Film Reviews by NP

In Stockholm, Henrik (Jonas Malmsjö) is a popular priest whose good relationship with his congregation sadly doesn’t stretch into his home life, which is awkward to say the least. On hearing of his father’s death, he drives through the night – against the wishes of his girlfriend – to his father’s hometown. On the way, he knocks down a woman whose body then disappears.

He takes lodgings with a very strange family and sees a little girl in the barn outside. The girl transforms into a CGI demon and vanishes. Then he meets other people who transform into CGI demons, including a teenage girl who appears to seduce him in the barn before assuming the appearance of his mother (I think) before transforming into another CGI demon.

This continues for the film’s running time and it soon becomes an impenetrable tangle of intensely acted, beautifully directed set-pieces and flashbacks, most of which appear to be designed to force Henrik into believing in the existence in Hell – something he has always previously denied.

The repetition and occasional absurdity of the effects cease to have any real effect after a while, especially as such moments are never really explained. It actually becomes an annoyance that such talent is wasted here – why take the time to perfect these shots and effects if they are just lost in a story that continually makes no sense?

The ending sees Henrik conducting a sermon to a full congregation (including his son, with whom it seems relations have at last improved) denouncing religion and his faith as an elitist fiction. The implication is that he has lost his mind, and his faith in religion, but gained the acceptance of his wayward family. Very odd.

This film is flatly directed by veteran Vernon Sewell, and involves a mysterious creature stalking the British countryside relieving local youths of their blood.

Robert Flemyng plays entomology professor Dr. Carl Mallinger in a role originally designed for Basil Rathbone, who sadly died before shooting began. His daughter Claire is persuasively played by Wanda Ventham. Peter Cushing stars as the perpetually chewing Detective Inspector Quennell with a subtle edginess compared to his usual genial performances. As the undertaker, Roy Hudd appears in the kind of role Miles Malleson might have essayed ten years earlier, endlessly making puns about corpses etc. Vanessa Howard plays Meg, Quennell’s daughter; in one of those bizarre decisions typical of films made at this time, her voice is dubbed, very badly, by an artiste who sounds a great deal younger than the character. This practice has always baffled me – why take the time to hire an actor only to rob them of one of their most important hallmarks, their voice? Glynn Edwards, most famous for his role in television’s ‘Minder’ is Sgt Allan (one of this film’s highlights is the occasional banter between Allan and Quennell, apparently suggested by Cushing) while veteran Kevin Stoney plays Mallinger’s scarred retainer Granger.

The cast are capable, but the film plods and seems to last longer than its 88 minutes - there are various reports that both Flemyng and Cushing were not happy throughout. In the opening scene, which the film didn’t need to show as events are recounted later anyway, Africa is represented by a muddy English river and forest with ill-matching stock footage of wildlife inserted (including a Central American Macaw!). There is an initially amusing amateur dramatics play performed that serves no real purpose, but seems to drag, for example, and far too much time is spent with minutiae at a time when the story could really do with building up some sort of tension.

The Blood Beast responsible for the film’s alleged Terror is a human sized death’s head moth, Claire’s alter ego. Impractically, to commit the various murders, Claire would have to transform from fully clothed and exquisitely made-up into the creature, and back again, from one scene to the next. The creature’s eventual destruction is very badly conveyed, but at least it brings proceedings to an end, dispelling a growing feeling that the film was going to last forever.

‘Asylum’ is an anthology film from the Amicus Company, based on stories by Robert Bloch.

Rutherford sets Martin a task. If he can identify former medical specialist Dr Starr amongst the inmates, the position is his. He has to visit a selection of cases – first, guided by the orderly Reynolds (Geoffrey Bayldon, in a role for which Spike Milligan was also considered), he meets Bonnie (Barbara Parkins). What follows in ‘Frozen Fear’, is that Walter (Richard Todd) and Bonnie agreed to dismember Walter’s wife, occult practitioner Ruth (Sylvia Syms) and live off her money. Despite this, she escapes from the freezer into which her various body parts have been stored, and her assorted limbs, head (which is still breathing) and torso, carefully wrapped in brown paper and string, attack first Walter and then Bonnie … apparently (we see this in flashback, and it is one of this film’s greatest and most effective scenes. It is intentionally horrific and hilarious, perfectly balanced). This is Bonnie’s story, but she has no proof, only gaping wounds on her face where she axed her alleged attacker/s. Chances are, if you have seen this film, then the scene of the dismembered limbs scuttling across the floor is what will stick in your mind.

‘The Weird Tailor’ is next. Barry Morse plays Bruno, a struggling tailor who accepts an order from ‘Mr Smith’ (Peter Cushing) to create a suit made from special material, and to work on this at specific times over four nights. Smith promises a great deal of cash, but when the suit is delivered, is revealed to live in a house empty of furniture: Smith is penniless. Both actors are at a peak here and ably supported by Ann Firbank as Bruno’s wife (Bruno is a lot more sympathetic here than in Bloch’s original story and our sympathies are with him throughout as a result). Even the (enjoyable) silliness at the end of the episode doesn’t detract from its deep sense of melancholy and longing. Directed often in close-up, the squalidity of the two men’s desperation is expertly conveyed. This is not only my favourite segment from ‘Asylum’, but from any Amicus production.

Any tale that follows that would be hard pressed to match it, and sadly ‘Lucy Comes to Stay’ (originally planned as the first instalment, but moved to third place at Producer Milton Subotsky’s insistence) is the weakest of the three. This is by no means a bad story, the climax nevertheless shares similarities with ‘Frozen Fear’. It contains a terrific cast including James Villiers, Charlotte Rampling, Megs Jenkins and Britt Ekland.

Another Doctor – Doctor Byron – features next. Played by the always brilliant Herbert Lom, Byron has created tiny mannequins based on former colleagues of his. ‘These are not ordinary figures’, he explains, and goes on to explain that each figure is living and perfectly capable of functioning. He can bring them to life with his ‘conscious’, and his final model is based on himself. Absurdly (the viewer has to go along with this for it to be effective), this last mannequin travels downstairs and kills Doctor Rutherford, who is responsible for Byron’s incarceration.

And yet who is the elusive Dr Starr? The answer is brilliantly directed by stalwart Roy Ward Baker. It is the Bayldon’s orderly. Starr killed the original Reynolds, and does the same to Dr Martin. We finally see him as he truly is, frighteningly deranged, holding a stethoscope to Martin, cackling furiously, an insane child-like laughter. Bayldon is terrific throughout. Often a player of secondary characters, he is unassuming and courteous – and that is why the reveal is so very effective.

Watching this film is a frustrating experience; it’s a mixed bag. Powerful moments, direction, location, nicely restrained CGI effects and pacing are punctuated with some wooden acting (Aaron Stielstra as Sergeant Calhoun and Ally McLelland as Matt) and some dreadful dialogue. We are witnessing hard-bitten soldiers trapped in an unforgiving environment facing, as the title suggests, the living dead – so naturally every sentence should be comprised of macho cliché and relentless expletives so out of context, the profanities are unintentionally quite funny. As a result, we spend a lot of time with people it is impossible to like. We can’t even long for their deaths, because their stilted delivery doesn’t provide us with any personality.

Only Andrew Mills as Will lends his role any pathos, sense of fear or even, dare I suggest, personality. That is why, in the scenes toward the end, when he is all but alone against the modest hordes of zombies, does the tension improve greatly. Luckily, the end credits supply us with character pictures to go with the actors, because it is hard to work out otherwise, who is who.

To concentrate on the positives, the visuals are stunning. There is a bleak oppressive nature to the choice of location, and the soldiers’ sense of isolation and hopelessness is expertly conveyed. The film has a slightly grainy took to it, which enhances the punishing conditions – and by that token, the occasional flashbacks to Will’s sunny, carefree childhood, come across as tear-jerkingly wholesome and idyllic, which imbues the return to his present predicament with an even greater emotional impact.

The ending is an enigma. Will is guided by a young woman to the sprawling run-down hospital run by Doktor Mengele, who is responsible for the creation of the undead hordes (another lunatic striving towards the perfect solider motif). The woman turns out to have been an hallucination. And yet, the end would suggest she is the spirit of Will’s mother, which begs the question, why would she lead him to his doom – because that is exactly what Will’s fate turns out to be. On top of that, a final scene suffused in the closing credits seems to indicate Will’s entire experience has not been real at all, suggesting a ‘dream ending’ cop-out.

Zombies during war-time is a theme that has been visited several times (‘Frankenstein’s Army’, ‘Dead Snow’, ‘Dead Mine’ for example) and works rather well. With a little more effort made to give the leads personalities, this would have been so much more satisfying.

As British horror films entered their twilight years, there were some underrated gems released with little fanfare. This is one.

Peter Edmonton (Simon Williams) brings home his intended bride Rosalind (Tamara Ustinov). Sadly for her, aggressive snobbery is prevalent in this ‘folk horror’ – as she is just a serving wench, she is condemned to spend the night in the dreaded attic, wherein she is disturbed by something that sends her hurtling into insanity. As she’s bundled off to the bedlam by the local judge (an excellent Patrick Wymark in one of his last films), Edmonton too succumbs to the curse of the attic and chops off his hand believing it to be the appendage of a devil. At around the same time, wholesome Ralph Gower (Barry Andrews on top form) discovers a malformed skull that subsequently disappears when the authorities are alerted.

This was originally conceived as an anthology of three stories, which may explain the staggered nature of the narrative – characters come to the fore and then disappear into the background again, creating a choppy flow to the proceedings. It is possible this contributes to the film’s great feeling of unease as events become increasingly nasty and demonic.

And nasty they are indeed. Unsightly growths of animal-like hair on the bodies of the victims, the distressing rape and murder of local youngster Cathy (Wendy Padbury), and the briefest glimpse of the ghoulish demon behind it all. All this is conveyed convincingly by a tremendous cast determined to make things as real as can be.

And yet it is 17 year-old Linda Hayden who all but steals the show as the possessed Angel. Expertly flicking between innocent vulnerability and genuine sensual wickedness, it is surprising she didn’t go on to find greater acclaim as befits her talent. Rather ungallantly, Director Piers Haggard has said he had to use her because she was under contract to Tigon supremo Tony Tenser. She shares top billing, alongside Wymark, and deservedly so.

Filmed almost entirely on location in wintery woodlands, complete with a constant soundtrack of rooks and farmyard animals to heighten the lack of modernity. There is an authentic feeling that this cut-off village is a law unto its own pagan superstitions, and as such, is dangerously easy prey to legendry evil. With such an enigmatic premise, the climax seems comparatively perfunctory. Still, this is a tremendous film.

At the time of writing, Dave Bowie has recently died. To describe him as a singer/songwriter doesn’t even begin to describe his musical genius – he was a true pioneer, several times over – and he has been widely recognised as such. His acting career, however, has attracted more mixed comment.

He initially impressed in Nick Roeg’s ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ film, in which he very convincingly played an alien in human form. He was using cocaine regularly during this time and his memory of the film is somewhat hazy – possibly that leant something to his ‘out there’ performance, which was powerful and desperately fragile at the same time. After a spell on stage playing The Elephant Man (without make-up, using his body and vocal inflections to communicate John Merrick’s physical deformity) other parts followed, including that of John Blaylock, partner of Catherine Deneuve’s Miriam Blaylock and centuries old vampire in this Tony Scott (brother of Ridley) directed film.

Critics have not been kind about ‘The Hunger’. The main comment has been that it is ‘style over substance’. Whilst the direction, lighting and pace is extremely artistically framed and shot, the storyline is thin at best. But is that a criticism? Not as far as I am concerned. Some of my favourite films are very languid in their telling (a number of them are reviewed here) and surely the lack of a fast pace allows us to become familiar with the characters, their lives, their relationships and the world in which they inhabit. When things happen to them, we care more because we know them better than if their characters had been communicated between spectacular effects shots or a desire to get the story over and done with amidst, as Bowie might say, ‘tits and explosions’.

So when John Blaylock begins to look his age, it is apparent something is very wrong. It seems Miriam has tired of him somewhat, and he is alone seeking help in a hospital waiting room. The staff at the hospital seem determined not to come to his aid, and in the space of a day, he appears to age 70 years. The make-up and performance are incredible here. As Blaylock’s hair comes off in clumps in his hands, as we are given glimpses of the heavy lines appearing and deepening around his eyes, we are witnessing a slow, uncomfortable demise.

It is never specifically established that he dies. He is placed in a coffin, now a crumbling shell of a man, by Miriam whilst still showing signs of life – indeed, he appears to haunt her towards the film’s end, although this could be an hallucination.

Deneuve and Susan Sarandon (whose characters become inter-twined) get the lion’s share of screen time – the idea of the eternal vampire living in accepted society has been done a number of times, of successfully so. This is no exception. It’s as convincing portrayal of the supernatural existing in our time as any I have seen.

This reminds me of a slimmed down version of the mighty Vincent Price vehicle ‘Theatre of Blood’, which was released the year after this. Filmed for the most part in the Pavilion Theatre in Cromer, this involves a group of unemployed young actors who are invited to an abandoned theatre by the sea to perform a play, where one by one, they get brutally murdered. The location proves to be an excellent horror venue. Cut off from reality to certain degree, it becomes a world within a world wherein literally anything can happen.

Ray Brooks is the head of the young actors group and he provides a reassuring lead as much around him falls apart. The occasional showing of the police doesn’t seem to improve the situation, and only the friendly local Major Bell (encountered in a local café, which provides a brief yet strangely sinister respite for the troupe) seems to provide a reassuring outside presence.

Jenny Hanley, whose identity is somewhat enigmatic by the close, plays posh Julia Dawson. Unlike her appearance in ‘Scars of Dracula’, she is allowed to use her own, un-dubbed voice – which is fine. Quite why the producers of the 1970 Hammer picture insisted she be dubbed by another actress is a mystery – and to her also, according to interviews. Hanley is also subject to clearly having a body double for revealing close-ups. I wonder how she felt about that?

This is one of Director Pete Walker’s better films. Not quite on a par with ‘Frightmare’ a couple of years later, but coasts along at a good pace, and punctuates the uneasy atmosphere with occasional scenes of gore. The climactic moments were apparently shown in 3D on the film’s initial cinematic release.

This anthology film starts in a refreshing manner. A standard family emerge from their home in sunny suburbia to have dinner at a neighbours’. Whereas often the family would be swapping cutesy witticisms with each other, this one is arguing and cursing before their own front door is shut behind them. As it turns out, this family returns to feature in the last of this trio of tales involving various bloody misdeeds that have occurred in the basement of this house over the years.

Of the three stories, the first is an enjoyably perverse, open-ended piece in which hints are given about possible unsavoury relations between four family members involved in a séance.

The second is my favourite, and features a gleefully animalistic character who keeps his ‘guests’ in two cages. One, he abuses regularly but keeps alive – she is his ‘audience’. The second cage is used far more regularly, as the unfortunates he brings to that one don’t live for very long after he begins to systematically torture them in various graphic ways. The relationship takes on an almost humorous familiarity before it, too, ends with no real sense of closure.

And to the third story, which deals with the original family being tortured also, in various horrifying ways – perhaps the worst is the daughter of the house stabbed multiple times and then thrown into a bath of lemon juice. Without any real narrative, however, this emerges simply as scenes of torture for the sake of it.

There’s no real conclusion to the overall story either, which is disappointing, other than now, in the present day, someone has actually brought the property, and already there is a body in the basement …

This is an odd experience. At turns gratuitous, funny, but ultimately fairly plotless.

Cedric Hardwicke is Doctor Ludwig Frankenstein, son of Colin Clive and brother of Basil Rathbone, and by the far the most retrained family member, possessing none of his relatives’ intensity. Bela Lugosi returns as Ygor, happily unaffected by being ‘riddled with bullets’ in the previous film. His balance of mischief and malice is finely crafted and Ygor remains the picture’s most animated character. Ralph Bellamy’s rather dully efficient hero Eric, and his glamorous partner Elsa (Evelyn Ankers) are the alleged goodies, as always less interesting than the villains, a clan aided by Doctor Bohmer played by the mighty Lionel Atwill.

The Monster’s first appearance, clumsily stumbling out from the now hard-set sulphur pit that incarcerated and preserved him, is effective. One's hope is that the monster’s robotic groping is a result of his ordeal, but that is pretty much the sum total of Lon Chaney’s (the ‘Jr’ is now gone from his name in the credits) interpretation of the role. Having said that, the following scene, with Ygor chasing after him across the blasted health-land as The Monster tries to find the best spot to attract the lightening has a charming surreality about it; like a panicking father trying to gain some control over an errant child.

And yet the people the mis-matched duo meet in Vasaria as they search for the latest Baron Frankenstein, are disappointingly unafraid of them. More a curiosity befalls the young maiden and gaggle of townsfolk as they set eyes on the unsightly couple, and this, alongside Chaney’s soulless performance, undermines The Monster’s effectiveness greatly.

Once in Vasaria, the Monster is captured and imprisoned. As Ludwig is brought forward and pretends not to recognise the creature, we catch a glimmer of emotion on his/its face as anger takes hold (to balance with this, there is a scene where Ygor, gesturing towards the Monster, exclaims ‘Can’t you see? He is for the first time happy in his life’. Chaney’s unmoving, unblinking, totally statue-lie performance gives no indication of any emotion whatsoever, and either renders the scene ludicrous, or displays Ygor’s humour extends to heavy sarcasm).

To remind viewers of the original story, we are treated to a flashback from the original film, also reminding us how much more moodily lit, extensively furnished and interestingly directed the 1931 picture was by comparison, although it substitutes a close-up of Chaney’s monster in place of the original Karloff. Director Erle C Kenton makes great use of shadows when dealing with the Monster – sadly, the shadow close-ups bear little resemblance to the Monsters actual actions or placing within the composition.

The ghost to justify the title is that of the original Baron (this time with Hardwicke playing Colin Clive’s role) visiting his son and introducing the idea of placing a different brain into his creation.

It is just possible that Chaney’s subdued take was deliberate to highlight how startlingly changed he is by the film’s finale. With Ygor’s brain in his head, he speaks with Ygor’s voice in an impressively dubbed scene. This new evilly grinning personality is how the Monster would remain (theoretically) throughout the next four Universal films since no further transplant takes place. Suddenly blinded by an averse blood-type reaction, the Monster causes the laboratory to explode, lending us some nice shots of his face blistering and frazzling in the flames, before some cheerful ‘wrapping-up’ music accompanies Eric and Elsa happily away to safety leaving the evil-doers to burn.

“It’s such fun being night people, isn’t it?” Sheila Keith, one of Director Pete Walker’s repertory stalwarts, asks at one point. Here, she plays Dorothy Yates, recently released from an asylum after displaying violent cannibalistic preferences, now completely cured. A quick look at the gleam in her eye and it is clear such a prognosis was … optimistic, to say the least.

Sheila Keith has been underrated, despite her numerous appearances in Walker’s films, and she is never better than here (at least not in the films I have seen her in thus far), and she is given material she can really, if you will, sink her teeth into. Her long-suffering brother, also committed, is played by Rupert Davies in one of his last films. Edmund Yates is guilty only of covering up his sister’s actions. Her brand of insanity attracts a certain loyalty. Imagine if she had other relatives?

Of course, she does. The wayward Debbie, whose dewy-eyed innocent look belies her murderous nature, and Jackie, who secretly visits Edmund and Dorothy late night.

This is my favourite of the films directed by Pete Walker so far (I’m not watching them chronologically). It has a central theme that doesn’t meander, features well-written parts for all cast members, and every part is very well played. It has the crisp starkness of a low-budget UK thriller and is directed very much in the style of television series at that time. It’s really a showcase for Keith’s magnificent, towering performance. Yet she’s supported by a fine cast (including cameos from Andrew Sachs, Leo Genn and Gerald Flood), and the proceedings are given a pleasingly open-ended climax.

Originally known as ‘Cagliostro’, the subsequent tweaking of the script and title (and scant minutes that actually feature a traditionally bandage enwrapped mummy) ensured that this would quickly join ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ (both 1931) as one of the most iconic (that over-used word) horror films of all time.

Reviewers have noted this could be seen as a re-write of ‘Dracula’, and stars two of that film’s players (Edward Van Sloan and David Manners). The former film’s use of ‘Swan Lake’ as opening music is also re-used here. The inclusion of ‘Frankenstein’ Boris Karloff further compounds Universal Films’ impressive growing repertoire company of the time.

Bramwell Fletcher plays Ralph Norton, the hapless explorer who foolishly resurrects the mummy from his long slumber, and his crazed hysterical laughter as he (but not the audience) witnesses Imhotep talking ‘a little walk.’ Another classic horror moment.

As far as the mummy is concerned, that is all we see – a flickering eyelid, twitching fingers and a reaching hand, and finally two long bandage trails signifying the departing wizened creature. These frightening moments are accompanied by no musical score whatsoever, which heightens the isolated nightmare.

Karloff is seen from that moment onwards – ten years after his reawakening - as Ardath Bay (an anagram of Death by Ra, I recently discovered, 84 years after the film’s release), literally a living mummy. Face and hands leathered and broken (an arduous make-up by resident genius Jack Pierce), Karloff does indeed look and move like a reanimated cadaver. It is a wonderful, restrained performance. Even his eyes lack any lustre until the very end, just before the character meets his doom.

For such a slow moving, unspectacular film, things could become a little dull. Luckily the heroine Helen Grosvener is played by Zita Johann who is lively and headstrong (and apparently had a less than joyful time filming, feeling she was a ‘scapegoat’ for Director Karl Freund). Certainly she gives more of a performance - even when Grosvenor is possessed by Bey - than David Manners who, like his turn in ‘Dracula’, is charming but stodgy - (indeed, between her two would-be suitors, Grosvenor might find Bey has more life in him!).

‘The Mummy’ stands shoulder-to-shoulder within its mighty triumvirate and has gone onto inspire generations of horror films. Fans might be disappointed that it wasn’t until the first sequel (‘The Mummy’s Hand’ 1940) that we become more familiar with the traditional looking pharaoh, and this is a very slow film, very of its time. And yet it contains a creeping sense of dread, an overwhelming atmosphere of reincarnated, ancient horror that any sequels or remakes could never quite emulate.

Not only is this an exceptional film in its own right, it has restored somewhat my faith in modern horror cinema. I’ve seen a run of recent films that have really disappointed. Here we have a tale of possession, of haunting, about a spirit returning to avenge itself. It’s not a hugely original run of events, but it is done extremely well. Acting, direction, (and especially) pace – all these things come together to make a thoroughly satisfying whole.

From the beginning, when (SPOILERS) a perfect couple are separated mid-sentence by a fatal car crash, to the very ending when it becomes apparent that good doesn’t always win, things never let up. That’s not to say anything is rushed for the sake of sensationalism. Equally, the special effects are mainly reduced to very powerfully staged crashes and bangs. We know precisely what is going on except for where the story is actually heading: the producer (Jason Blum), director (Kevin Greutert) and writer (Ben Garant) have us right in the palm of their hands.

Everything and everyone shines here: Sarah Snook is hugely effective as Jessie, by turns appealing, terrified, confused and sinister, all achieved with apparent ease. Hers is a talent I would like to see pay dividends. Certainly, the filmography is lengthy for the Australian actress. From her accent, I wasn’t even aware she was Australian.

The main Louisiana location is used to very good effect. The swampland surrounding the isolated community provides a necessarily uneasy backdrop for the powerful scenes of Voodoo, and the old family house is perfectly decked out with a setting of homely familiarity gone mainly to ruin.

At one time during the film, I thought I cleverly figured out that Jessie was actually dead, ‘Sixth Sense’-style, but the results are so much more original than that. There’s no real gore to speak of, but as a really good, solid ghost story expertly handled, I’d recommend this unreservedly, especially to anyone beleaguered with the current spate of popular horror films.

Minutes into this film, we are bombarded with information, some star names and some sumptuous foreign filming. It’s a project desperate to hit us from the very beginning. Only when things calm down a little do we get know any of the characters – played by an impressive array: Peter Cushing, William Mervyn, Edward Woodward and Patrick MacNee. Of them all, MacNee gets the most to do, but even he is killed off well before the final curtain.

Patrick Mower (currently hamming it up in missable Brit-soap Emmerdale) is extremely good as Richard Fountain, who has gone missing in Greece. This allows us some expansive foreign locales, but sadly, this film lacks the ability to deliver a straight-forward, comprehensible film. Whilst the idea of Fountain having been attacked by a Grecian vampire in this sunny, most un-vampiric paradise is an appealing one, so little time is given over to any kind of character development that we don’t really care about Fountain’s plight – or indeed have time even to notice the girl is a vampire until the brief act is carried out and she is despatched. Things become interesting when Mower’s character behaves more and more erratically, climactically speaking out in a rousing rejection of the well-to-do scholars that would see him sensibly married off and educated. That only vampirism can free him from the shackles of his peers is also an interesting idea, but has no time to breathe before Fountain his unspectacularly killed.

This was a troubled shoot, apparently. Director Robert Hartford-Davis found the budget ran out before the film was finished and he removed himself and his name from the project. I was very much reminded of the work of Director Peter Walker (Schizo, Die Screaming Marianne etc) such is the mishmash of pleasing directorial flourishes and messy narrative, but at least at 89 minutes, the project isn’t allowed to meander too much. A horror film filmed in a determinedly un-horrific way, a few more chills – or indeed any at all – would have helped balance the tone out a little.

Imagine what it must be like to dress up as a clown and then never be able to remove the make-up? Well, now you don’t have to – because that is what happens in this film. Unfortunately, that is all that happens in this film. Kent McCoy (Andy Powers) then descends into a vengeful murderer who goes through the motions of many other human/monster hybrids, trying to regain his sanity whilst becoming more monstrous by the moment.

Except that his monstrousness is pretty anaemic, both in visualisation and acting, and this kind of thing has been done much more effectively elsewhere – the distinction here is that the creature is a malevolent demon trapped in a clown suit, and it is the ridiculous nature of that which separates this from other such films. Never once is the viewer invited to worry about the juvenile victims of the creature, never is pathos or sympathy squeezed in between the hollering parents and copious amounts of blood, and sadly, rarely is the titular clown actually particularly scary despite his handful of (off camera) misdeeds, at least not until the end, when the mutation nears completion. By this time, of course, McCoys hitherto placid wife has become ‘supermom’, able to bounce back from her husband’s repeatedly ‘fatal’ attacks.

I seem to have recorded some scathing views about this, and the film really doesn’t deserve them. But what irritates is that, bar the originality and silliness of the central premise, this follows the same route as so many other films. Wife becomes concerned with hubby’s behaviour, finds he has become possessed, seeks the help of someone else who has been possessed and overcomes the evil so she and the family youngster can live safely ever after. Reassuringly, however, it is revealed the demonic suit still exists and is being held by the police as part of the evidence concerning the swathe of killings. So you never know, Clown may be back.

Men in folky animal masks pursue, imprison and monitor a young lady (Christine François). The imagery is at once bizarre and unsettling, but it doesn’t stop there. We see Cathy and Pony Tricot next, French Director Jean Rollin’s Castel twins as maids, dressed in extraordinary metal and spike-adorned fetish gear. They don’t speak initially, just observe in a detached fashion and tend to the members of the house. Their presence is sprinkled throughout the film; always they are resigned looking, forlorn and fascinating.

Olivier Martin (actually Rollin’s brother) is Pierre Radamante the hero of the piece, typically rather fey nevertheless provides a welcome wholesomeness in the face of so much apparent evil and strangeness. His father Georges (Maurice Lemaitre) is the head of the organisation that has enslaved the young girl, and his secretary Solange (Ursule Pauly) is his nefarious subordinate.

The young girl is being enticed as a form of spectacle for the mask-wearing guests of the house, tempted by blood. It seems as if she is a vampire and they are a secret suicide cult hiding under a veneer of respectability. There are long periods where there is no dialogue, and this at the film’s beginning, revealing no compromise to the telling of the story. It is there, but you need to pay close attention. It is a good half hour before any explanations are forthcoming.

At times this can be ponderous: scenes are inserted for their own sake that appear to have no bearing on anything else. The ending could almost be seen as a tribute to the Universal films of old (watching ‘House of Dracula’ is cited as one of Rollin’s formative horror experiences) with masses of people (lead by Michael Delahay nicely underplaying the Grandmaster, a role he would repeat in the following year’s ‘Le Frisson des Vampires/Shiver of the Vampires’) with fiery torches descending en masse.

The apparent death of the evil Solange is accompanied not by strident music, but simply by the guttural shrieking and bleating of night animals, making her demise an isolated, detached affair. Solange is responsible for the unforgivable act of injuring, or possibly killing, the twin maids in one of the film’s most notorious sequences. Knocking them both down with an iron candelabra one twin falls all the way to the bottom of the lengthy flight of stairs, in actuality knocking herself out in the process! Luckily, they both appear later, bloodied but alive, and it is due to them that Solange meets her fate.

The Castels appear sporadically throughout Rollin’s films (though sadly not in his retrospective ‘La Nuit des Horloges’ (2007) – at least not outside the archive footage used to represent them). They are more effective than ever here, the stars of the show. Dark haired, dressed in a variety of eccentric costumes, they are mainly unspeaking. Inexperienced as actors they may have been, but their twin presence is extraordinary. Even an uneventful scene of them going about the business of changing clothes or procuring refreshments for their masters or slowly descending stone stairs with their crackling fiery torches, is enlivened by their other-worldly silence, their silent observation of each other’s actions. ‘The Nude Vampire’ is their greatest achievement, and the overall alien atmosphere would have been far lessened without their contribution.

The end of the film, customarily filmed on ‘Rollin’s beach’ in Dieppe, provides the platform to reveal the imprisoned young girl was never a vampire, indeed there have never been such things as vampires (!) – rather, she is a mutant. The nature of her condition is unspecified, but it seems to be impervious to bullets and display distinct vampiric tendencies. Indeed, these mutants are what the human race will become.