The Midnight Hour

It’s Halloween in Pitchford Cove, high school youngsters are arranging a huge party at an old house to celebrate. After a class presentation by Phil (Lee Montgomery) about the history of Halloween in relation to the town itself, a small team of students decide to authenticate their fancy dress costumes by breaking into the witchcraft museum and stealing (sorry, borrowing) some genuine 19th century outfits as worn by various occupiers of the period, including a witch who was burned at the stake as she passed curse upon the place (natch). Stopping off at the nearby cemetery they have the cool idea of reading out an old parchment that they found with the costumes - an incantation for raising the dead. Laughing of their antics they leave the cemetery to prepare for the evening's party, unaware that their little joke has actually worked and bodies are returning to life along with the awakening of various other demonic entities such as werewolves and vampires. Later at the party geeky Phil finds himself unable to attract the attentions of the girl of his dreams (she’s more interested in the football-playing beefcakes) and decides to head off home, not realising that the recently disturbed dead are invading the party and causing havoc throughout the town. On his way back he runs into Sandy, a girl he met earlier who also happens to have died thirty years previous (but passable as a living person due to a distinct lack of rotting flesh and, presumably, associated odour). Together they become aware that the town is undergoing a chaotic transformation as the dead turn the living into lifeless homicidal shells - Phil and Sandy have to find a way of restoring peace to Pitchford Cove as they rapidly become a minority in a town that’s filling up with ghouls.

The fact that The Midnight Hour was made for television (back in 1985) is somewhat betrayed through a noticeable lack of gore, violence, and sex, but I’m not one to let those deficiencies hold back my enjoyment of a film - after all, there’s still atmosphere and scares to be had, right? Well, maybe not here. It opens with a nice little set-up as we see the residents of the Cove preparing for Halloween celebrations, going to school, arguing about theft, etc. One of the main problems is the undead creatures - they’re a bit of a joke and are treated as such by the film-makers. The make-up is actually very good while being overly emphasised in a Buffy-type sense and therefore not particularly unnerving. It’s not helped by having actors who think they’re comedians playing some of the parts and one corpse especially gets on my nerves with his clumsy antics. There’s also a hopeless werewolf whose attacks on mortals are oddly impotent, lacking tension in the process. Lee Montgomery was never a very ballsy actor but he’s a reasonably likeable dude and does the job. His newfound love interest, Sandy, is played by Rosanna Arquette lookalike Jonna Lee, someone who worked mainly in TV before disappearing off the scene in the early nineties. Shame because she’s both attractive and competent here.

The teenage behavioural tendencies are typical of the period and may provide some nostalgic fun for those of us who were there, but on occasions they can induce minor cringes. The film takes something of a bizarre turn when, without explanation or precedence the entire undead cast of the house go into a Thriller-style song and dance number that lasts about five minutes - I’m not kidding: this has to be seen to be believed. It may have been fun to shoot but it’s a touch embarrassing to watch. There are one or two things going for Midnight Hour, however. Firstly, it makes great use of fifties/sixties music like The Midnight Hour (obviously), Bad Moon Rising (slightly blasphemous as that track belongs to American Werewolf... as far as I’m concerned!), and Sea of Love (by Del Shannon). In addition, a particular standout sequence has Phil and Sandy cruising through the town as it crawls with the walking dead, later becoming pursued by hordes as they go back to the house to retrieve certain things they’ll need to restore order. The conclusion of the film, though, is a little on the sloppy side. One rather surprising point to note: the competent but pedestrian direction is by Jack Bender, someone who since went on to enthral us with many of the episodes from Lost.

The taped recording I have was taken from a satellite broadcast back in the early nineties and maintains a surprisingly colourful, sharp (for the medium) 1.33:1 image. I don’t think this ever received a sell-through release in the UK, disc or cassette, but Anchor Bay put out a barebones DVD on Region 1 aeons ago (the film itself was granted with a decent transfer); that disc can be difficult to find nowadays and for reasons unknown the film remains unfortunately MIA on physical media (this may be down to music rights or perhaps Disney ownership). The Midnight Hour is light, reasonably fun entertainment, despite the occasional foray into embarrassing territory, plus there is that slightly eerie segment of the last act to consider.  It's a professional 35mm production - better than you'd expect for TV - which would have benefitted from an injection of adult content.

Black Magic Rites

In attempt to cobble together some sort of summary:  Several hundred years ago, Isabel (Rita Calderoni from the nearly as fu*ked up Nude For Satan and the much more coherently twisted Delirium) was burned at the stake while her lover (Hungary's own Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Hargitay, also from Delirium) looks on helplessly. In the present day a group of Satanists led by the descendant of Isabel’s lover attempt to resurrect her still-rotting corpse through sacrifice of not-so-innocent victims, generally plucked from some kind of gathering that appears to be taking place in a nearby castle (I think).

How do you sum up a plot that comes across as predominantly incomprehensible? I’m not sure but I don’t think it matters so much in this case: Black Magic Rites is a psychedelic whirlwind of insane events and imagery that just has the viewer sitting there shaking their bewildered head at the fact that anything like this was ever committed to celluloid. There is plenty of nudity and some of the strangest characters ever created - one particularly potty woman is found hysterical on the stairs after supposedly being assaulted by a monster with ‘green hair, like all monsters’ (???) that nobody, including us, has ever seen. There’s something to do with vampirism in here too - apparently there are some family ties to Dracula even claimed along the way. Even as far as Euro-Horror is concerned, this film is booting sanity out the window with almost randomly strung-together sequences of celluloid that could easily have been shot by somebody off their merry head on drugs, but it sort of works as an escape into psychologically unbalanced surrealism and is helped if your perception is chemically manipulated at the time (in my case, inebriation). The late Renato Polselli has crafted some interesting work to be honest - the aforementioned Delirio Caldo/Delirium (1972) is pretty good and comparatively 'normal'! Previously he also made a more conventional Italian Gothic horror with L’Amante del Vampiro/Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), a bewitching piece that dances around in the same ballpark as Playgirls and the Vampire.

The original mouthful of a title for Black Magic Rites (1973) was Riti, Magie Nere e Segrete Orge Nel Trecento (or Black Magic Rites & the Secret Orgies of the 14th Century).  The print of the old US DVD by Redemption (entitled Reincarnation of Isabel) was apparently ultrasonically cleaned before the digital master of the time was created - apart from an excess of dirt/damage visible throughout it didn't look too bad considering the source, being moderately detailed. Under its Black Magic Rites moniker (as was the UK DVD plus a later release by Redemption in the US) on Kino Lorber/Redemption's Blu-ray, the disc was bare bones (bundled merely with a few trailers for a couple of the Rollin and Bava BDs that the company also put out) the image quality was improved in terms of detail and colour, though still quite scratchy and damaged (not something that bothers me personally).  Aside from the unfortunate cropping (albeit slight) of the image to 1.78:1 (damn that ratio!) the Blu-ray is a worthwhile step up from whatever you owned before.  As with those earlier discs we thankfully got the Italian language soundtrack with very clear English subtitles (BD subtitles are much clearer and neater than the digitised looking text we had to put up with on DVD). 

Later still, Indicator have once again hit the ball far out of the park with a limited edition release (separately on Blu-ray and 4K according to your delectation).  The attractive and quality-screaming packaging is in the vein of their Jean Rollin titles, a lavish inner case containing the disc, a beautiful book, all contained in a slipcase.  No BS artcards or other things that you will never pick up again, the money here has gone into the important stuff.  And most importantly is a proper restoration of the film itself – which once could very easily have been lost forever given its history - looking quite staggering compared to everything else, we now have fine, consistent grain with a cleaned image that must be definitive in its presentation.  Audio once again is Italian (with English subtitles), again very clear.  The extras package also belittles all previous discs – of note is a thirty minute consideration of Renato’s work (including 1999 interview footage with the director himself, courtesy of Pete Tombs) and a superb forty minute talk on the work leading up to Black Magic Rites by Stephen Thrower, including his own attempted analysis of the film.  Whether it’s the Blu-ray or the UHD, this is a critical release from Indicator for lovers of Euro-Horror and strange cinema, something that I really hope leads to a reappraisal of Renato Polselli's work, and the restoration/release of some of the films that I've been unable to see hitherto.

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

Night of the Living Dead was, as most reasonably knowledgeable film fans are aware, responsible for drastically altering the landscape of zombie cinema through transformation of the sub-genre from folkloric curiosity to something altogether more terrifying. In its wake followed outings directly influenced by its impact and success as this transformation continued its periodic evolutionary steps beyond the film’s first sequel right up to the present day, where the undead devils have now often learned to sprint faster than their living counterparts. But going back to the period between 1968 and 1978 (where Dawn of the Dead made its own indelible indentation) there were some interesting works being produced around the globe that pretty much had Night… to thank for their existence while possessing enough qualities to propel them to positions of value in their own right. 1972's Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (i.e. immature teens shouldn’t mess with black magic and corpses, as we all know from personal experience, natch...) is one such piece that’s survived to be noticed through the last few decades but continues to attract completely varying opinions.

The narrative ideas of the film clearly owe a lot to Night… where a group of people become trapped in an isolated house against a relentless onslaught of the rotting dead, although reciting the story in a little more detail goes something like this: self-proclaimed creative force, Alan, hires a troupe of young adults/wannabe actors to travel to a small island for a night’s fun interfering with the black arts via rituals and the like, something that’s almost exclusively designed to provide him with some amusement thereby breaking up what must be ongoing personal boredom with the more mundane aspects of life. It’s soon the middle of night and they are gathered for reasons unknown at the island’s graveyard.  Following some embarrassment at the apparent failure of his expression of satanic rites one of the troupe shows Alan how it 'should' be done, everyone laughing before the budding director forces them to take a corpse from its resting place back to their cabin for a bit more tomfoolery. Some of them go along with it, some are understandably perturbed, but Alan heads further down the road of pushing taste to its boundaries for the sake of attention and the sheer amusement of revelling in other people’s distress. Then the graves outside begin opening up - it seems Alan’s ritual (or the more theatrical one that followed it) was a success after all, and within minutes a horde of the walking dead approaches and surrounds the cabin in a thirst for vengeance.

Where Night… was very straight faced in its dealing of the material, the tactic here is somewhat different: the first half of the film takes a persistently facetious angle as it presents its characters to us, most of whom are wisecracking teens that are endearingly lacking in pessimism. Heading the group is Alan (actually Alan Ormsby, one of the scriptwriters and special make-up effects artists on the crew - this sort of thing happens in low budget productions…). Alan is possibly the character that makes or breaks this film for most viewers due to his relentless arrogance and obnoxiousness. And it goes on and on to a point where viewers might wonder if anything horrifying (beyond the barrage of verbal gags) is ever going to happen. That’s why, for me, this film is creatively successful - when the shit does hit the fan its impact is multiplied. It goes from comic to dark in one very swift turn and the contrast lends the nastier second half an edge it might not otherwise have had - sort of a similar effect to that of Shaun of the Dead, or An American Werewolf in London, though not quite in the same class. It’s the stuff that gets on everyone’s nerves that ultimately aids the payoff, if people can just see past the things that are getting on their nerves of course… For this reason, the film works much better on multiple viewings. The show-stopping corpse rising sequence is something that Night… (and in the extras someone incorrectly suggests that it was the first time it was ever done on film – presumably they had not seen Hammer’s classic Plague of the Zombies) never had and it’s remarkably executed, having an air of the sinister and uncanny about it. Here and throughout, it should be noted that the brilliantly psychedelic electronic soundtrack plays an incredible part in crafting the weird atmosphere.  The teens’ comedic and dramatic interactions up until that point turn to disbelieving terror as the final third spirals upward to a chilling climax and a final shot that hints at something apocalyptic on the horizon.

This has been consistently available in one form or another for years. In the video age it would surface time and again with the crafty re-titling tactics of small video distribution companies that would trick fools like me into repeatedly buying the same film (Revenge of the Living Dead for example, neither title nor (extremely bad) cover artwork bearing resemblance to the real film it was selling). There was a DVD from VCI in the US that then became the most acceptable way of viewing Children… for a long time (in the post laserdisc era), but its non-anamorphic, dark and indistinct picture was not entirely desirable by modern standards. Anchor Bay UK then released a UK DVD and improved things in some respects: we had a clearer anamorphic transfer, multiple (and unnecessary in the case of DTS 5.1!) sound options, and a commentary by Alan Ormsby. The problem with the AB disc was that it consisted of a shorter version of the film; the ball was well and truly dropped on that one. After a brief transfer hiccup that involved the discs being temporarily recalled, a marginally better edition was put out later on in the US by VCI again: anamorphic enhancement for the full length version (approximately 87 minutes), another commentary, and several short featurettes. Later on, Nucleus (UK) released Children... as a double DVD bill with Bob Clark's subsequent film, Dead of Night, but possibly as a final statement VCI again returned to the film with two editions, Blu-ray and 4K, the source of which I believe is used for the 101 Films Blu-ray I have here.

Audio demonstrates some hiss and occasional mis-synching by a few frames, though is serviceable overall (gone are the old artificial surround tracks of the Anchor Bay era).  The HD video transfer may disappoint on initial glance, although with some tweaks to the display controls (particularly brightness and contrast) to balance out the elevated gray scales it doesn’t look too bad.  There is a relative absence of grain but the colours boast surprising vibrancy.  I think it has to be borne in mind that this is an early seventies very low budget (around fifty thousand dollars I believe) horror movie shot often at night, it may be that the raw materials have offered all the detail they’re ever going to.  After getting used to this image, embellished by the aforementioned display tweaks, in viewing I settled down to enjoy the film as it should be.

101 Films have included a number of VCI-sourced extras, including (where VCI demonstrate their technical ineptitude with audio quality so poor it requires subtitling!) interview footage with Alan (who reveals why he and Clark stopped talking later in their careers as well as their original intention to shoot a follow-up), and retrospective appreciation for Clark’s character and work.  An 11 minute or so on-stage Q&A is a welcome addition, as is commentary from Alan along with a couple of other cast members.  Two music videos by a band somewhat obsessed with necrophilia, a gallery and trailer round out a decent package.  This edition also comes with a welcome reversible sleeve (although the infamous cartoon sofa cover is unfortunately neither of the options), and was released both in isolation and as part of a Clark boxed set.  All in all, this movie is a minor cult item that can bring rewards to the more patient viewer of the macabre.  Despite the imperfections of the transfer, this release is very much appreciated on UK shores for this fan in particular.  P.S. It’s also the longer version rather than the truncated cut which Anchor Bay got hold of.

Death by Invitation

The prologue depicts a young woman, suspected witch, being flayed by a horde of medieval people, themselves in some cases decorated in almost a devilish fashion.  In the present day someone who resembles the woman, possibly her ancestor, infiltrates a family consisting of the killers' descendants, the intention apparently being one of cross-generational vengeance.

A little known film by Ken Friedman from 1971, Death by Invitation is an intriguing study of a psychologically disturbed woman driven to kill by events that may have occurred aeons previous.  I say 'may' because I feel there are elements of ambiguity in all of this - either she is the descendant of a witch that was killed by Catholics (and, indeed, there is a brief hint that the religion has been passed down to the family in the present day), or she is deluded into thinking this is the case by her own paranoia and misandry.  Or perhaps she is the actual witch herself, who has survived for hundreds of years to now finally discover or locate her opportunity to end an extended lifetime of bitterness.

It's a plodding piece, underpinned by an air of feminism that I wouldn't ordinarily have much sympathy for in the post-millennial Western world, however, the concept overall is not without its interest.  Moreover, the lead character - the first known role of actress Shelby Leverington - is fascinatingly sexual and disturbed.  Leverington is quite incredible, both for her mysterious, acute portrayal of Lise, and for her alluring sultry persona.  She may not appeal to all but I found her to be hypnotic throughout, especially during her intense pre-murder delivery of a historical monologue that her character may have been witness to in some way, or have an obsessive belief in - despite this being pure talk it is a captivating and vivid sequence.

Having had very minimal exposure to the public in the past via home video (and possibly a brief theatrical run?) Vinegar Syndrome unearthed this for what could be its final lease of life, a double bill DVD, part of the Drive-in Collection, with Dungeon of Harrow (previously it was doubled with 1979 slasher Savage Water before that ran into trouble and was quickly withdrawn from circulation - a handful of copies are out there but you can guess what people are asking for them).  Death... is presented on DVD at 1.85:1 from a fairly scratchy print, battered, but looking better than it ever has (and, shamefully, possibly ever will).   It comes with an audio commentary from the Hysteria Continues pod-casters.  Unfortunately this does not offer a great deal of useful information about the film, sometimes consisting of the commenters merely passing thoughts about the décor or fashion (yes, people, this was 1971 - the stuff that you're wearing will no doubt also look like a joke in forty years!  Or possibly less).  Justin Kerswell comes off as an intelligent chap, often bringing things back on to track.  Aside from the occasional amusing comment or slice of insight, the commentary is not how I'd like to remember the film.  On the other hand, the sitting-with-one's-mates-watching-a-film type of scenario might appeal to some.  In summary though, this is a good disc to own and one much appreciated from the stellar organisation that is Vinegar Syndrome.

City of the Dead

In the secluded village of Whitewood a witch is burned at the stake in an opening similar to Bava’s Mask of Satan - but not before she summons satanic help that will ensure she returns from the dead and cause the village to be forever encompassed by the curse of witchcraft. 300 years after the burning a young college student who is studying the paranormal decides to take her research to a higher level by actually visiting a village that was known for its witchcraft in the darker ages - that of Whitewood. Upon arriving it seems to be a place that has stood still in time, where the denizens are given to acting abnormally and the church is out of bounds. It’s not long before she vanishes prompting concerned friends to retrace her steps to find out what’s happened to her. Something sinister is still going on in Whitewood it would seem…

Apart from the fact that a few elements haven’t dated too well (e.g. the ‘hip’ college teens), this is a tremendous supernatural horror from 1960 with mountains of beautiful atmosphere - the village itself is a joy to behold, with dilapidated buildings and omnipresent mist, populated by strange people who seem to be trapped in time somehow. Oh, and a demented priest. The B&W cinematography is absolutely gorgeous and I think this is one of the best genre films before the more violent and hard-hitting era that was to begin with the 70s.

There are low-grade releases of City of the Dead (AKA Horror Hotel) available both in the UK and US, but the US VCI DVD remains the definitive presentation after all these years, effectively disposing of all others - you owe it to yourself not to view this film on one of those effortless public domain-type releases. For their 2-disc UK release Redemption ported everything here except the commentaries, though downgraded the image with an NTSC to PAL transfer. VCI’s correctly framed picture looks very nice for standard definition, the sound is well represented, and there are essential extras: a commentary with Christopher Lee (who has a smaller role in the film), another commentary with director John Llewellyn Moxey, an indispensable and riveting 45 minute interview with Lee that is pure talk and no unnecessary interruptions with movie clips - he’s lived a truly enviable life. Further to that there are shorter interviews with Moxey himself and Venetia Stevenson, plus more. VCI's is a great disc of a classic film - get it!

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.

Dead & Buried

1981, US, Directed by Gary Sherman
Colour, Running Time: 94 minutes
Review Source: Blu-ray, Region A, Blue Underground; Video: 1.78:1 1080p 24fps, Audio: DTS HD MA

If you haven’t seen the film before I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll summarise as follows: a prologue introduces a short-lived photographer as he captures images on a beach prior to being beguiled by an attractive female who's all too happy to expose her body for the camera.  The situation not quite panning out as he might have liked, he finds himself surrounded by goons, tied up, and burned alive. The place is a small town called Potter’s Bluff, and the man on the case, Sheriff Gills, is becoming increasingly concerned about the sudden rise in homicidal activity, as people are killed in an almost religiously brutal fashion. One thing that bores me slightly watching certain films is the plot being occupied by excesive periods of police investigation (with a few exceptions – Se7en being a notable one), and Gary Sherman’s dark chiller almost crosses the border into that kind of territory. What breaks it apart from the average policeman-hunting-killer(s) scenario is the fact that this does have a supernatural element behind the concept, but to explain it here would possibly be to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it. The other factor is that the deaths are rather nasty – indeed it earned a place on the DPP (banned in Britain) list in the early eighties. Probably the most grotesque death is that of the burned man in hospital – somebody wants him dead and because his eye is the only thing really exposed (due to the bandages), she jams a hypodermic needle into it! Dead & Buried was somewhat mis-marketed in my opinion – because the screenplay here was written by Ronald Shusett and Dan O’ Bannon, who also wrote the story for Alien, the marketers felt the need or desire to try to rope in the crowd who’d already seen that – ‘The Creators of ALIEN bring a new terror to Earth’ proclaimed the posters. Of course this implies extra-terrestrial presence in the film but there is nothing of the sort, and no doubt some viewers have been disappointed over the years if they’ve just watched it on the strength of the promotional material alone (which some will). Aside from possibly lacking in the excitement stakes, the movie is, however, a reasonably effective chiller with a nefarious edge to it along with some pretty nifty characters (the mortician/undertaker, wickedly played by Jack Albertson, being the number one on that list).

I first viewed this on UK videocassette after it was released years following the banning – fullscreen and censored. I didn’t particularly appreciate it, but later on gave the 2 disc DVD by Anchor Bay a shot. Slipcased, this was a nice release presenting the film uncut for the first time in Britain since the banning, widescreen, and with a variety of audio options (DD2.0, DD5.1, and DTS 5.1) and extras. It was also released around the same time by Blue Underground on a similar DVD set. More recently Blue Underground have remastered the film for this Blu-ray release. The image quality is much sharper than before, although grain is very prevalent in many shots, and the variety of cinematographic techniques can be fully appreciated at last. Audio is served up as lossy DD5.1 EX, and lossless Dolby True HD 7.1 plus DTS HD Master Audio 7.1. It’s questionable whether a film such as this will ever benefit from such overblown sound formats, the likes of which are very suited to modern day cinema’s more extreme, layered, and better quality soundtracks, but one shouldn’t knock Blue Underground for putting in this kind of effort. What is slightly disappointing is that they saw fit to drop the original mono track, which was accounted for on the former BU DVD. Given the similarity between the surround tracks available I think it would have made more sense to include the mono and drop one of those, but not to worry – downmixing to stereo via your equipment provides a fairly satisfying listen. A surprising quantity of extras is still a big bonus – three audio commentaries, an interesting featurette with effects master Stan Winston, a Robert Englund interview (who has a small part in the film prior to his explosion of fame as Freddy), plus a Dan O’ Bannon piece too (there are also a couple of trailers). This gives you around five hours of listening/viewing material, which is stellar considering the fact that this is hardly a massive film. The big sell for the Blu-ray though is the great image, although that itself will alienate some because it’s hardly a thing of beauty! But that isn’t the point – we can view Dead & Buried in a manner closely aping what it probably originally screened like, and the film is something that has held up over time.

Black Magic

1975, Hong Kong, Directed by Meng Hua Ho
Colour, Running Time: 96 minutes
Review Source: Download; Video: 2.35:1, Audio: Mono

A jaded woman visits a daemonic practitioner of the dark arts in the hope that he can despatch her cheating husband along with his lover (bit extreme - she could have just divorced him, but I guess at least this method avoids lining the pockets of rich lawyers...). Making payment in gold, the two lovers are put to death in the midst of their pleasure, as the magician uses a series of voodoo techniques to end their hedonistic existence. Elsewhere building site worker Xu Nuo is perpetually chased by a horny little nymph by the name of Luo - his boss, no less - despite the fact that he's clearly happily associated with a more conventional partner, Wang. Spurning her advances he's unaware that the selfish woman has deliberately left 'evidence' in his car, specifically for his real girlfriend to discover. Meanwhile the angry Luo smashes an admirer's car when she returns home to find the unwelcome guest. Liang drives off in his battered car to meet a friend where the shady fellow convinces him that he can have Luo by use of black magic, courtesy of ancient sorcerer Sha Jianmai, who lives in a forest outside the city. Heading off on a journey through the forest (more like a jungle actually) our man eventually locates Sha Jianmai in a hut where he is accumulating substances for his work, including milking (quite literally!) a naked woman. The magician demands payment in gold the size of a skull, which the penniless Liang promises in the hope of acquiring it from the very woman he wishes to love - once they are an item and he has his share of her bank balance. The magician needs two things for the spell - a lock of hair for the woman, and footprints in the mud, which Liang dutifully obtains. He then has to dangle a clay model of himself in Luo's house, plus pour the newly devised potion into her drink. Once consumed she's all over him - his plan comes together! At least until the clay model breaks the next morning, this also ending the hold over Luo. She threatens him with her dog 'Terry', demanding to know how he got her into bed. Confessing everything results in Luo coming up with her own plan to ensare her love interest, Xu Nuo. The magician meets Luo and promises she can have Xu Nuo for a whole year if she can supply hair from his head, drops of his blood, and her breast milk, whilst placing some rotting body parts under his bed (hell, she could just try being nice!). During another botched attempt to seduce Xu Nuo at his apartment, she manages to fulfill the requirements of the spell and, after a bizarre graveyard ritual, Liang is dead (for not paying his bill) and Xu Nuo is later bewitched - much to the annoyance of his real partner, Wang, who he has just married! The newly-wed wife won't leave it alone though, so Luo employs the magician to put a death spell on her! However, this ever spiralling situation of complexity is not quite as straightforward as Luo would like it to be, as it seems Sha Jianmai has fallen for her... Wang's friends, concerned that she is descending towards doom as the death spell takes hold, carry her to another magician by the name of Furong, who is then employed to attempt to restore right with the magic-twisted world, resulting in the two sorcerers enagaging in necromantical battle.

Shaw Brothers were known for their quality output of epic action and martial arts films, but occasionally produced something more horror-orientated, such as this film, Jiang tou as it's known in its native land. Strikingly shot from the outset, Black Magic is a love polygon ruled by magic, or the inability of the various characters to obtain the object of their desires via conventional means. Having said that, black magic itself seems to be widely accepted without question by the populating people of this world and the use of it does not seem to be a grave consideration (until it all goes wrong). Ploddingly paced there is still plenty of amusement to be had as one character after another either falls victim to the magician's handy work or actively utilises his services to influence the natural order of things. As is often the case with Hong Kong cinema, there is humour spattered frequently, as well as an offbeat way of telling the story at hand. Performances are often very good, in particular Ni Tien, who plays Luo with style and is foxy throughout (though obviously being doubled for the nude shots of the character's torso...), making an appealing lady of vague morals - indeed, it's difficult to understand why Xu Nuo is more interested in the comparatively mundane Wang than he could easily have the more energetic and sexy Luo, but there's no accounting for taste I guess... The film's horror elements are somewhat overshadowed by the convoluted love tangle, but I would suggest this stems from the Hong Kong tendency of freeform interweaving of genres as they seem less restrained than western counterparts. Nevertheless, there are some effective sequences, notably the short nightmare that Wang has of oddly bouncing ghosts, a lovely head decomposition sequence, and the routinely morbid nature of Sha Jianmai's spell-casting. Not a bad piece of work all round, this can be bought cheaply in the US as a DVD from Image Entertainment, featuring a fully scoped transfer, a surround Mandarin track, plus mono Mandarin and English tracks (I would suggest avoiding the latter but there are some viewers that don't like reading subtitles, so its presence is valid). There was also a region 3 disc released in 2004 by Celestial, fronted by an ugly cover it actually featured a superior transfer, albeit accompanied by just the mono Mandarin track (English subtitles were present on both discs).

The Serpent and the Rainbow

1987, US, Directed by Wes Craven
Colour, Running Time: 94 minutes
Review Source: DVD, R2, Universal; Video: Anamorphic 1.78:1, Audio: DD2.0

Anthropologist Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) chisels a reputation for himself by surviving for weeks lost in the Amazon (jungle, rather than warehouse) on a pharmaceutical mission. A short while after returning he is requested to go on an expedition to Haiti to locate Christophe, a dead man who’s apparently been seen alive several years after his certification and burial, to discover more about a drug that can supposedly cause temporary death (or the appearance of it), allowing the victim to be revived later - the idea being to use it as a revolutionary anaesthetic to reduce life loss on operating tables. Arriving in the politically burdened, voodoo-fearing country he enlists the help of a woman, Dr Duchamp, who shows him an apparently real living ’zombie’, now incarcerated at the asylum where she works. Following enquiries they contact a shaman who claims he can concoct the drug Alan seeks - but for $1000. Unfortunately Alan has attracted the attentions of the aggressive police and a dictator called Peytraud who isn’t enthusiastic about the American’s presence and will go to any lengths to scare him away. After Alan and Duchamp finally locate Christophe wandering around a graveyard, Alan is convinced there is more to the story than just a poverty stricken asylum keen to acquire funding through publicity-seeking means.

Based on the (ostensibly true) Wade Davis book (published in 1985) Wes Craven crafted one of the most intelligent ‘living dead’ films of its time by taking an intriguing story and moulding a world that exudes a sense of mystery and the supernatural. Bill Pullman, generally better known for roles in comedies and romances, convincingly portrays an adventurer that is both daring and fragile, while Zakes Mokae (also a strong presence in Dust Devil) is frightening as the despotic Peytraud - these performances, combined with an engaging script, help to capture viewer attention. This is supported by an appropriately funereal score that adeptly alludes to impending doom (wonderful work by Brad Fiedel), an undercurrent of Alan’s quest, the summit of which being a chilling episode where he faces the ordeal of inhaling the very drug he seeks, followed by his own conscious burial. The problem with what is otherwise a gratifying journey arrives in the last 15 minutes when Craven can’t seem to help himself taking Alan’s hallucinations - which are hitherto a staple of his journey through to the unknown - into inappropriate Nightmare on Elm Street territory with dead arms elongating out of prison cells, autonomous chairs and, most ridiculously, a Shocker-style charred antagonist attacking Alan (even the music becomes conventional slasher fare at this point). Removing this rubbish for the sake of some verisimilitude and a little more ambiguity may have resulted in a masterwork. As it is, you have a superb hour and fifteen minutes of immersion into a supernaturally oppressive world, followed by 15 minutes of disposable footage that was probably shot to make the product more marketable, undermining audience intelligence (where present) in the process. Either way, it’s still Craven’s best film in my opinion.

Serpent and the Rainbow was released on DVD featuring a grainy, slightly washed-out but otherwise decent picture with its original Dolby surround track (though it’s a pity it wasn’t upgraded to 5.1) that betrays the limitations of the era. The disc is the same in both the UK and US. Without a complete overhaul the presentation serves well enough and, aside from the terrible final act, I love watching this film and it stands up well to repeat viewings.

Night of the Sorcerers

1973, Spain, Directed by Amando De Ossorio
Colour, Running Time: 85 minutes
Review Source: DVD, R1, BCI Eclipse/Deimos; Video: 1.33:1, Audio: DD Mono

Somewhere in the more primitive regions of Africa decades ago a female missionary worker is captured and has her clothes (literally) whipped off in a bizarre voodoo ritual, before she is taken advantage of and decapitated. Her rescuers are moments too late despite arriving on the scene to slaughter the voodoo sorcerers like dirty pigs. Oddly, the woman's head, now boasting fangs, returns to life after having been separated from the body... In the present day a group of not-quite likely zoologists stop to camp near the same area. An expert on voodoo tradition (including the aforementioned tale retold within the prologue) warns the bunch about risks, but this mainly falls on deaf ears of course (otherwise there'd be no fun to be had!). Overly enthusiastic with a focus ring one of the girls heads off to investigate the local legends and is caught by the woman who was slain decades earlier and soon succumbs to the same fate as the dead sorcerers have awoken to curse the land. And that woman too becomes a vampiric harbinger of doom, again despite the removal of her head. The camp's numbers are going down one at a time as the slow moving voodoo-raised blood-drinking women increase their's.

The director himself needs no introduction to the Euro horror fiend - the Spaniard was responsible for the four Blind Dead films around the same period, and while that series was slightly different in tone, the enjoyment levels here are not too far removed. The expedition is made up of an entertaining variety of nutters, from the daddy's-girl who won't lift a damn finger to help because her father is funding the whole trip, the camera button hammering babe who's even snapping pictures of nearby wildlife when the Land Rover she's a passenger in is bouncing up and down over the rough terrain (must have produced some zany examples of motion blur), and the hard-assed leader played by Euro regular Jack Taylor, etc. One of the most consistently amusing elements of Euro horror is the approach to characterisation in these stories, and the oblivious manner in which these oddball American-wannabees are portrayed on screen by actors/actresses who probably didn't know what the hell was going on half the time. It's certainly no different here. The film mixes up a number of ideas to create its unique take on horror, most notably vampirism, zombies, and voodoo, and De Ossorio lets his imagination roam a little, adding to the mix some sex and nudity plus a few dollops of gore. There is also an air of creepiness combined with eroticism that you don't witness every day in the undead women that prance through the jungle almost ecstatically going about their killing business. Not superb, not even particularly great as cinema goes, but likable and one to re-watch.

The long defunct BCI Eclipse/Deimos label released this on DVD in 2007 and superseding the rumoured Japanese VHS with a slightly different cut this is the best way to watch Night of the Sorcerers, and that may remain to be the case forever in the future of decreasing returns on published media. Probably presented as an open-matte image (that is, the full 35mm frame opened up without the 1.85:1 top/bottom matting that may have occurred during theatrical projection) the image was scanned from negatives producing something colourful and, for Standard Definition, reasonably detailed. Quite nice to look at overall. These DVD producers were always as thoughtful as possible and with the audio you get a choice of Spanish or English dubs, and a good standard of English subtitles is there as an option. Extras are understandably limited: alternate clothed sequences (thankfully the film itself contains the 'unclothed' shots), stills (including some nice posters), and trailers, plus liner notes present in the box. I lament the loss of this company quite highly, and that's why - this film being I think the only one of this line of editions that I never picked up at the time - I forked out £20 to get this and complete my collection. Compared to the Laser Disc days this is not much I know, but way more than I'm willing to pay for a DVD nowadays as HD is generally a much more desirable way to watch a film. Anyway, the people who this film is likely to appeal to will already know who they are.

Drag Me To Hell

2009, US, Directed by Sam Raimi

Colour, Running Time: 99 minutes

Review Source: Blu-ray, Region B, Lionsgate; Video: 1080p 24fps 2.39:1, Audio: DTS HD MA

After an extended hiatus away from anything too gruesome or terrifying, Sam Raimi - now mainstream director extraordinaire thanks to his levitation to greater heights with Spider-Man 1, 2, and 3 - is back seemingly attempting to prove that he still has the ability to shock. Actually I reckon he was feeling a little caged by his prolonged commercial viability in Hollywood (and its associated restrictions for all but those at the top) and wanted to metaphorically let his hair down for a while before heading into his next stratospheric-sized production (at the time of writing, Oz - The Great and Powerful, which reportedly has a ridiculous budget). Can Raimi appease some of the older hardcore fans who have remained addicted to The Evil Dead and its bloody good first sequel for all of these years (i.e. me, et al.)? I enjoy the Spidey movies personally and have no problem with someone evolving their career from low-budget origins, and the likes of Raimi and Peter Jackson demonstrate what amazing talent can spawn from the horror genre when that talent is allowed to flourish. However I wasn’t really sure what to expect with Drag Me To Hell…

It’s really nice that Raimi can get his slightly older brother Ivan involved in bigger budget productions such as this and the preceding Peter Parker films - Sam’s movies always feel like Edward Wood-type scenarios whereby he hangs around with a core motley crew of contributors, those whom he presumably feels secure with and able to rely on. So Sam and Ivan wrote this story (reportedly back in the early nineties before being sidetracked with other endeavours) about Christine Brown, a career-driven banker woman who is cursed by an old gypsy following her ulterior-motivated refusal to prevent repossession of the gypsy’s property. Brown soon begins experiencing frightening visions and learns from a possibly dodgy fortune-teller that the curse will result in her being ‘dragged to Hell’ in three days time if she cannot prevent it somehow, though it will be three days of increasingly malevolent supernatural activity. First she gives animal sacrifice a bash, to no avail, followed by adopting the services of an exorcist-like medium, who dies following a violent séance, and then the old Night of the Demon trick - passing the item that holds the curse on to another owner. Mixed up in all of this is her rivalry with a fellow banker as they both compete for the recently vacated assistant manager position at their branch, plus the prospect of Brown impressing her boyfriend’s uppity parents as they (particularly the mother) look down on her due to her origins as a farm girl. Her boyfriend (the likable Justin Long from Jeepers Creepers) meanwhile attempts to bring sanity to the whole mess, sticking with his girl through escalating situations of difficulty, though he remains unable to tell his parents precisely what to do with their preconceived notions of what’s right for him.

Brown’s predicament seems a little contrived but the Raimis successfully manage to make us feel a tad sorry for her as her desire to please and progress only winds her up in deep problems to the point where her very soul is under threat. However the schizophrenic approach to the story turn this on its head as the character resorts to animal sacrifice to ward off the invading demon - perhaps the writers are suggesting that anybody is capable of such malicious action when subjected to certain conditions. They’d be correct of course but I’m not sure this was as well conveyed as it could have been. There is an overt reliance on jump effects to fool the audience into thinking they’re scared - this often works but is so overused in modern genre products that it’s a little tiresome, and tiring. However, some of these effects admittedly have impact. As the movie gains momentum it becomes obvious that Raimi is having some fun - the séance/possession sequence really steps back into Evil Dead territory, and for a few minutes I thought minimal tweaks to this film could have resulted in another feasible chapter in the franchise (much more preferable to me than the prospect of the upcoming Evil Dead remake...). It’s a perverse cross between horror and slapstick comedy that only Raimi produces in such a ridiculous but effective fashion, and I’d argue that his style is better realised here than in Army of Darkness, which for me was too far down the slapstick route for it to be anything other than irritating. As with Evil Dead 2 the balance here is good, though many audience members not familiar with these earlier flicks may wonder what the hell is happening on occasions. Aside from several cool in-jokes throughout (the periodic appearance of a similar car to that used in Evil Dead) it’s honestly a real shame that there’s no Bruce Campbell in sight - I‘ve come to expect at the very least a cameo from the man in this director‘s films.

There is a sadistic edge to Drag Me To Hell that’s satisfactory - it makes you squirm in places (Raimi won‘t be winning any fans among Help The Aged), gives you a few frights, causes a smile here and there, and sometimes forces you to stare in utter bewilderment at the onscreen activities. The morbid graveyard exhumation is especially a highlight for me and the conclusion is beautifully grim. As suggested above, the movie is a touch schizophrenic in many respects and it won’t necessarily find classic status but it is a welcome return to the genre for a director who’s been noticeably absent for some time.  The Blu-ray Disc contains both the theatrical and extended versions of the film, and is presented with attractively detailed image quality coupled with strong surround audio.

Witchcraft

1964, UK, Directed by Don Sharp

B&W, Running Time: 80 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R1, Fox; Video: 1.33:1, Audio: DD Mono

In the name of Progress a building contractor has an ancient cemetery bulldozed to make way for a new complex, against the wishes of the Whitlock family whose ancestors are buried there. Wrapped up in the building project is Bill Lanier, the head of a family who has traditionally been at odds over the centuries with the Whitlocks. His involvement brings him into conflict with an ageing Morgan Whitlock, the main person who is vehemently opposed to the reuse/relocation of the graveyard despite nobody having been buried there for aeons. While this domestic bickering is going on, one of the upturned coffins on the building site is revealed to be open, and from it has emerged a long-dead woman - a subject of the aforementioned arguments and someone famed for her witchcraft practice back in darker ages, and the fact that she was buried alive for her crimes. Before long the contractor who had the Whitlocks’ cemetery plots ripped up in the first place is drowning in his own bath, then the old lady of the rival Lanier family inexplicably drives herself off the edge of a cliff - the resurrected witch would appear to be extracting sinister revenge using uncanny powers of mental projection and psychological manipulation.

Don Sharp’s Witchcraft is comprised of a strong cast belting out their lines as if convinced by the proceedings, especially in the cases of Jack Hedley as main family man Bill Lanier and Lon Chaney as Morgan Whitlock. The latter, despite looking podgy and old, actually puts in a surprisingly aggressive performance that really grants his character an air of uncompromising intimidation. A sweet looking Diane Clare (from Hammer’s Plague of the Zombies) makes an appearance too as Morgan’s niece, someone who has forged a covert relationship with one of the Whitlocks adding an extra touch of complexity to the family feud. Sumptuously shot in Black & White this is a great example of the gothic chiller brought into the modern day (well, the sixties) mixing both worlds quite adeptly. At a glance resembling Barbara Steele in Black Sunday the witch who is accidentally returned from the grave is a creepy creation, one who wanders around quite mute but causing death in her wake, usually through some sort of mentally projected suggestion and/or the use of voodoo dolls. Her awakening is one of the film’s highlights: as Bill is surveying the damage during a nocturnal expedition to the graveyard he keeps thinking he can hear a sound coming from the upturned coffins, a quiet moaning in the dead of night - enough to make anybody jump in the car and rapidly exit I should imagine!

Coupled with Devils of Darkness under the ‘Midnight Movies’ monicker (adopted by Fox following the acquisition of most of MGM‘s home video distribution rights in 2006), Witchcraft is the better of the two by some margin. The pacing is improved, acting uniformly more interesting, execution higher in atmosphere. The link between the two conceptually lies first and foremost in the portrayal of a group of devil-worshippers at the heart of each story. As a further and less obvious connection, it’s amusing to note that Leslie Nielson lookalike Victor Brooks plays an inspector in both films. In fact the actor seemed to be typecast as police authority figures but this clearly stems from his credible ability in such roles. The DVD transfer is very good as far as the video/audio quality is concerned, however I believe the image is cropped from a widescreen ratio (of 1.66:1) to fullscreen. This is unfortunate but it’s far from unwatchable. Nevertheless, the double bill has always been reasonably priced and for one spooky chiller coupled with a fairly average one it’s certainly not bad value.