakably a significant one all the same.

1950s Boris Karloff Part Two

THE BLACK CASTLE
(1952)
Dir - Nathan H. Juran
Overall: MEH

Another forgettable, later installment in Universal's horror camp, The Black Castle brings Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. together, both in minor rolls.  Out of the two, Chaney is more sidetracked in just a small handful of scenes, once again playing a mute brute who finds a grisly end.  Karloff does respectable work as a benevolent doctor, cleverly coming off as perhaps another sinister presence earlier on.  Elsewhere, it is only a moderately interesting story involving a cruel, sadistic Count with a deformity and a dashingly handsome British Baron, both of whom want revenge on each other.  Naturally, two characters fall in love almost immediately as well since what period-piece melodrama would be complete without such a detail?  There is a pit of hungry crocodiles or alligators and premature burial is hinted at, so the macabre elements are present to be sure.  As nice as it is to see Karloff and Chaney in the genre that made both men famous, The Black Castle is not very engrossing though and by this time Universal was phasing out its Gothic horror outings altogether which had peaked at least a decade before, giving this somewhat of a "scraping the barrel" feel.

VOODOO ISLAND
(1957)
Dir - Reginald Le Borg
Overall: MEH

Bel-Air Productions' three movie deal with Boris Karloff got off to a limbering, lackluster start with Voodoo Island.  Austrian-born director Reginald Le Borg, (The Mummy's Ghost, The Black Sleep, Diary of a Madman), concocts virtually zero suspense, even with a scene of a woman taking a swim for no reason and then getting hugged to death by giant, plastic foliage which also barely gets an excitable response from the rest of the cast.  In his defense though, the script that he is working with is so steadily uninteresting that all of the fake killer plants in the world could not save it from being a snore.  For his part, Karloff actually is not playing a doctor this time, but instead a professional skeptic with a television show.  Though his involvement with the plot is as sketchy as any other detail.  The rest of the characters are barely worth paying attention to, though similar to Karloff's comparatively against type role, character actor Elisha Cook Jr. is pleasantly NOT playing a drunk bum that is terrified of everything.  The most noteworthy aspect is that this was the first film appearance of Adam West, but he got shafted anyway by remaining uncredited.

THE HAUNTED STRANGLER
(1958)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: GOOD

Boris Karloff was rarely as aggressive on screen as he was in Amalgamated Productions' The Haunted Strangler, (aka Grip of the Strangler), one of if not his very last physically demanding performances.  As an obsessed novelist turned violently manic murderer, Karloff is his usual calm, charming self initially, but spends the better part of the later half practically more wild and unhinged than he ever was before.  Contorting his face to near-comical proportions, ranting and raving as he is locked up and put in a straight-jacket, and frantically murdering both randoms and those close to him, it is a riveting portrayal from the then seventy-one year old horror icon.  Directed by Robert Day, (who worked with Karloff again for the studio in the same year's Corridors of Blood), there is really not much else of note in the production, with the script teetering on being a bit too sloppy to really work and none of the other characters come remotely close to being anything except forgettable.  Thankfully though, it is a case where Karloff's work alone is more than enough to recommend the film as a whole.

1950s Boris Karloff Part One

THE STRANGE DOOR
(1951)
Dir - Joseph Pevney
Overall: MEH

One of the lesser appreciated Universal horror entries, (and for justifiable reason), that was released long after the studio's landmark heyday, The Strange Door was based off Robert Lewis Stevenson's The Sire de Maletroit's Door short story.  Though it features two heavyweights in Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff, there is barely anything else going for it.  A mediocre melodrama at best, it is Gothic in look and feel only, with Karloff barely getting any screen time and his name being attached is really the only thing giving it any sort of credibility amongst horror cinephiles.  Thankfully Laughton makes for a delightfully odorous villain though, chewing his scenery as much as he does his hog chops.  The ending is also effectively macabre and heart-racing, yet another plus being that it is played to no dramatic music as is the case with most of the film.  Overall though, it is not all that exciting as it becomes all too easy to tune-out of two young, attractive people being forced to marry who of course end up falling in love with each other anyway while their goblin-bodied Uncle delights in being a douche-nozzle.

CORRIDORS OF BLOOD
(1958)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: MEH

Once again distributed by MGM with much of the same crew, (including director Robert Day), Corridors of Blood was Amalgamated Productions' Boris Karloff-stared follow-up to The Haunted Strangler.  Sadly, the film was not released in the US until three years later and failed to do much business.  By that point, Karloff had taken as many years off and Hammer had already immortalized Christopher Lee, (who has a very minor role here), as Count Dracula.  Corridors fits into the horror genre due to its tone, with menacing music, shadowy cinematography, and Karloff and to a lesser extent Lee's presence, but it is actually a thriller about drug addiction.  The medical community's insistence on laughing off Karloff's Dr. Thomas Bolton's commendable intentions on creating an anesthetic for surgery is laughably ridiculous, but it does set the whole tragic stream of events in motion so it is a necessary, overtly silly plot device at worst.  Though the movie delivers very lightly on chills, Karloff is predictably fantastic as the doomed, once noble doctor turned addict so it is certainly worth seeing for that.

FRANKENSTEIN 1970
(1958)
Dir - Howard W. Koch
Overall: MEH

Another return of sorts to the literary character that made him a household name, Frankenstein 1970 sees Boris Karloff playing the Baron, (or a direct descendant), as opposed to the Baron's monstrous creation.  This would not be the last time the actor was attached to a project loosely based or inspired by Mary Shelley's source material or the landmark, initial Universal film from 1931, but it is probably the one that grant's Karloff the most screen time.  He is in rare form here, actually hamming it up for a change with some melodramatic monologues, either having more fun than usual or not taking the ordeal all that seriously, depending.  The filmmakers still could not resist the urge to apply some make-up on him even though he is not playing the monster this round and Karloff limps his body around, ultimately looking the full seventy-one years of age that he was.  Despite its allure for genre fans, the film is both poorly paced and poorly scripted.  Karloff's doctor is not even given any real motivation besides just unspoken cliches attributed to the character.  The backdrop of a film production taking place in his castle is lazily abandoned so members of the crew can just get picked off by a monster that remains in bandages the whole movie, (even depriving us of some flattop, bolts in the neck action).

1950s American Horror Part Seven

THE BAD SEED
(1956)
Dir - Mervyn LeRoy
Overall: MEH

Full of bizarre, often obnoxious performances and long, stagy, monotonous scenes, Mervyn LeRoy's first film adaptation of Maxwell Anderson's play The Bad Seed is a chore for these reasons and more.  Over two hours in length, it certainly feels it due the actor's unorthodox behavior.  This mostly falls on the shoulders of Nancy Kelly as an increasingly unraveling mother and to a lesser yet still noticeable extent, Henry Jones as a dim-witted, hillbilly caretaker, both of whom push their portrayals into either unintended comedy and/or "please just shut the hell up" terrain at times.  Comparatively, eleven year old Patty McCormack is difficult to watch as the smug, awful brat Rhoda Penmark in a more appropriate way, though she is more reprehensible than ominous.  Any time your subject matter deals with a doted-over, spoiled kid, the battle is already uphill to make it tolerable to stomach.  Though that is rather the entire point to rev up the tension with such an emotionally disturbing backdrop, the combination of baffling acting over set pieces that go on and on still makes for an over the top, arduous experience anyway you look at it.

BACK FROM THE DEAD
(1957)
Dir - Charles Marquis Warren
Overall: MEH

Author Catherine Turney adapted her own novel The Other One for the screen, (the title here changed to Back from the Dead for whatever reason), and it is an easily forgettable film with either an ambitious or sloppy story line depending on how you look at it.  There is a secret, occult society at play which sounds promising on paper, but after very briefly being introduced in the opening scene, they are only awkwardly brought back later and we hardly ever learn anything about their unholy shenanigans.  It has something to do with a woman possessed by a resurrected wife and some rocky cliffs, but the details are a mixed bag of lazy, half-baked cliches.  While the score from Raoul Krashaar is effectively atmospheric at first and even plays a narrative role in one scene, it becomes increasingly grating as it frequently blares on the soundtrack even over characters trying to deliver dialog.  Director Charles Marquis Warren took a brief break from exclusively making westerns with Back from the Dead, (and was also behind the lens on The Unknown Terror from the same year), but the material is just too vanilla here to really give him that much to work with.

THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE
(1958)
Dir - Will Cowan
Overall: MEH

Primarily working in the western genre, (producing and directing hundreds of shorts between 1940 and 1958), Scottish-born Will Cowan's final film and only second full-length one was the Universal horror outing The Thing That Couldn't Die.  The premise of a four-hundred year old, condemned sorcerer possessing people with his unearthed, severed head is airtight for a horror film, but the presentation is kind of lame-brained.  Two different women get under his evil spell and basically just act like assholes to everyone and this is after a slow handyman does absolutely nothing except get shot by the cops after likewise getting mojoed.  This also might have the least successful finale out of any movie by anybody.  Within seconds of being reattached to his dug-up body and proclaiming how wonderful Satan is and how much vengeance he is going to unleash, another guy shows him a shiny bit of jewellery, previously-headless sorcerer guy cowers back into his coffin, turns into a skeleton, the end.  It actually goes by faster than it took to read all of that.  It is somewhat fitting that the film was released as a co-bill with Horror of Dracula, thus rather sufficiently passing on the torch from Universal's horror output which clearly was waning to Hammer's era that was just beginning to ignite.