Monday 18 November 2013

The Seventh Victim

Val Lewton’s 40s genre productions have become much more renowned thanks to Warner putting together their fabulous DVD collection of his work quite a few years ago now. But long before that his pictures for RKO studios were considered quite special, formulating as they did quite chilling little tales of the morbid without resorting to overt manifestations of the supernatural. This was always a pleasing contrast to the output of Universal and helped to push forward the idea that the genre didn’t really need inhuman monsters to succeed critically and commercially. In fact their conception was partly the result of the failure of the mighty Orson Welles productions so we could say we have Citizen Kane to thank, as if its legacy hasn’t snowballed enough. The Seventh Victim begins with young college student Mary being called up to be informed that her Manhattan-based sister, Jacqueline, is no longer paying her tuition fees. In fact nobody can seem to get in touch with Jacqueline so Mary packs up and heads off to the great city of NY to find out what’s happened to her older sibling. First stopping off at the restaurant once owned by Jacqueline, Mary finds out she was seen at a local boarding house and goes off to enquire. There it seems the missing woman has hired a room - seemingly not to stay in, rather it’s there as some sort of haven for a potential suicide that forces Mary to realise her sister‘s situation is much more sinister than the innocent youngster‘s mind would like to have contemplated. She comes into contact with the man who loves Jacqueline and with the help of a private investigator (who is soon murdered for his curiosity) they delve deeper into a plot that leads to a satanic cult that has drawn Jacqueline into their macabre world.
A very noir-esque atmosphere is established once Mary arrives at the city: shadowy streets, darkly lit corridors, harsh contrasts (cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca was clearly an expert technician and artist) - it’s an ideal world to conceal the goings-on of a group of devil-worshipping people. In fact the cult reminds me of the sinister neighbours that later turned up in Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, and are quite a creepy bunch considering this was the forties. Mary (Kim Hunter’s feature debut, amazingly the same woman who went on to play Zira in the first three Ape movies) is lovely and innocent, making her treacherous journey a tad more engaging as she stumbles into a threatening city that could almost consume her, though it seems as though something is watching over her shoulder as more harm comes to those around her than to Mary herself. An interesting moral seems to have been wound into the narrative that makes itself apparent by the end, and one which possibly reflected the way Val Lewton pondered upon his own existence (a cardiac illness was making itself known at the time, this eventually leading to a premature demise): humans may at some point, or with eventual inevitability, come to question whether they wish to continue living and both angles are represented by two characters. Jacqueline herself (resembling Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction) evidently possesses a fixation with her own death, perhaps fantasizing about suicide itself until it becomes an on-going obsession, whilst crossing her path is a woman who is terminally ill but would prefer to avoid death - one person is living but wants to die, the other is dying but wants to live. Indeed the opening statement of the film (about running to death but death meeting one just as fast) suggests to me that the story is ultimately an exploration of man’s relationship with death, something which underpins all of horror in some ways. This gives what once began as B movie material (in fact, just a title really) a certain degree of greater depth than what might have been anticipated by the funding studio (the last thing they wanted was conceptual depth after Orson Welles had drained them of cash). Along the way we come across a number of smartly thought-out sequences; Mary and the PI standing at the end of a dark corridor, both afraid to advance before she persuades him to effectively walk to his doom, Mary’s subway ride where three ‘drunks’ stumble on to the train only for the hat to fall from the one being carried revealing him to be the very PI that was murdered earlier - his body obviously in the process of being disposed of, and not least the shower scene that surely must have influenced Hitchcock years later, such is its similarity to Psycho's most famous murder sequence. The Seventh Victim is a movie than can be appreciated by both fans of the macabre and noir alike.

Warner’s 1.33:1 black & white transfer was exemplary given the movie’s 1943 period of creation, and it came accompanied with a highly informative 53 minute documentary on producer Val Lewton. Perhaps some of the interviewees (the likes of William Friedkin, Joe Dante, etc.) go a little overboard in their praise, as is often the case with back-slapping Americans, but appreciation for Lewton will certainly flourish as a result of viewing this comprehensive piece. There’s also a feature commentary from historian Steve Haberman that is sometimes a little quickly spoken, though this also means that there’s a large amount of information and considered opinions divulged. He discusses an omitted subplot concerning Tom Conway’s character as well as the critical and commercial response to the film following initial release, among many other things. One thing Haberman drew my eye to during listening to the commentary was the point when Mary is offered the bad news by the school’s headmistress - watch her silent assistant who is staring at Mary throughout the dialogue, it’s a pretty creepy image as she continuously looks Mary up and down in far too suggestive a manner. The region 1 disc could be picked up as part of the superb boxed set that came with Lewton’s other RKO genre productions - note, a later release of this also includes a Martin Scorsese documentary as an additional bonus.

Thursday 14 November 2013

Voices From Beyond

One of Lucio Fulci's very last efforts, this one reflects an undeniable decline that had occurred in his directorial work from around the mid eighties onwards.  Shot in 1990/1 for Executive Cine TV from one of Fulci's own stories, Voices From Beyond (or Voci dal Profondo / Voices From The Deep to take its original title) is a mystery horror tale about a rich man whose premature death leaves his spirit lingering around while his body rots.  Due to supernatural laws unknown his daughter has the same amount of time it will take his corpse to completely decompose in order to discover who was responsible for his death, and there are a number of suitable suspects, from a mistress to an estranged wife, all of whom were treated badly by the old man.  Feeling quite padded at just over ninety minutes there are nevertheless a number of points that will interest fans of the macabre and Lucio Fulci in particular.  Having acquainted himself with heavy gore towards the end of the seventies, Fulci appeared to feel obliged to wander down the same path in virtually every venture since, and Voices... is no exception - there's a gruesome autopsy scene, plenty of shots of the rotting body beneath the ground (covered in maggots, 'natch), and even the stabbing of a young boy!  There is also a fair bit of nudity for the body-conscious amongst you.  The dream sequences are adeptly executed, generally providing the film with most of its horror content (in fact, without them it would be significantly less interesting I think).  No doubt the best of these is where one character wanders through a claustrophobic morgue consisting of increasingly closed-in walls, before the tombs break open at the hands of the living dead.  Stelvio Cipriani's music is very good in places (Fulci had a knack for embellishing his films with excellent scores), while the hazy cinematography elicits a dreamy feel.  My personal favourite sequence is the funeral of the old man, where his enemies drop wreaths on the coffin one by one as they re-live some of the terrible memories they have of him, all backed by grooving beat.
I did have this on video cassette a long time ago and it was difficult to appreciate the film's strengths on such a medium - needless to say it eventually ended up in a car-boot sale.  Not well touched on DVD anywhere, Code Red announced a while back a US release of a newly scanned transfer on both DVD and Blu-ray!  This has finally come to fruition after what seems like quite a long wait.  The (very) old EC DVD was severely limited in terms of translating the soft-focus image to standard definition (albeit in widescreen), with an equally limited mono audio track (English language).  I haven't seen Code Red's DVD, and don't intend to, but their Blu-ray is an attractive option.  Similarly presented in widescreen - full HD at 24 frames per second - the colours are very strong, grain is present, and detail enhanced.  The relaxed focus of much of the source (surely an artistic choice, given the ghostly nature of the story?) is evident of course, but the film here looks possibly as vivid as we will ever see it - especially some of the harder-focussed exterior shots.  The Dolby TrueHD-encoded audio (still in English, and as atrociously dubbed as ever - I know of nothing that provides an Italian audio option unfortunately and am unsure if such a track even exists) is stronger than before, with the music finally given chance to be assessed with some clarity.  Oddly, there is no menu on the disc - the film starts immediately upon entry, and ceases after the credits on your player's own menu.  There are, however, ten chapter stops, but nothing in way of chapter naming.  Neither are there any extras, but really, who is going to track down ageing participants for a lower-key movie such as this?  Limited to 1000 at the time of writing, and available only direct through Code Red (see my links/escape routes above) this Blu-ray is, despite the film's shortcomings and the discs lack of bonus material, the best way to experience the film and a desirable collector's item for fans of Lucio Fulci.