Here is the first film in this series that does not reside in my movie library. Sunday night as dinner was becoming close to ready my sweetie-wife suggested that she wanted to watch a horror with me that evening and in the end suggested we watch Thirst. Well, it was available to us via Shudder and it’s Amazon add-on (Part of a 7 day free trial – you gotta love those) and so soon I had it queued up on the Xbox 360.

Thirst comes to us by way of Australia’s exploitative movie cycle of the 1970’s and 1980s. The same period that gave us Mad Max and Razorback. An unusual entry into the vampire mythos Thirst reminded me  in one part of The Hunger and in another way of the Australian film Daybreakers.

Thirst about a secret society of vampires living and thriving in our global community. What sets this masquerade story apart from many others is that these vampires are wholly without a supernatural aspect. They are people who discovered centuries ago that health and life can be obtained by drinking healthy blood. The secret society has established farm where blood-cows (that’s you, me, and the rest of humanity) are raised and cared for to provide a clean product. The plot of the film is the discovery of the descendent from one of the founding noble families. For reasons never truly explained the society is hell-bent on bring this lost lamb back into their fold. What follows is a story of psychological torture and a contest of wills.

Thirst was interesting but on a sort of watch it one time sort of manner. My sweetie-wife had seen the film many years ago and this time around found it dull and boring. As with all things artistic your mileage may vary. I do not regret the 90 minutes watching this unusual film.

Okay, I’ll fess up that this one is a bit of a cheat, but only a bit. Last night I started watching a different film but working OT at the day-job apparently had hit me fairly solidly and before 10pm, and that’s early for me, I found myself unable to keep my eyes focused. So today I will write about a film I watched for the first time earlier this month.
In an earlier post I referred to Hammer Studios approach to horror films as being Bloodshed and Bosoms. This really kicked in with their production of The Curse of Frankenstein starring Peter Cushing as the immoral Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the creature. Where Universal Studios avoided explicit images of body part and organs Hammer presented them full frame, widescreen, and in color. Ladies wore low cut dresses and the combination of the grotesque and the titillating proved to be box office gold.

Fast-forward to 1970 and the Hammer adaptation of the vampire story Carmilla. Like a drug addiction what shocked and titled last year produces a lesser effect this time around, so when we get over a decade into the cycle something more is needed to shock the box office.

The Vampire Lovers stars the incomparable Ingrid Pitt as Carmilla a vampire who plays the part of a young girl, she is supposed to be 16 or at least look like that but Pitt did not look like a teenager, whose plays upon the sympathies of others for shelter and protection, allowing her to hunt their young daughters as her victims. Being that this is 1970 and even on the other side of the Atlantic standards in film were rapidly changing. Hammer no longer happy with simply low cut gowns dives into nudity for titillation and a strong lesbian subtext for their shock value. Though honestly it’s not that deeply buried and it may be more accurate to call it text and not sub-text.

The film works overall and Pitt, thought hardly looking 16, delivers a nice performance as a vampire that more than a little conflicted. There are some variations on the vampire lore with new limitation and less super human abilities that make this film something more than simply a retelling of Dracula with the cast gender flipped.

This is a movie that my darling sweetie-wife had wanted to see for sometime, but it has rarely been available in the United States. Luckily there is a blu-ray release of the UK cut and it was less than $10, so I happily bought a copy so we could watch it together. The film is decent enough that I have no plans to see the disc used, but rather it will take its place in my library.

I remember seeing this film during its theatrical release. It was 1980 and I was in the USN stationed at Pensacola studying electronic warfare. (That didn’t really work out but that another and much longer story.) A female friend and I went to see the film at a theater near the base. When the film finished and the credit began to run, in addition to the black screen and white lettering, fog rolled on the screen. The then fog rolled off the screen, down to the floor and up the aisles. The theater had run fog lines behind the screen giving everyone an extra half -second of heart-stopping fear. I loved it.

The Fog is the horror film John Carpenter made to follow-up his success with the low budget and trend-setting movie Halloween. The story is set in the fictional California town of Antonio Bay just as the residents are about to celebrate the town centennial. On the eve of celebrations a ghost brig appears shrouded in a fog bank and ghastly figure slaughter fishermen aboard the small boat. Soon the town itself is threatened as the dark terrible secret of their founding is covered and the sins of the past propel a murderous present.

Unlike Halloween The Fog isn’t primarily about the kills, for an 80’s horror film the body count is actually rather low, but the movie works on a sense of dread and what can’t be seen. Personally I find that the sound effects and works in the film carry a great deal of the terror. The are moments of gruesome violence made terrible personal because you can’t see them but instead you hear the sounds and that is much more effective.

The Fog is at its heart a ghost story and I have already spoken about how much of a personal affinity of have for spook stories. This is a story that doesn’t have a lot of logic to it, but I think the illogic in some way works to the benefit. There are no Deus ex Machinas to create a crappy ending but rather a sense that the universe doesn’t have clearly defined rules and that is truly terrifying.

In 2005 Hollywood released a remake with none of the story telling or style of the original. Skip that one, but this one is a good movie to watch alone in the night when the chilly air turns misty.

I hope I can watch another film tonight, but the day job has pulled into overtime mode and sleep may win out.

Time was short last night and I needed to select a film quickly and with a brief running time so I went for Universal’s sequel to their hit film Dracula, Dracula’s Daughter.

Dracula’s Daughter opens where Dracula ended, Van Helsing in the ruins of Carfax Abbey having just finished driving a stake through the vampire’s heart when the scene is discovered by a pair of patrolling bobbies. Reinfield is dead on the floor with a broken neck – undoubtedly played by a fake Shemp – and Van Helsing confesses to the destroying Dracula. London is not so forward thinking as to accept the ‘he was a vampire’ defense and the good doctor is arrested for murder.

Van Helsin calls on an old student, Dr Garth to help him prove the truth. However before things can get really rolling Dracula’s corpse is stolen from police custody by a mysterious woman who cremates the remains while her man servant watches with a cynical expression.

The woman is the titular character, and like her father she is a vampire but she is an unwilling one and hopes to find a way out of her life of darkness, blood, and death. Soon there is another spate of blood draining deaths and the police are forced to accept that Van Helsing may not be as insane as his defense.

As a sequel this is a very odd duck. There is no trace of the original characters save for the already mentioned Van Helsing. Dracula makes no appearance and the story while continuing on from the previous events is truly its own beast. Dracula’s daughter is presented in an interesting and conflicting manner. She is like an addict, trapped by a need she cannot deny but one that also repulses here. She has her mostly faithful manservant Sandor but his loyalty comes from the promise of an eternal life and when Dr. Garth becomes the center of her attention Sandor’s loylaty is tested.

This is a short film, just over seventy minutes in running time, and very light on the mayhem. The production code had come into effect by 1936 and between the code and Universal’s owner still hesitant nature toward the gruesome this movie is very sparse of the horrific elements. For example we still are not shown a vampire climbing out of their casket, such an image was deemed too macabre by Carl Laemmle. Surprisingly though some subversive elements survive in the subtext including a fairly strong hint that Dracula’s daughter either likes the ladies or enjoys both sides of the street.

This is not a film you have to see, but I don;t regret seeing it twice in ten years or having it included in my DVD set.

Well, this did not go according to plan. The week before last I had seen an advert for a double feature of The Omen and its sequel Omen II. Now I own a Blu-ray of The Omen (not the sequel which is a seriously flawed film) but I have never seen it on the big screen. Last night I couldn’t find the showing I had read about. Bummed at my boned headed mistake – whatever it was – I informed my sweetie-wife that I would be home on Wednesday night and watched The Omen on Blu-ray.

This morning Facebook reminded me of the showing but since I don’t feel like watching it twice the same week so I’ll watch something on Wednesday.

The Omen is part of a cycle of Devil/Satanic films from the 70s. This particular subgenre of horror had quite a surge in popularity after the smashing success of The Exorcist and pretty much the subgenre didn’t run out of steam until the flood of slasher films in the late 70’s and early 80s.

Sturgeon’s law applies equally well to the devil movies with most being forgettable fair that merely grabbed tropes and clichés in an attempt to leap on the bandwagon, but the two that do stand out are worthy films, The Exorcist and The Omen.

The Exorcist stands on firmer theological grounds but The Omen, directed by Richard Donner who also gave us Superman: The Motion Picture, Ladyhawke, and Lethal Weapon, took what might have been a tired and overly violent movie and made a tight, taunt film that moves on character and the corrupting power of secrets.

The film is about the Thorne family, Robert Thorne a successful politician and close personal friend to the president, Katherine (Kathy) Thrones his supportive and loving wife, and their ‘son’ Damien.

The quotes are there for a reason, Kathy Thorne, while Robert was ambassador to Italy, gave birth to their first son but Robert is informed that the child died immediately. The priest at the hospital offered Robert a chance to turn the tragedy into something better. There was another baby whose mother died in childbirth, perhaps the Ambassador can take this child as his own? His wife need not know. Thorne unable to give his wife the devastating news chooses the lie and they present the baby to Kathy as her own. Everything that follows in the story is a direct consequence of Thorne’s action and his lies to support it.

Years later death stalks the Thornes, mysterious suicides, fantastically bizarre accidents, and the strange ravings of a dying priest propel the Ambassador on a quest to unravel the truth of what he agreed to that fateful morning of June 6 at 6 am.

This film was remade in 2006 but it performed poorly and when I tried to watch it on Blu-ray I stopped the movie before it finished. The truth of the matter is while the script is decent what elevated the original is the director and a superb cast. Gregory Peck as Ambassador Thorne brings considerable gravitas to the production creating an atmosphere making it is easier to believe the fantastic elements. Lee Remick takes a role that really has very little on the page and imbues it with an inner life that enhances the audience identification her tragic character. Rounding out the cast are fantastic character actors such as David Warner, Leo McKern, Billie Whitelaw, and Patrick Troughton.

This is a movie well worth seeing.

Last night I turned to psychological horror with 1941s The Body Snatcher, the first film directed by Robert Wise. This is not to confused the 1956 SF/Horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a classic that has been remade too many time. This movie is based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson and it features Boris Karloff giving in my opinion his best screen performance.

Set in Edinburgh 1831, just before the Anatomy Acts stopped the scourge of grave-robbing to feed the needs of medical school, the story is about an idealistic you g medical student, Donald Fettes as he learns about the dark secrets of his mentor Doctor MacFarland and the mysterious, dangerous cab-man John Gray that supplies the school with corpses for its anatomy courses. The horror here lies in the evil that people do for their petty and selfish motives. Gray is propelled by more than mere money but rather a sense of humiliation and a thirst for dominance drives his evil and cruel actions. MacFarland is trapped by his own cowardice and in the end becomes as evil as Gray in his own futile search for freedom from a stained and scandalous history with the cab-man. There is a charming and optimistic sub-plot involving a young girl who was confined by a carriage accident to a wheel chair illuminating that not everything associated with brutal medical schools of the time is doomed to failure.

Clocking in at just an hour and eighteen minutes The Body Snatcher illustrates that a film can be packed with character, story, and theme without suffering from a bloated running time. Karloff as Gray gives a charming and evil performance as a man who can smile sweetly just as he murders you. He gives the character a real sense of life and depth. Gray is monstrous but he is not a monster; he is far too human for such simplistic explanations.

I bought this film about twenty years ago at a shop where I paid something like $8 for a used laserdisc. Having never seen the movie it was a gamble but one that paid off by giving me one of favorite films. It is available on DVD as a double feature with I Walked with a Zombie, another Val Lewton production, these films are part of RKO’s attempt at horror which produced the original Cat People, but I cannot recommend I walked with a Zombie thought it is a small price to pay to own such an film as The Body Snatcher.