1960s Italian Horror Part Five

TERROR IN THE CRYPT
(1964)
Dir - Camilio Mastrocinque
Overall: MEH

Another Gothic horror movie inspired loosely as needed on the Carmilla novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Terror in the Crypt, (La cripta e l’incubo, Crypt of the Vampire, Crypt of Horror), is one of a handful of Italian productions that Christopher Lee appeared in during the 1960s.  Lee's non-villainous role as a Count who is afraid that his daughter may be possessed by an ancestor condemned as a witch, (naturally), is adequately prominent and thankfully his own voice is utilized alongside the rest of the American-dubbed Italian cast.  Camilio Mastrocinque replaced the equally prolific initial director Antonio Margheriti and for a filmmaker more accustomed to comedies, he does a fine enough job going through the "creepy old castle, stark candlelight, decrepit tombs, women being helplessly afraid of everything and having nightmares" motions.  Though it is well done for what it is and slightly less stagnant than most, the film's highly formulaic approach is ultimately its undoing as there were simply so, so many other movies almost exactly like it being made around the same time.

BLOODY PIT OF HORROR
(1965)
Dir - Domenico Massimo Pupillo
Overall: MEH

The second of three low-budget, camp-fueled horror outings from Domenico Massimo Pupillo was the flashy-titled Bloody Pit of Horror, (Il Boia Scarlatto).  The premise of an assembly of models and photographers stumbling across a castle to take advantage of the scenery for their photonovel, (a castle that naturally was long left abandoned with a convicted torturer called the Crimson Executioner sealed off in an iron maiden inside), is just adequate enough to hold the hilariously stupid plot together.  Asinine dialog that only exists in the campiest of Euro-horror movies such as "His noble crusade against sin lives again through me!" flow as freely as Italian wine.  We are also granted a four minute photo shoot sequence over a record skipping on the soundtrack, (no joke), which is enough to knock any fully conscious viewer into slumber land.  For the most part though, it is so stupid and nonsensical that plenty of laughter can be had by the proceedings.  The death sequences are equal parts arbitrary and elaborate, with a decked-out torture chamber and a random room full of wires attached to arrows with an adorable stuffed spider at the masked Executioner's disposal.  It manages to stay sleazy without technically showing any naked body parts, but you will be far too busy laughing at the dialog, costumes, lack of logic, and needle-skipping soundtrack to really complain.

LA STREGA IN AMORE
(1966)
Dir - Damiano Damiani
Overall: MEH

An adaptation of Mexican novelists Carlos Fuentes' Aura, the most Italian-named ever Damiano Damiani's La strega in amore, (The Witch, The Witch in Love, Strange Obsession), is a strange and frustrating psychological thriller.  The Haunting's Richard Johnson leads the otherwise local cast as a man asking gallons of questions and getting one cryptic, non-answer after the other from two thoroughly bizarre women living in a giant, crumbling house in the heart of Rome.  Everyone's behavior becomes increasingly agitated and baffling and because of that, the viewer never has a clue as to what type of relationship any of the characters truly have with each other.  The score from frequent spaghetti western maestro Luis Bacolov plays an almost staring role at times and certainly enhances the strangeness in a few key scenes, namely random dance numbers and feral motion breakdowns.  While some of this plays out in a creepy and odd enough manner to engage one's interest, twenty or so minutes could afford to be trimmed to keep the whole thing from seeming so wandering and aimless. 

1960s Italian Horror Part Four

KATARSIS
(1963)
Dir - Giuseppe Veggezzi
Overall: WOOF

The only film ever made by Giuseppe Vegezzi, Katarsis, (Sfida al diavolo, Challenge the Devil), inexplicably stars Christopher Lee who apparently owed someone a favor or something.  While it is not altogether incompetent since the film is occasionally photographed in an atmospheric fashion, it is still a laughable mess.  There are preposterous scenes like a bunch of drunk assholes dancing around fully clothed which the movie constitutes as a diabolical "orgy" and a long, claustrophobic and awkward take of the same assholes, (very), slowly walking up a staircase.  Dialog like "Whisky! Whisky! Drugs! Drugs!" followed by "I want some drugs as well." gives a rather routine example of the high caliber of screenwriting present.  Of course, the biggest detriment is tortuously slow pacing.  Mostly told in flashbacks, it gives off the unmistakable feel that the original cut was far too short so they quickly wrote and shot more utterly pointless material to flesh it all out.  This includes a moment at a nightclub where several female singers perform one after the other without advancing a single element of the plot whatsoever.  The conclusion which is meant to be a surreal and dark trek into random madness is so absolutely moronic that it would warrant momentous laughter if not again for how utterly boring it simultaneously is.

TERROR-CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE
(1965)
Dir - Massimo Pupillo
Overall: MEH

It says something when director Massimo Pupillo was indifferent enough concerning his work on Terror-Creatures from the Grave, (5 tombe per un medium), to willingly use the alias Ralph Zucker and further distance himself from the project.  With yet another set up of a dead guy in a creepy villa needing his will gone over, the movie is off to a derivative start and never recovers from there.  Even for a low-budget horror film produced in the 60s, the pacing is cripplingly tortoise-like.  At one point a guy in a wheelchair stabs himself with a sword and then we see some monster hands for whatever reason, all of which takes absolutely forever and constitutes as one of the most impressively boring death scenes ever filmed.  There is a mystery that never picks up any momentum, no even remotely spooky set pieces, and the characters have absolutely zero charisma top to bottom, including a wasted Barbara Steele who seems to disappear entirely from the movie for large periods at a time.  It is pretty much a failure in every detail that it may be setting out to achieve, but it us so unremarkable in doing so that it deserves to be forgotten about more than it deserves anyone's outright scorn.

A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY
(1968)
Dir - Elio Petri
Overall: GOOD

One of the strangest and ultimately most pretentious horror films possibly ever made in Italy was Elio Petri's A Quiet Place in the Country, (Un tranquillo posto di campagna, Un coin tranquille à la campagne).  Based off of the wonderfully named Oliver Onion's own short story "The Beckoning Fair One", the pacing certainly is not sluggish.  Instead it is quite frantic with Petri's frequent collaborator Luigi Kuveiller's incredibly busy camera work.  This enhances the chaos along with lightning-fast editing and incessantly surreal images that mix flashbacks and hallucinations to confuse what may or may not be actually happening.  Django himself Franco Nero's performance from the get go is unmistakably of an unstable man, just as much as Vanessa Redgrave's is of an unstable, ultimately vulnerable partner in their bizarre relationship.  The images themselves are hyper-sexual and violent and the film could be saying something metaphorically about the struggling, depraved artist or it could "simply" be a visually over the top, cinematic unraveling of a tortured one.  The intentionally avant-garde presentation would seem indulgently absurd and may in fact be so to some, but it is so consistent and relentless that Petri's ambitious vision cannot be considered anything but fully realized.

1960s Italian Horror Part Three

MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN
(1960)
Dir - Giorgio Ferroni
Overall: GOOD

Notable as the first Italian horror movie to be shot in color, Giorgio Ferroni's Mill of the Stone Women, (Il mulino delle donne di pietra), is highly stylish and often atmospheric enough to make up for its consistently sluggish pace.  It is unfortunate that the first act takes its time too leisurely as well as having laughable, melodramatic touches like characters falling in love to the point of having compete mental breakdowns over it.  Once the film plays the "It is all a hallucination" card and starts toying with the audience through its dashing, leading man Pierre Brice, things become a bit more interesting.  Ferroni and cinematographer Pier Ludovico Pavoni utilize Gothic, shadowy lighting and balance the primarily beige color backdrop with vivid reds, violets, and greens, but it is nowhere near as otherworldly clashing as what Mario Bava would famously indulge in around the same time if we were to compare.  As a more ghastly, Italian-flavored re-working of the already established House of Wax tropes though, Mill of the Stone Woman ultimately delivers, particularly with its gruesome carousel of hell and mad doctor romp final set piece.

IL DEMONIO
(1963)
Dir - Brunello Rondi
Overall: GOOD

Frequent Federico Fellini screenwriter, art director, and collaborator Brunello Rondi made his second full-length as director with Il demonio, (The Demon).  Unsettling and quite stark, it is an unrelenting depiction of superstition run amok in a small, Italian village where a woman for whatever reason has claimed a local man as only hers and resorts to witchcraft to obtain him.  Or so she and others claim.  As no supernatural activity is explicitly confirmed, (at least any that cannot be explained as being part of any kind of frenzied delirium), it works intentionally as an examination of religious ignorance, fear, and the mental instability caused by such things.  Israeli actress and future Bond girl Daliah Lavi, (who also appeared in Mario Bava's The Whip and the Body the same year), is captivating and frighting as the bewitched peasant girl, who dishes out as much torment as she gets back from the locals.  Themes of hypocrisy run frequent throughout the movie where men both condemn and banish her as well as sexually take advantage of her when it is convenient for them.  At the same time, villagers throw rocks, beat, and blame her for any current misfortunes bestowed upon them.

THE SEVENTH GRAVE
(1965)
Dir - Garibaldi Serra Caracciolo
Overall: WOOF

An Italian take on The Cat and the Canary, The Seventh Grave, (La settima tomba), is the disastrous only film from Garibaldi Serra Caracciolo.  More to the point, it does everything in an incredibly bland and mediocre fashion.  Gothic horror/mystery cliches run amok, (frequent organ cues on the soundtrack when something is supposed to be scary, an ancient castle, a seance, mad scientist experiments, corpses in caskets, a crypt, characters getting picked off or gone missing, a dead rich guy's will, a long and unnecessary explanation at the end to make sense of everything), and the story is so perpetually lame-brained that not a single plot point registers even the most minute intrigue.  Caracciolo's lifeless direction does not help, but the script offers so very little to work with that only a select few directors could have added enough flare to distract you from how monotonously mundane it is.  Dreadful pacing is nothing new to low-budget horror films from the era, (whether made in Hollywood or internationally such as here), and in fact is actually expected.  Yet everything going on in here could not be more uninspired if it tried, which it does not.

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.