Note: This is too amazing. Thanks to FATHER OF TEARS for inspiring me to google ANITRA FORD and THE PRICE IS RIGHT!
Seven from the Seventies
You all know I'm a dyed in the Huxtable wool sweater eighties kid, but lately I've fallen into a slippery seventies rabbit hole. I've always appreciated some seventies cinema but for some reason (is it your doing EATEN ALIVE?), I've recently been finding that decade's films exceptionably pleasurable to watch. One explanation for my revved up affection might be the fact that many of these films were never properly presented all cleaned up and in their proper ratios until now. The truth is though; I've ended up digging through boxes of scraggily VHS tapes as well, so it may be something more.
Overall, seventies movies just feel so darn earthy and natural compared to the films that came after them and they have a laid back, "I'll get there when I get there" stride that I admire. Furthermore, they're not as hung up and social mores and they tend to be less sycophantic towards the audience. They take a certain pride in going against the grain and they're oblivious to political correctness. Plus, people looked human back then.
So allow me to throw out a quick list of seven films from the grooviest of decades that I think should not be allowed to fall between the floorboards. I know there's plenty, plenty more but there's no way I'm going to be able to fit them all in one post. I figure seven is a good number to start out with and we'll hit the rest in a bit. If the me decade has taught me anything it is just to relax and go with the flow (and also don't hitchhike).
BLOOD AND LACE (1971)
I wrote about BLOOD AND LACE very recently but it deserves another shout out. It's certainly not without its flaws (that darn soundtrack!) but overall it's a unique story driven shocker that's not afraid to get ugly and name names. GLORIA GRAHAM as the twisted and abusive orphanage overlord Mrs. Deere proves that the facade of normalcy can be just as frightening as any rubber mask. Remarkably ahead of its time, the film's final revelations hammer its cynical point of view home.
TOWER OF EVIL (1972)
I first became aware of this British production when it confused the hell out me by appearing in a newspaper ad in the early eighties as BEYOND THE FOG. How was I to know that it wasn't an official sequel to JOHN CARPENTER's movie and was just an older film with an altered title cashing in on that film's recent success? When I finally got a chance to check it out decades later I was expecting the worst and instead found myself rather impressed. The foggy atmosphere is old school, the kills are new school and its crappy sets, funky blue screens and kooky semi-nude BUGALOOS in hell wardrobe somehow only add to its bizarre psychedelic charm.
THE BELL FROM HELL (1973)
It's impossible not to be intrigued by this movie's weird history. The director actually died on the last day of filming by falling from the tower that held in place the bell in the title! This Spanish horror flick tells the tale of a guy wrongly committed to an institution by his scheming relatives and how he exacts his sick proto torture porn revenge upon release. The pacing requires patience but the consistency of the bleak tone gets under your skin. The biggest selling point though may be the chance to see a wheelchair bound VIVECA LINDFORS (CREEPSHOW) chomping down hard on the gothic scenery.
CANNIBAL MAN (1972)
Up front I'll tell ya, this movie does not have any cannibalism in it at all but it's still damn good. This is basically a character study of a mostly likable slaughterhouse worker who needs to learn how to solve his problems without using a cleaver. I don't mention it often but I love sharp under the microscope personal films about psychopathic killers (1974's DERANGED, 1980's MANIAC, 2002's DAHMER et al.) This particular one is artfully shot and I really like the performance from the lead actor even though he's dubbed. CANNIBAL MAN gets some flack for having a homosexual character befriend the guy and not snitch about his deeds but I haven't got a problem with that in the slightest. As long as the gay guy isn't orchestrating ambush makeovers I think it's progressive.
TERROR AT THE RED WOLF INN (1972)
Here's some cannibals for ya! Everything about this movie makes you think it's going to blow and yet I find it really enjoyable. Sadly, I've yet to witness a good transfer but a little dash of grit only adds flavor to this mostly bloodless satire. Its premise involves a college student who ends up staying in a house full of creepy oldsters and lives to regret it when she finds out she's on the menu. I love this set up, it's so SCREAM PRETTY PEGGY, SILENT SCREAM and THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL among many others and the campy couple hosting the festivities point the way to MOTEL HELL. This ain't gonna scare your socks off or chill ya to the bone, but it's quirky cozy and brimming with dark humor.
MESSIAH OF EVIL (1973)
This one looks like it's going to be the next LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH and jump out of obscurity to claim its rightful reputation thanks to a recent well-done DVD release (thanks CODE RED!) Its arty, surreal and ambiguous nature should allow for various viewings and interpretations for years to come. There's a scene in a movie theater that brilliantly mimics HITCHCOCK's THE BIRDS and the way random assemblies of people are used to unnerving effect reminds me of a half way mark between CARNIVAL OF SOULS and DEAD AND BURIED. This really is a must see, the way it takes somewhat normal situations and quietly turns them on their head truly unsettles and its got a quiet off kilter vibe all its own.
THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE (1971)
Christian Ziegler, wherever you are I am eternally grateful to you for turning me on to this movie! I probably never would have checked this out but a pal brought it over once (under the title SUCCUBUS and inexplicably in B&W) and it haunted me. A bunch of travelers stay the night in a castle and are killed in ways based on the seven deadly sins. When the woman responsible shows her true face, it's simply one of the scariest mugs I've ever seen (kind of cross between WHO'S THE BOSS's Mona and an electrocuted catfish.) I have this one in one of those multiple pack DVD sets and the image quality is frightfully good. I'm kind of obsessed with the hypnotic wallpaper throughout which brings to my mind THE SHINING and that ESCHER wall from SUSPIRIA. My DVD plays in a never ending loop with no menu so I have been known to fall asleep to it while it plays over and over again just to freak myself out! I vow to give this more of a spotlight on these pages one day but for now you'll just have to take my word for it. ERIKA BLANC (THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE) is really something else in this one.
O.K. that's seven but like I said, there's plenty more underrated seventies horror we can explore at a later date! Look out for "Seven from the Seventies: Part 2" (and possibly "Six from the Sixties"?) to appear…whenever.
Traumafessions:: Kinderpal FilmFather on Orca
Hey Guys,
Here's a Traumafession that I'm surprised no Gen-Xer has submitted yet…
In the summer of '77, my folks took me to the local drive-in to see ORCA. I was 8, so I'm not sure why my parents felt like a JAWS rip-off about a killer whale munching on people was appropriate. Another neglectful yet nostalgic chapter of '70s parenting…
Anyway, my Trauma is the scene that triggers Orca to feast on RICHARD HARRIS' crew (and BO DEREK's leg):
HARRIS accidentailly harpoons Orca's pregnant mate and reels her up to his boat's deck. While she's hanging there, she miscarriages — in blood-spurting slow motion — as she squeals in agony.
The baby whale plops to the deck, and what does Harris do? He hoses the poor little critter over the side like so much chum!
I was barely learning about the birds and the bees at age 8, so seeing all this water-mammal miscarrying mayhem unfold on a huge drive-in screen definitely scarred me for many moons to come.
(Shameless plug: Read my review of ORCA HERE.)
Name That Trauma :: Reader John G. on a Dead Doctor in a Bed
Way back around 1980 my family first received the holy grail of cable T.V. We paid for only HBO but if you fiddled with the dial on the side of the box you could tune in Showtime and Skinemax. The movie channels were much more nicely lowbrow back then, especially Showtime and Cinemax which turned into virtual drive-ins after 11pm lovingly polluting my adolescent mind with EMMANUELLE, TINTORERA, WITHOUT WARNING and so on.
Anyways one of the best features of the early days of these movie channels was that instead of the boring promo drivel that they show today between films they would show music videos and short films. One short film still has an impression to this day. Please forgive my hazy recollection of the plot.
A female med student/nurse/intern? and her fiancé/boyfriend work at a hospital where years before an evil doctor did something terrible. I think that this evil doctor's remains were also stored in jars somewhere in the hospital and that is all I remember of the plot. It was the end that remember most vividly. The woman wakes up in her darkened bedroom and tells her boyfriend that he left the shower on and she then turns around to see that THE REANIMATED CORPSE OF THE EVIL DOCTOR IS IN BED WITH HER!!! She screams and screams and then the scene switches to the interior of the shower where the boyfriend is slumped over with a slit throat as her screams continue in the background.
Any ideas?
The Walking Dead
I've been burned too many times to be picking out china patterns just yet, but I feel like me and THE WALKING DEAD have the goods to go the distance. The new AMC zombie series (literally) starts with a bang demolishing any worries that television restrictions would render its undead denizens dry and bloodless. As much as I appreciate the gory generosity on display, I stand more impressed by the introduction of a genre lead that exudes depth in the face of death. ANDREW LINCOLN, as sheriff deputy Rick Grimes, got me wrapped around his finger early on stumbling out of a hospital and responding to the mass destruction in front of him as an actual human being might.
Not to get all BONNIE TYLER on your ass, but I feel like I've been kind of starving for a male hero in a horror piece who's deeper than a tuna can. Excluding psychopaths (cross-dressing or otherwise), it's slim pickings from where I'm sitting (on my couch.) I feel like guys are not allowed to emit anything emotional for fear that it will be read as some kind of deficiency and it makes for me being sort of bored out of my skull a bunch. I guess there is some cultural imperative to keep dudes' yaps shut (you'll have to work all that out for yourselves, world) but in the meantime, the trickle down effect results in me yawning. I like this Rick Grimes protagonist, he makes mistakes, he's fallible and egad, there seems to be something going on both in his head and in his heart. He may have jumped out of a comic book but he's the antithesis of a cartoon. There's a scene in WALKING DEAD that gallantly balances absolute horror with equisite mercy and it has left me thinking that I will always remember where I was the first time I saw it.
You can attach any meaning to zombies that you wish. Their usual anonymity can represent the brain dead masses or the casualties of war. No matter how you approach them though (be they fast or slow), they will always have something to say about how we feel about our dead. Disgust, horror, fear, if you look hard enough you might just find guilt and sympathy too. We have been told a zillion times before that they are "us," yet the fact remains that we as viewers continue to line up to see "them." Thanks to this Rick Grimes person, THE WALKING DEAD might just change that. I may have to start routing for the living again.
Are Hallelujahs in order? Being between television shows to live vicariously through can be a painful experience for me. As much as I enjoyed the first two seasons of TRUE BLOOD, the last season turned on me and left me on the roadside. What was once a show about an outsider discovering an ostracized counter culture where her gifts were valuable became a show about choosing which out of four impossibly hot monsters to hump. (I can't relate to that because I've never had more than three impossibly hot monsters to select from.) I don't mean to call out TRUE BLOOD it's just that I found WALKING DEAD's glamor free tone ginger ale refreshing. There does seem to be a love triangle looming over the horizon but as long as they keep one dangling eye focused on entrails, decomposition and the tragedy and agony of death, I'll survive.
I can't compare THE WALKING DEAD in its new form to the comic book because I have, out of sheer laziness, never read the series but I can say that if the premiere episode is any indication that we may be about to experience something amazing. There is the potential here to breathe new horrific life into the leaning toward parody living dead genre but my attention may be less due to the gruesome element and more due to the human one. Slow or fast, zombies are a dime a dozen, THE WALKING DEAD's more significant offering may end up being a character who you honestly dread to see joining their ranks.
Traumafessions :: Reader Stevil1981 on Ghoulies
In about 1986 my favourite show was THE GROOVY GHOULIES, you know, the animated one which featured all the classic movie monsters Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, The Mummy et al. They played in a rock band doing slightly altered versions of 60's hits and were really friendly and cool.
At this time my father worked in a distribution warehouse for Warner Bros and had access to a huge amount of VHS tapes (usually promo copies of stuff often with no covers and strangely, not always Warner titles) which he was regularly allowed to borrow. He would bring home all kinds of movies, cartoons for my brother and I and a lot of horror for my mother who was apparently a real gore hound in her day, I think I even remember CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH being in our house at one time, I'm guessing not that many mothers settle in for an evening to watch Troma titles, my mum's cool like that.
Anyway the horror stuff certainly made me curious but I wasn't allowed to watch any of it. Not that it mattered much to me, at that time I was all about THE GROOVY GHOULIES or as I called it, plain old GHOULIES. So I begged and pleaded with my dad to bring home a GHOULIES video for me and after what felt like a life time, one fateful night he brought home a video with no cover and just a sticker on the tape labeled in fancy lime green font GHOULIES .
Awesome, I was crazy excited, I ran into the next room and popped that big hunk of black plastic into our ‘80s style top loading video player completely unaware that I was not about to be treated to some rock 'n' rollin' monster fun but rather to CHARLES BAND's GREMLINS knock off. As the opening scene of a frantic woman desperately trying to save her baby from ritual sacrifice began I immediately forgot all about THE GROOVY GHOULIES and was enthralled by this strange scene unfolding before me.
"Wow, my first real horror movie," I remember thinking, that was until the frantic woman turned around and revealed THE MOST TERRIFYING PAIR OF GLOWING GREEN EYES!!!
I freaked and ran screaming into the next room and through sobs and teary eyes explained to my parents "that's not THE GHOULIES. For about a week I blamed my dad for scaring the s*** out of me, what I didn't realize at the time was that for the rest of my life I'd be thanking him for a lifelong love of all things horror.
Thanks dad your simple mistake created a monster, and mum the mysterious videos and books you always had around the house piqued my interest long before I laid my beautiful baby blues on those ghastly ghoulish greens.
Kinder-News :: We Have Candy… Send More Trick 'r Treaters!
Aunt John whipped up a batch of taffy apples and Unkle Lancifer is manning the Kastle door. So far we've seen a Spiderman, a Batman, a skeleton and some kids rocking the SCREAM face, but.. seriously… we need some more tricks 'r treaters up in here ASAP!
Do stop by.