Hell's Gate

Made for Italian Television in 1989, Le Porte Dell'inferno is Umberto Lenzi's blast at the 'sub-terra' (as good a term as any IMO) sub-genre, which I would say includes the likes of The Descent parts one and two, and the pretty groovy Alien 2 On Earth as well as more mundane waste such as What Waits Below.  A scientist is attempting to break the record for spending the longest period of time living in caves underground, but when the monitoring team above lose contact with him during a panicked transmission they gear-up and head down into the caves to see what's going on, amazingly taking along a passing pair of eager students who state that they know the catacomb layout (as the caves are supposed to connect up to a nearby monastery ruin and they're into archaeology, etc), plus they happen to be carrying a map with them!  Beneath the surface strange things begin to happen, and it all may be the result of some long dead monks who have taken a particular dislike to any living beings who have strayed into their territory.

Featuring Italian exploitation regular Barbara Cupisti (who played in most of Michele Soavi's 'proper' films as well as Opera after having been one of the butchered victims in New York Ripper) and an intriguing premise, the story has quite a bit of potential, much of which is unfortunately diminshed during the repetitive, cumbersome nature with which the proceedings unfold.  Much of the film depicts the characters running around underground unable to get out, with the occasional death punctuating the hopelessness.  Admittedly there were a couple of scenes that sent a bit of a chill through me, but it's not quite enough to turn this into essential viewing.  Lenzi even attempts to recreate the infamous spider attack sequence from Fulci's The Beyond, with painstakingly anti-climactic results.  Unbelievably the final act even rips off Lenzi's own Nightmare City almost exactly!  A film that could have been quite a nice find ultimately remains nothing more than average.

EC Entertainment's old PAL/region 2 DVD provides a fullframe transfer - I suspect Hell's Gate was lensed on 16mm but can't find anything to back that up.  Whilst not exactly exploding with colour and detail it's certainly watchable.  The only audio track is Italian language, which suits me fine, whereas subtitles are available in either English, Dutch, or French.  The only extra is a Lenzi biography (text-based).  The artwork is also typically misleading (see above...).

Paradise Lost: Tragic Idol

Sometime around Draconian Times (1995) I'm sad to say I pretty much gave up on the almighty British doom institution that is Paradise Lost, having been into their stuff since Gothic.  Unlike just about everybody else I thought the Draconian album was 'okay' rather than show-stopping, although it did sort of stop the show for me and PL.  I did pick up the One Second album and liked it, but Host left me cold and I stopped buying, even despite them wandering back to metal territory years later.  That changed of recent when I heard a track or two from the latest release Tragic Idol, and took the risk in ordering it.  I've listened to it ten or eleven times now (I think that should be the minimum before anybody passes an opinion on an album, unless it's pop and requires no effort whatsoever to love/hate depending on your propensities).  Some say it's the best disc since Draconian Times, well sod that: this is the best disc since Icon!  Starting off with a doomier cut than you might expect from the boys who once became electro, the album picks up pace with the rather good 'Crucify', moving on to a consistently excellent run of tracks from 'Honesty in Death' through to and including 'Worth Fighting For', with the best on the album being 'Theories...', 'In This We Dwell', 'To The Darkness' (complete with a wonderful guitar solo), and the title track itself.  With a heavy guitar sound reminiscent of the Icon/Draconian period (and Nick Holmes vocals similarly following suit) this is really great stuff from one of Britain's most respectable bands.  For the record my preferred album of theirs is Shades of God so you could guess I do favour the heavier material, but as I say I was open minded enough to accept One Second.  With Tragic Idol you can consider me a fan once again.  I picked up the more expensive CD release by the way, which essentially is much flashier packaging, and the one PL fans themselves would want, whereas more casual buyers will go for the cheaper jewel case edition (or download if you have an aversion to dusting).

Touch of Death

Quando Alice Ruppe Lo Pecchio (which translates as When Alice Broke The Mirror rather than Touch of Death as it's better known to English speakers) was made around the same time as Sodoma's Ghost (1988) for the same producers.  It's about a man with serious gambling issues who is compelled to date and murder rich women to fund his downwardly spiralling lifestyle.  It would appear that his mind is losing its stability in the process, as he believes odd things are happening with his own shadows, conversations occur with himself, and most uncannily, people he has killed are indeed found dead - but not where he left them.  Furthermore the police seem to be closing in as clues to his identity materialise on the News with alarming frequency.

As with Sodoma's Ghost Fulci wrote the story and screenplay for this one, though his efforts are more successful here than the dire Naziploitation flick.  Carlo Maria Cordio's score is stronger, though still a tad excessive, and the dialogue appears to be improved (though it's difficult to directly compare due to the fact that I couldn't view Sodoma's Ghost in Italian, as previously mentioned).  There are doses of humour varnished on to the horrors (e.g. the feet of a recently murdered corpse keep popping out of his car boot, until he resorts to chopping them off!) that occasionally function as intended, but what keeps your eyes on the screen is the presence of the downright bizarre.  Every woman he tends to get his mitts on is remarkably ugly, even to the point where one of them has a scarred face that he can barely even look at (and as plain wrong as it is, this scenario actually forces a couple of smiles that you'll be desperately trying to suppress).  Surprisingly the film is incredibly gory (I say surprisingly because I believe it was made for television), one scene early on reminding me of some of the atrocities in Guinea Pig II, which is kind of pleasing given Fulci's history with some of the best gore films to ever come out of Italy, however, special effects man Angelo Mattei is no Gianetto De Rossi.  Having said that the head in an oven is a bit of a show-stopper.  Exploitation regular Zora Kerova (Miss Meathook from Cannibal Ferox) is also present.

The Dutch DVD from EC Entertainment gives us a soft, washed-out fullframe (framed as shot on 16mm) transfer, with optional English or Italian audio tracks.  Thankfully there were English subtitles available, although the Italian track is in quite bad shape (I've heard forties films sounding better than this).  Shriek Show released a DVD a couple of years after this one, looking much the same although featuring a more comprehensive package of extras.  Make no mistake: this is not an excellent film, though I do feel there is enough of the macabre and weird here to save it from the dust-bin (garbage can if you're American).

Sodoma's Ghost

The later eighties would be the beginning of decline in quality for Lucio Fulci's work (some would argue it began earlier with the likes of Murder-Rock but I think there was still some drive in his material at that point personally).  During this period he made a few films for producers Antonio Lucidi and Luigi Nannerini, of which Il Fantasma Di Sodoma (Sodoma's Ghost) is one.  The most idiotic teens you've seen since wandering past a British inner city high school are driving out on holiday and get hopelessly lost, only to come across an old house that was used by the Nazis for the purposes of sexual degradation back in the day.  Finding that it's impossible to escape from the place the dumb teens end up staying a few days, only to be accosted in various ways by the malevolent (but still quite sexually charged) spirits of the long-dead Nazis.

Whilst I've not seen everything that Fulci ever directed I have seen a fair bit of his work, but this is the lowest pile of drivel I've witnessed (he also wrote the story and screenplay for this one) - a sad comedown from the glory days (just a few years before, amazingly) of The Beyond and House By The Cemetery.  I could only view this in English and perhaps the translation/dubbing was flawed, but judging it from this alone the dialogue itself is atrocious, sometimes to amusing effect.  The saving grace of the teens, who generally deserve to be shot on sight, is the presence of one sultry Jessica Moore, who made this after the far more enjoyable Eleven Days, Eleven Nights, and thankfully gets her kit off here too.  In fact there is a very high level of nudity in this film throughout, though even this plus-point can't quite save the film.  Any potential (and there was some in the germ of the idea) is also damaged by Carlo Maria Cordio's incessant and irritating score.  To add final insult to injury is the lame-as-f**k ending, almost suggesting that nobody involved with this production had a modicum of enthusiasm for it.

EC Entertainment released this abortion via region 2 PAL DVD well over ten years ago - the fullframe (as shot) transfer is quite ugly.  Two audio tracks are included - English language and Italian language (the latter being much hissier).  Why did I not watch the film in Italian?  Because, despite what it said on the back of the box, there are no subtitles!  Still, a bad disc serving up a worse film is not the end of humanity.

The Cat Girl

An obscurity made in 1957 by short-lived British production company Insignia Films, The Cat Girl stars the fetchingly prim Barbara Shelley (Dracula Prince of Darkness) in its lead role - this nifty little flick turns out to be almost a sly remake of Jacques Tourneur's much better known forties chiller, The Cat People.  Shelley, her sharp-tongued newly wed husband, and two friends head to a strange mansion after a request from her uncle for her immediate presence.  There she finds that the old man believes himself to be the victim of a curse whereby he virtually enters the body of a leopard each night, sometimes with murderous results.  This curse is said to be passed down to her, much to her alarm, and following one or two deaths she's soon whisked off to a psychiatric hospital so they can attempt to cure the increasingly hysterical woman.  Sort of a film of two halves, where the traditional horror of the first is possibly offset against the then-modern psychological investigative approach of the second.  The mist-bound settings of the mansion are beautifully strong on atmosphere, the script is refreshingly unsympathetic and harsh, while the characters are really a bunch of oddballs in a dream world.  Just as Cat People concluded on an ambiguous note, so does this film, refusing by the conclusion to directly tell the audience whether this was the product of delusion or supernatural occurrence.  I don't believe this has been made available on disc at any point, and was fortunate enough to catch it on a recent satellite broadcast.

A June Night

A June Night was made just prior to Hollywood poaching Ingrid Bergman for its own (and worldwide) consumption.  Entitled Juninatten in its native Sweden the film tells the initially unhappy tale of a wayward woman called Kersten (Bergman) who is shot during a row with her lover (one of many, as is suggested by subtext).  Luckily she survives and it prompts an urge to modify her fortunes: wanting to make a new start she changes her name, moves location, and secures a respectable job in a chemist, but it's not long before the tremors of her old life are beginning to make waves in her new one.  However, tumultuous events may serendipitously hold the key to a door that potentially leads to a happier future for Kersten.

The fairly charming story (punctuated by a little tragedy) is unfolded slowly, with Bergman's character at the centre of most people's attention one way or another, whether she likes it or not.  She causes annoyance in women, because their men lust after her, and she can't help but attract men, usually the unwanted kind.  Bergman herself exudes unparallelled beauty and charisma for the period, granting her character with a level of tortured but warming humanity that makes the film worth seeking out.  The subtitled black and white fullscreen version (as it's meant to be seen) was screened in the late nineties on BBC Television.

They / Cursed - Miramax Blu-ray Double Bill

Firstly, the films: Cursed is a Wes Craven directed, Kevin Williamson written werewolf flick from 2005. It's widely acknowledged that there were significant production issues that may or may not have damaged what Cursed was eventually to become. It's basically about a teen brother/sister duo (the latter being Christina Ricci) who become infected by a werewolf following a road accident. It keeps you awake, but I was fairly disappointed with what the talented Craven/Williamson duo have put together here - it feels like it's desperately trying to be hip in its attempt to do for werewolf films what Scream did for slashers.

I've seen They a few times on DVD and whilst it's easy to dismiss it as a pretty generic contemporary shocker, I do quite like it. Focusing on youngsters who have experienced night terrors (extremely vivid and often violent dreams that can result in somewhat unwanted physical activity) that have left lasting scars, we find that these issues are now manifesting themselves in the characters' adult lives, with fatal outcomes. This results in the appearance of hostile alien-like creatures whose apparent objective is to drag their victims off to some hellish netherworld. Whilst `they' appear to be real, it could be theorised that whenever the characters are witnessing the emergence of these monsters, they're actually experiencing the very night terrors that plagued them as children, i.e. they're still dreaming (an idea supported by the bathroom incident with Julia, where her experiences in the bathroom are followed by her being `woken' by her boyfriend, and Julia not actually remembering entering the bathroom at all). It could also be theorised that the creatures have been given physical birth somehow by the power of these people's dreams. I think that's one of the things I like about the film - it does stimulate some thought, and the atmosphere is often quite subdued and dreamlike.

The first thing to know about the Miramax double bill is that it's locked to region A (i.e. the US standard), so it won't play on most UK machines (unless multi-region capable of course). Both PG-13 rated films (the equivalent of our 12 rating; always undesirable when it comes to 'horror' movies...) are on one disc, though they average around the 90 minute mark each so even with extras it's not a great push for Blu-ray's 50Gb capacity.  Although the packaging states plain old DTS for audio, both films come with DTS-HD MA tracks, either in 2.0 or 5.1 variants. Cursed pleasingly looks and sounds very clean with a very light layer of grain, although it is inexplicably presented in 1.78:1, compromising its OAR of 2.39:1 - if the film had been more important I would have been concerned, but I still find this decision strange.  There are about 25 minutes worth of featurettes as bonus material for Cursed.  I understand that this film has been available in an 'unrated' variety stateside, though having not seen it before I can't comment on differences.

They is thankfully presented in its OAR of 2.39:1, looking quite drab, however, this appearance may be a symptom of the cinematographic approach. I made some direct comparisons to the UK EIV DVD: the Blu-ray runs at the correct speed (24 fps) as opposed to 25 fps on the PAL DVD (running time approximately 90 minutes on Blu, 86 minutes on DVD), it features a slightly meatier lossless audio choice instead of plain old Dolby Digital (again a 2.0 or 5.1 choice) on the DVD, both discs feature an alternate ending as an extra, but the Blu-ray also has some deleted scenes. Also, there is a little extra visual information at the sides of the widescreen image on the Blu-ray. Contrast is higher on the DVD (whether artificially boosted or not I cannot say) but fine detail is noticeably superior on the Blu-ray (to illustrate, the nice overhead shot of Julie walking into the diner to meet with estranged ex: the blinds of the diner window are clearly defined in HD, whereas they're a bit of a blurry mess on the DVD). Aside from the reduced contrast which loses the image some possible vibrancy, the Blu-ray of They is all round an upgrade over DVD.

Attack of the Werewolves

Story is about a writer who heads off to an old family home in a remote village to get on with some work, unaware that the place has been cursed. The villagers have trapped a werewolf in the catacombs beneath and the only known way of breaking the curse is for the creature to eat someone from the bloodline of the family that was the cause of the problem in the first place - the writer! But there's a second curse - if they don't succeed by a certain date then the entire village populace will become afflicted by the werewolf's shadow...

Promoted as a cross between Shaun of the Dead and Wolf Man, AOTW is kind of what the title suggests: a werewolf movie with a strong undercurrent of pretty black humour. It's not a laugh-per-minute as Shaun is, but there are some great jokes in there that help to keep this entertaining. It is pretty talky for the first half hour but I generally think that this approach is preferable to the in-your-face tactic of everything going wrong from the first minute. The werewolves are pretty cool (great on a decent sound system as there is real guttural bass rumble to the growls) and the escalating nature of the problem leads to a well staged showdown. I had quite a good time with this movie.

The UK Blu-ray Disc (from Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment) is fine in terms of presentation of the film itself - the film is much sharper than DVD, with an attractive colour palette in outdoor scenes - full HD of course (2.39:1 ratio). It's a very realistic look with very little grain. The audio is Spanish language only (with very clear English subtitles) - not something that bothers me as I watch a lot of foreign horror films anyway, but some viewers will be put off by the absence of English audio. It's served up in DTS-HD Master Audio format, either 5.1 or stereo. Surprisingly the only extra is a trailer, but menus are easy to use. I'm not sure if all of the discs are packed in the same way but mine came in a nice holographic slipcase - I picked the disc up in HMV. For the strong audio visual presentation I'd recommend the Blu-ray, as it's not exactly expensive.