Film Reviews by NP

Desi Arnaz Jr plays Kenneth MacGee, a bull-headed American writer who boasts to his agent Sam Allyson (Richard Todd) that he can write a novel in 24 hours isolated in a remote Welsh mansion. It is to Arnaz Jr’s credit that MacGee emerges as such a likeable character, so brash is his character written.

All the horror atmospherics are then applied - an endless storm, long shadows (naturally) and – in the film’s major selling point – four of the genre’s most celebrated actors. John Carradine is Elijah Grisbane, grouchy, irascible and ancient. Peter Cushing appears next as Sebastian Grisbane, lisping, tipsy and nervous. Out of the night then steps Vincent Price as Lionel Grisbane, suitably theatrical and soliloquizing. Finally, Corrigan emerges, played with typical fruity authority by Christopher Lee. Sheila Keith ably joins the ensemble as the frightening house-keeper, and Julie Peasgood, who seems to be utterly delightful in every acting job and personal appearance she has given, plays wide-eyed Mary Gorton.

Emerging as an enjoyable, but far inferior version of ‘The Old Dark House (1932)’, this proved the final filmic project of Director Pete Walker, who had helmed a string of 1970’s ‘exploitation’ horrors (‘House of Whipcord’ and ‘The Flesh and Blood Show’ amongst them). Never meeting with huge success, he retired from the profession after the release of this was also met with a muted response, despite being the only grouping of the four legendry thespians.

A fondness of Walker is to end his film with a twist. The twist here is not only as improbable as the others, but there are several of them, piled one after the other, which leaves the viewer a little shell-shocked. Here, the twists push the narrative further towards being almost entirely tongue-in-cheek, which is either detrimental or beneficial to the film, depending on your point of view.

Despite a bigger than usual budget, the director’s work is still a little murky, the murders awkwardly staged. The results prove enjoyable despite the flaws, mainly because of the tremendous cast enjoying themselves.

Director Pete Walker is notorious for his low-budget horror films throughout the 1970’s. This, his first, is a horror in title alone, and a couple of mildly grisly moments. The film aims to be some kind of slow-burning psychological thriller concerning Marianne’s crooked relatives attempting to kill her so to claim her vast inheritance, but contains too few surprises and a pace far too slow to sustain that.

Susan George plays the titular character and is terrific throughout, her initially headstrong behaviour played as naïve and confused rather than as reckless as she first appears (also, for an exploitation picture, she wears her various skimpy costumes extremely well). Barry Evans is the good guy, Eli. Evans seems too fey for the role (Patrick Mower and Ian McShane were also considered), but his niceness is reassuring against the shenanigans of ratty Sebastian (Christopher Sandford). Judy Huxtable gives probably the best performance as Hildegarde, but the character’s decline into madness is beyond even her talents.

Sapphire and Steel composer Cyril Ornadel produces a memorable musical score (his theme was written so as to be in time with Susan George’s stylish and much-discussed go-go dance routine during the opening credits) including a haunting, possibly ‘cheesy’ song illustrating Marianne’s plight that is repeated at various intervals to arresting effect.

Ultimately, like other Pete Walker ventures, the project might well have been improved if slightly shorter, possibly cut back to 80 or 90 minutes. Marianne’s relentless plight becomes too elongated to care about, the most potent moment being a nicely staged slow poisoning in a sauna that Marianne cunningly defeats by climbing out of the window.

It’s uncanny. Feisty, pretty Donna Hunter (Cassie Scerbo), who works with her dad and younger brother (they are Gold Hunters in the arctic) welcomes new deckhand Owen Powers (Brandon Beemer) with as much venom as she can muster – but he’s almost as pretty as she is! Turns out he’s a good guy as well, so one would consider it an inevitability they are destined for a long and fruitful life together. And yet to criticise such ‘cheesiness’ (cheesy: (a). Of poor quality; shoddy: a movie with cheesy special effects. (b). Vulgarly pretentious or sentimental: a cheesy romantic comedy) is proof of not understanding the point that it’s ‘cheese’ is entirely deliberate. Therefore, it is beyond criticism because it is supposed to be ridiculous.

I’ve never really understood this. A horror comedy that is neither horrific nor comedic, just hovering somewhere in between. You either go into a horror film wanting to enjoy it by laughing at it, or to invest in the story it is telling and go along with it. It’s impossible to go along with this film because the titular creatures, the Sea Vampires disturbed by the salvagers are adorably bad. Even the illustrations on publicity material depict them as being just as cartoon-like as they are on-screen. And yet the players are earnest and don’t play anything for laughs.

The creatures appear to loosely be based on stingrays, but with bulbous eyes and wide, frog-like mouths. For the hilarity of their every appearance, they are deadly beasts, killing Donna’s father as well as other peripheral characters. But not to worry too much – she and Owen are finding comfort in each other’s melancholy. It seems as if the ice maiden is about to be thawed out. So disturbing a race of killer jellies has its benefits!

The creatures are routinely defeated by grow-lights used by the local villain to cultivate marijuana (the swine), which is inventive, if nothing else. Ultimately, this film seems to have been produced to fit the ‘so bad its good’ criteria, which as an ambition, baffles me.

It is hard to believe this was made the year before Star Wars. A low-budget British picture, with grizzled, familiar British actors from the time stomping around in freezing locations and cramped interiors, in film so gritty it’s like looking through a cigarette fog.

Lynne Frederick, who had been so pure faced and natural in Hammer’s Vampire Circus five years before, is fully a product of 1970’s fashion here. An underrated actress, she puts in a fine leading performance as Samantha Gray, who appears to be losing her mind. Pursued by William Haskin (Jack Watson), she never appears pathetic or hopeless, just vulnerable and attempting to make the best of her spiralling situation.

The film, shot very much in the style of television psychological drama (with added gore), becomes a sluggish affair after it becomes obvious that nothing is really going to deviate from the familiar ‘woman in peril’ storyline. Having said that, there are some grisly low-key moments (the brief possession in the village hall is memorable). Also, there is a grimness on display here that doesn’t let up – the world in which Samantha spears to be trapped is relentless.

Director Pete Walker was prolific in the 1970’s, producing a number of similarly low-budget horrors. Whilst many derided his work at the time, others have named him as a UK Jess Franco or Jean Rollin. The similarities are there. Exploitative, under-funded, commercially compromised – and suitably modest in interviews, saying of his films, ‘All I wanted to do is create a bit of mischief.’ His last horror film was 1983’s House of Long Shadows, which prided itself on uniting stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, John Carradine and Vincent Price for what turned out to be last time.

Ultimately, ‘Schizo’ goes on too long with too little incident to prevent the interest waning from time to time, although the performances are suitably solemn, and draw the viewer back in again. The twist at the end is very much like something of the TV series ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ (ie: stretching credulity) but brings events to a satisfying conclusion.

A found footage-style film from the Second World War is not something I would have been expecting to take seriously, due mainly to the highly improbable nature of ‘home movies’ being shot with cameras from the 1940’s. Indeed, there is a certain tongue-in-cheek style to proceedings as if the producers are urging us to go along with a story they clearly believe is worth telling, however unlikely the circumstances.

With a few blemishes on the recordings to at least remind us the footage has apparently been lost for 70 years, we meet a group of Russian soldiers answering a fuzzy distress call from deep in the misty German countryside. The transition from the unforgiving, snow-flecked terrain and the underground bunker they discover, with its spitting electric cables and an adornment of torsos with weaponry grafted into their flesh is very evocative and succeeds in drawing the viewer in to this hidden world.

When the monsters emerge (‘sewing dead people together’), they are very impressive. There is very little CGI here, but physical, constructed monstrosities (many created by Richard Raaphorst for his previous, aborted ‘Worst Case Scenario’ film).

While the creations are wonderful, the human characters fare less well. Their dialogue soon becomes a hysteric mass of shrieking and cursing (understandable, given the circumstances) and it’s difficult to know (or care) who is who – which is fine: this is a monster show, and these people are largely fodder. When the soon discovered Victor Frankenstein turns out to be just another shrieker and curser, the interest begins to wane. He’s clearly insane, but just as two-dimensional as his (human) co-stars.

This is dreadful. A ‘skin-flick’ laced with sardonic dialogue and crazy, horny teens for whom taking selfies is a way of life and every line is a sexual innuendo. Classy it isn’t, but even as a softcore film, it lacks the courage to provide anything in the way of titillation that isn’t ‘cleverly’ masked by shadows, shower curtains or foliage. Here is a world where everyone aspires to look and act in exactly the same way and casually roll off identical low-brow dialogue.

Perhaps it is novel for a film featuring such cutesy smart-arses to begin when the youngsters have already suffered some unspeakable horror and are searching through the night for sanctuary, because that is how this kicks off. We don’t know why the scantily-clad youngsters are in the middle of a woodland (even though it transpires they are actually seconds away from suburbia) or what manner of jeopardy they have suffered. Who cares? Not the people behind this bore-fest. After finding an empty house in which to shower and continue to drink (clearly these are prioritiues), the second male of their number (I’m not sure they even have names, although I heard one called Billy at some point) heads to a bar five minutes away to call for help, but gets side-tracked by yet more rampant girl teens.

A joke is attempted. When one teen says to another he’s ‘At Wes Craven (the name of the bar, I think)’, his friend says, ‘Wes Craven? Used to be cool but now … eeeeeeewww.’

Apparently this is a spoof of 1980’s horror ‘flicks’. But it really isn’t. There’s nothing remotely funny here, there’s no concept of story, no reasoning for anything, no pretence at the first level of making the viewer want to continue watching beyond the repeated lame nudity teases. It’s the worst film I’ve seen for a very long while and just exists to fill the running time with no discernible lack of talent on display (and yet it appears to be adequately budgeted and directed. Couldn’t the money have been spent on something else?) Even the special effects, never called on to do much, fail to convince, with only gurgling sound effects laid over the soundtrack to let us know that a gore scene is being attempted. More fulfilling to simply watch some straightforward pornography and miss out on the stilted, unfunny drivel in between repeated cleavage shots.

Awful.

Is this film racist? The story involves a remote Irish village full of portly, suspicious middle-aged old-world types which is visited by a group of American friends who are young, casually confident and beautiful. It reminds me of old Universal films where Wales would be represented by a studio backlot and frequented with Americans, Scottish and comedy cockneys. The earlier films can be forgiven because of their naivety, made at a time where the world wasn’t quite the open book it is now with the advent of economy travel and the internet. ‘Leprechaun: Origins’ initially appears to be an exercise in contrasting a ‘civilised, acceptable’ world where everyone is young and perfect (good) and a ‘lesser, foreign’ world where everyone is backward, stupid and no-one is younger than 50 (bad). To use a frequently (and inaccurately) used word, I find this vaguely offensive.

‘Leprechaun: Origins’ is part of a series of films and is the only one not to star Warwick Davies in the titular role (the Davis films are a lot better than this, going by reviews). It is entirely formulaic with cries of ‘awesome’ (when giggling at the backward locals) being replaced by ‘Holy fuck’ (when the Leprechaun starts killing the squealing youngsters).

It’s directed very nicely and lit in a way to make the pretty people even prettier (there’s clearly been a decent budget here), even when in underwhelming dire straits. The leads offer nothing beyond some distressed pouts and some impressive screaming. One of the most ingenious aspects of the film is how the Director manages to find ways of avoiding showing the creature – a blurry image here, glimpse of a claw or profile there; there’s one amusing moment when two of the hapless leads attempt to axe the Leprechaun but succeed only in killing one of their companions instead.

Remember, kids, don’t go to Ireland if you want to stay pretty!

A fairly formulaic story. A likeable couple move into an isolated country house after suffering a miscarriage, wife is sensitive to ghostly manifestations and grows tetchy when hubby doubts her. Are the manifestations real or a product of her spiralling instability?

The direction is very effective, very fluid, it is rare for the camera not to be slowly panning around events. And while the acting of the two leads is very strong (Leisha Hailey as Emily and Gale Harold as Nate – Hailey in particular provides a convincing essay on descent into total misery), this kind of story has been told many times before. It doesn’t help that the ghosts are very solid looking, and that the undead William is played by Gale Harold in a wig.

In the end, we are undecided whether or not Emily’s tragedy is to blame for her own cruel madness or whether the curse of the house has been pre-planned all along.

“We take no shit off the hereafter.” With dialogue like that, it’s easy to detect a certain casual arrogance from the team of ghost hunters on display here. And it is in plentiful supply; Martin Delaney plays designer-stubbled, unblinking host Jerry Mackay (a clever Jeremy Kyle namecheck?), and Lucy Cudden is Anna Gilmour, the pouting, tight-mini-skirt wearing telekinetic, none of whom are short of posturing self-assurance.

There is the technology geek (Alexander Perkins), who operates the equipment for the subsequent broadcast, and the strong and silent engineer (Simon Merrells) who isn’t asked to contribute much until the finale. Grahame Fox plays the manifestation of the Judas Ghost in probably the film’s best performance.

Mackay’s insistence on meeting with the ghost (“I want to talk to it,”) comes across not as a brave stance, or even reckless determination, more testosterone-fuelled petulance. That’s the problem really. The characters start off as cyphers and don’t progress. Their CGI-influenced jeopardy doesn’t help them become sympathetic and despite competent performances and apocalyptic dialogue, no threat is particularly tangible and chills are notably absent.

One development is that Mackay is seen to blink several times after the climactic moments, which suggest he has been moved beyond ‘smouldering’ by the fairly lame supernatural experience.

An attractive young lesbian couple are gunned down in the mansion where they live and, for some reason, then become vampiric creatures who seduce passers-by from the nearby road.

Husky, busty Marianne Morris and blond Anulka Dziubinska (billed as Anulka) as Fran and Miriam seem very at ease with the plentiful nude/sex scenes – even though the DVD extras refute this. Both actresses’ voices are also dubbed, much to their chagrin, and while such a practice seems unnecessary, the dubbing is more convincing than is often the case. They really do represent a kind of other-worldly sensuality that is essential for this kind of role. Whether stalking the misty, dewy countryside or the corridors of their magnificent home in their velvet capes, they look exactly like the spooky sirens they are meant to be. Other, sundry characters are deliberately dressed down to make the main couple look comparatively more exotic.

It’s hinted that Ted (Murray Brown), who is enticed to the country house and tormented throughout, is the man who originally ‘murdered’ the girls, although this is never really explained. Neither is the fact that he fails to recognise the house he is brought back to.

And yet the plot is not particularly high on the agenda. The endless discussions on the sophistications of wine and the charming attributes of the ladies could have been spent on making things clearer, but it seems there was an artistic decision to leave things enigmatic – which I have no problem with, as it fuels the Jean Rollin-esque dream-like atmospherics of the film. Equally, the nature of Fran and Miriam is muddy; the (rushed) ending of ‘Vampyres’ speculates they may have been ghosts all along, although the trail of bloodied destruction they leave proves them too tangible for that!

Daisy has come to Hollywood to pursue her dreams. The apartment and surrounding areas where she lives are less than salubrious so she is confident her personal taser will halt any unwanted advances. With that kind of forethought, it is only ever a matter of time before she’s beaten to death. It happens with a hammer in the – currently under renovation – ‘luxury’ hotel, The Lusman Arms where she was staying. This place is populated by OTT stereotypes who are mainly played as caricatures. This gives The Lusman Arms a heightened sense of reality in which new arrivals Nell and Steven, refreshingly normal, seem instantly out of place.

Nell meets Chas Rooker, an elderly resident, whose job it is to provide (a) a sympathetic voice of reason, and (b) a lot of the backstory concerning how Jack Lusman, an occultist who built the place, mysteriously disappeared many years ago.

When the (implausibly and awkwardly framed) attacks come from the black-clad killer – utilising hammers, drills etc – the victims have proven to be so ridiculously excessive in character, the murders take on a cartoonish aspect, which I find neither terrifying or particularly amusing. Only towards the end, when the killer’s face is revealed in a long shot as he shrieks and howls like an animal in torment, does any sense of fear emerge. The stings and whirls of the incidental music that have been trying to convince us to be scared since the beginning, finally have some horror to embrace.

The idea of the building being cursed, and the killer being a ‘coffin birth, born of death’ is fascinating but is only briefly touched on. His possible spectral existence seems to have been eschewed in favour of whacky characterisations of the residents. This is a shame. The final ‘he’s dead – no he’s not – yes he is – no he’s not’ is inevitable before the thrash metal screams of the closing music roll over the credits.

The performances verge from the capable to the unconvincing (an abusive punk rocker is less than threatening). Only Angela Bettis as Nell really impresses, making the most of her character. She had proven excellent in the 2002 film ‘May’, in which she played a sympathetic outcast.

With one of the film’s final moments given away in the first few minutes, we find out that Jill’s boyfriend Adam is dead. Adam is that vital ingredient of any found-footage project, a fanatical film-maker. He spends so much time behind the webcam that we only really see him at the close, with an impressively rendered hole in his head.

Jill is a carefree wild-child, an unsuccessful artist who feels that a show staged inside an abandoned hospital, The Vergerus Institute for Troubled Women would help give her the exposure she craves, in more ways than one. Not long after they (illegally) enter the hospital, the couple talk about filming a sex-tape with her strapped to a bed. Momentarily abandoning her in that vulnerable position, Adam fails to realise that in his absence, she appears to have been entered by a malevolent spirit. From then on, her behaviour spills over from impetuousness into murderous intent and madness.

Sx_Tape is exceptionally well-played. Caitlyn Folley is terrific as the central character, persuasively and increasingly erratic. Her boyfriend Adam (Ian Duncan) is irritated by her behaviour, but goes along with her anyway. It isn’t until they meet up with two friends Ellie and Bobby that her behaviour gets really cruel. Bobby (Chris Coy) is an objectionable bully – we don’t know whether this is the influence of the spirits, or just an extension of his overbearing personality.

As the group unwisely re-enter the hospital, ‘Sx Tape’ becomes less focussed and less interesting, relying on endless investigation of (admittedly creepy) rooms and wards, punctuated by sightings of the very unfrightening spirit. Things are lifted toward the end as we realise the extent to which Jill has been influenced by the spirit, and yet further by an implausible ending which is nevertheless painfully amusing.

Online reviews have been unnecessarily scathing of ‘Sx_Tape’, mainly because any sexual activity is not as graphic as some people would like. As a found-footage project, I was thoroughly entertained by this, mainly due to the actors.

Scarlett Johansson won much acclaim for her playing for the unnamed woman in this strange and powerful film, which failed at the box-office, but received many positive reviews. She plays an unspecific alien who assumes the appearance of a young woman.

This reminds me a little of Chris Alexander’s ‘Blood for Irina’ (a favourite of mine which I mention at every opportunity!) – a wearied seductress who appears to have her victims ‘tidied away’ by an un-named male protector (or protectors), lingering scenes, not a lot of dialogue. Where it differs though, is in people’s reactions to the woman, who initially appears to pick up men with a calm confidence. They are mesmerised with her. The sight of hopeless Lotharios, alcohol fuelled antagonists who see her as sport, or those who just want to molest her. There are two exceptions. One man she picks up suffers from a facial disfigurement – his shy, inexperienced exchange with her is difficult to watch. She is fascinated with him, and he survives (for a while) the fate usually bestowed on her ‘conquests’. The other exception is a quiet reclusive man who genuinely seems to want to help her (her confidence has been worn away and she becomes virtually somnambulistic by this point – quite why is not clear), but there closeness comes to an end when sex is attempted and she appears incredulous at the workings of her own body.

We find out why in the next ‘episode’, in which a logger in a snowy forest attempts to rape her, and tears the flesh from her back, revealing featureless jet-black skin beneath. His sudden fear propels him to douse her in petrol and set fire to her. Her descent from dominant, confident protagonist to cowering, submissive victim is cruel and frustrating.

I can’t help but feel that a few more explanations might have made this a more satisfying experience. It is based on a book of the same name which leaves far less to the imagination. However, this is a fascinating film, beautifully acted. It looks wonderful too, from the sight of the beautiful Johansson in relentlessly freezing, harsh conditions, to the brief but incredible glimpse of her true form. Spellbinding.

This is a tremendous low-budget shocker from Ireland and it stars one of the most convincing casts I’ve seen in a long, long time. From dinosaur-obsessed little scamp Billy (Calum Heath – one of the most appealing child actors you will see) to a truly incredible performance from Rupert Evans as David, everyone plays their parts to perfection, and I don’t use the word lightly.

If I’m brutally honest, ‘The Canal’ could have done with being perhaps ten minutes shorter. The ordeals faced by David are plentiful, but sometimes – as is often the case in these films – the continual reversion to ‘normality’ after a particularly frightening incident occurs once or twice too often. Other than that, the writing, direction and acting truly place the audience in the position of not knowing whether David is being shadowed by a ghostly child-murderer or he is the killer himself. Even as the end credits roll, we’re still not entirely sure.

This is a close-knit, intimate horror that unfurls at its own pace, slowly revealing – or appearing to reveal – clues as to the truth of events. We are in skilful hands here. Writer/director Ivan Kavanagh ensures that any confusion we experience is entirely deliberate, and when the scares become graphic, we really feel for the characters affected by them.

If there is any justice, Ivan Kavanagh has a fine future.

This is Sir Christopher Lee’s third outing as Dracula, and this time he has some dialogue. Already the character is far more effective here than in his last appearance, despite not being directed by the poetically-inclined Terry Fisher. Instead, Freddie Francis is at the helm, and marks his territory with heavy use of toned camera filters framing certain scenes that enliven the sometimes drab greys of the sets.

To once again make up for the lack of Peter Cushing as Dracula’s sworn enemy Van Helsing, we have two heroic types. Monsignor Ernest Mueller (Rupert Davies) is the man with the relevant vampiric experience, and to take on the brawnier side of things is Paul (Barry Andrews). For the young hero to be a hot-headed atheist is an interesting departure (even if such a development makes the character somewhat arrogant and hard to like), and also reveals that you cannot successfully stake a vampire without believing in the powers of good. I like this idea. It provides a nicely grisly scene when Dracula is staked but refuses to die. Lee, who made something of a habit of publically lambasting these films, felt this went against the wishes of Bram Stoker – but there’s no denying the impotent staking is one of the highpoints of the picture.

As the title suggests, blood plays a big – if fairly impractical – part in proceedings here. Who would have thought that that gash on the fallen priest’s head (Ewan Cooper) would produce a trail of the red stuff that should trickle down a rockface and into the very mouth of the Count to resuscitate him? Perhaps it is Dracula’s inexplicable will that this should occur. Also, the first time we see Dracula is in a reflection, despite the fact that vampires cast no reflection.

Despite these flaws, this is an entertaining film, from its psychedelic opening titles to the (somewhat implausible) revelation of a drained girl stuffed into a church bell, and especially the impressive rooftop scenes which muster up the dreamy atmospherics Terry Fisher favoured. The casting is good; Veronica Carlson’s debut is delightful as the somewhat chaste Maria, as is Barbara Ewing as the more worldly-wise and therefore doomed Zena.