Cat People (1942)

 dir Jacques Tourneur lp Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Tom Conway

This is one of a series of horror films produced by Val Lewton for RKO Studies in the mid-1940s. In the wake of Universal's success with gothic horror films starting in 1931, RKO executives gave audience-tested titles to Lewton and assigned him to make films to fit them. Instead of the exploitation period pieces the studio was expecting, Lewton made literate, restrained films with contemporary settings using actors not associated with horror. They are remembered today as some of the best horror films ever made (RKO eventually forced Lewton to use Boris Karloff for three period-set horror films - they were also excellent).

Cat People is at the top of the list. Irina Dubrovna (Simon), a fashion artist and Serbian immigrant living in New York, has a meet-cute with architect Oliver Reed (Smith), while she is sketching a black panther at the Central Park Zoo. She is attracted to the ruggedly handsome Oliver, and he is entranced by her beauty and exotic accent (Simon was actually French). When she invites him to her apartment for tea, he finds she has something of a morbid streak. Among the cat-themed decor (which also includes Goya's painting Don Manuel Osorio, with three cats hungrily eyeing a canary) is a statue of a knight on horseback holding aloft a sword with a cat impaled on it. Irinia explains that this is King John of Serbia, who freed the area from the Turks, but discovered that the formerly Christian villagers in Irina's ancestral region had fallen into devil worship. Although King John executed most of the satanists, some of them escaped into the mountains. Their descendants transform into panthers when aroused by anger, jealousy, or sexual passion.

As time passes, Oliver falls more deeply in love with Irina, despite the fact that she believes that if she surrenders to her desire for him, she will transform and kill him. The two are married, but at their wedding dinner at a Serbian restaurant a strange women in black (Elizabeth Russell), approaches Irina, greeting her as "sister." A month into their marriage, with Irina still refusing physical intimacy, Oliver arranges for Irina to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Judd (Conway). He tells her that her belief in cat people is a delusion that she must overcome, but she refuses to see him again. Meanwhile, the unhappy Oliver grows closer to Alice, a woman in his office with whom he has a long-standing platonic friendship. Irina's jealousy at their relationship threatens to spark the transformation that she has feared.

Cat People remains a master class in restrained film-making. Lewton believed that nothing that he could show on screen would be superior to what the viewer's imagination could concoct, so their are no transformation scenes. Lewton apparently intended never to show Irina in her panther form, but the studio forced him to include a brief shot of an actual panther prowling around Oliver and Alice's office,  frightening them when they are working late. The are two justly famous scenes that illustrated Lewton's preferred approach. In the first, Alice is walking home late at night, when she gradually becomes aware that she is being stalked; she senses something moving through the vegetation nearby. She (and the viewer) is startled by a loud, catlike hiss, but it turns out to be only a bus pulling up to her bus stop. After she leaves, the camera reveals that four sheep have been killed nearby and we see a series of muddy footprints that gradually transform from feline paws to high-heeled shoes. In the other scene, Alice is swimming in a lonely basement pool at the YMCA, when she begins to hear catlike growls and hisses around the edge of the pool. Treading water, she looks anxiously around, but cannot see what is making the noise. The tension mounts until she begins to scream, her voice bouncing off the walls enclosing the pool and merging with the cat sounds, until someone flips on the light and it's Irina, in human form, calmly asking Alice if she knows where Oliver is. Her knowing smile hints that she enjoyed her romantic rival's panic.

Cat People is a masterpiece of subtle horror, where everything seems normal at first, but we gradually realize that something is wrong. I really enjoy this approach, in both cinema and literature, so this is one of my favorite horror films. Some critics and writers about film have gone a bit too far, however, and claimed that the reality of Irina's condition is supposed to be ambiguous, that the viewer is not supposed to know if Irina actually transforms into a cat, or is simply experiencing a delusion. I agree with film writer Jonathan Rigby, in his great American Gothic, that this is nonsense. Even if we discount the studio-mandated scene of a real cat, there is plenty of evidence that Lewton and screenwriter Dewitt Bodeen meant to establish that Irina literally does turn into a panther.

Forty years after this film, a violent and sexy remake, also called Cat People, directed by Paul Schrader and starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcom McDowell, and John Heard was released. It is of some interest, but is not deserving of the original's classic status.

The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967)

 dir Haral Reinl lp Lex Barker, Karin Dor, Christopher Lee

Lee is Count Regula, an evil sorcerer in 18th century Germany who is attempting to gain immortality by sacrificing 13 virgins. After 12 murders, however, he is arrested and condemned to death. Just like Barbara Steele in Black Sunday (1960) he has a spiked mask hammered onto his face. Unlike in that case, however, this doesn't prove fatal and he is subsequently finished off by being pulled apart by four horses, but not before pronouncing a curse on his executioners.

Thirty-five years later, the Countess Lillian von Brabant (Dor) and her lawyer Roger Mont Elise travel to Count Regula's castle to collect an inheritance for the Countess. Once there, they are captured and imprisoned by servants of the Count, who manage to revive him. Regula announces that Lillian will be his 13th victim, but will first be psychologically and physically tortured.

The original title of this German film translates as The Snake Pit and the Pendulum and, indeed, Roger is tied down in a room with a giant, sharp-edged pendulum getting every closer as it swings back and forth above him and Lillian is trapped on a plank above a snake-and-spider filled pit that is slowly retracted, threating to pitch her in. The very profitable series of Poe adaptations by American International Pictures (AIP) had recently ended so it's not hard to see why the producers of this film might want to ride that wave. However, this is probably more of an imitation of Mario Bava's Italian gothics, like the aforementioned Black Sunday or Kill, Baby, Kill (1966) than it is of AIP's Poe films.

Like the Bava films, this emphasizes atmosphere and it does have some memorable images. The forest that Lillian and Roger travel through to reach Castle Regula is festooned with corpses hanging from the trees and the corridors of the castle are lined with skulls. The mask hammered onto Regula's face and which he is still wearing when revived seems a definite Bava influence. Unlike the demonic mask used in Black Sunday, however, this mask bears more than a passing resemblance to the famous '70s icon, the 'have a good day' smiley face, which gives the mask sequences an unintended air of parody.

That exemplifies the problem with this film. Although there is some effective atmosphere, for the most part it seems silly and cartoonish. Lee isn't given anything interesting to say (neither is anyone else) and the performances of the supporting actors, such as Vladimir Medar as a supposed comic-relief monk, are inadequate (though this could be the fault of the dubbing). Despite the English-language title (one of the most amusingly over-the-top of the era), this has little blood or gore. This is not in itself a bad thing, but the mildness of the film, combined with the weak script, makes this seem more like a live-action cartoon than a truly frightening horror film.

Blood of the Vampire (1958)

dir Henry Cass lp Donald Wolfit, Vincent Ball, Barbara Shelley, Victor Maddern

A deceptively titled (the lead character isn't really a vampire) early entry in the 1950s Gothic revival, this begins in Transylvania in 1874 with a burial in a remote mountain cemetery. Before the lid of the coffin is closed, a masked executioner pounds a stake into the heart of the corpse. A strange deformed man watches from concealment, waiting until everyone else has left, then killing the grave digger and (presumably) stealing the body. Later the deformed man, whose name is Carl, pays an alcoholic doctor to put a fresh heart in the body, then kills the doctor.

Later we meet John Pierre, a young doctor whose experiments with blood transfusion cause him to be unjustly convicted of malpractice and murder. Condemned to life in an island prison, he is diverted instead to a huge asylum for the criminally insane. The feared governor of the institution is Dr. Callistratus, who, of course, is the same person whose burial we witnessed at the beginning of the film. Because the wrong blood type was used during his revival, Callistratus suffers from a condition whereby, "one group of cells in my body is destroying the other." To try to find a cure, he's taking blood from unwilling donors among the inmate population, sometimes so much that it kills them. He enlists Pierre to help him in is experiments, granting him freedom to move about the asylum and to live in a comfortable bedroom rather than a dirty cell. When new evidence exonerates Pierre, Callistratus tells the court that Pierre has been killed in an escape attempt. This causes Pierre's beautiful wife, Madeleine, to infiltrate the asylum, posing as a housekeeper.

This is an imitation of the Hammer thrillers which were just beginning to become popular at the time it was made, but is not nearly as satisfying as films such as Horror of Dracula. It has many of the same trappings as the Hammer films, but the script and performances are not up to Hammer's standards (at least those of the legendary studio's best films) and the plot is a muddled mess. As Bill Warren says in his magisterial Keep Watching the Skies, it seems as though the writers put in as many horror tropes as possible, but failed to mold them into a coherent whole. In the end, it's only interesting as an example of Hammer's early influence and for a chance to see frequent Hammer performer Shelley in her first venture into Gothic horror.

The Reptile (1966)

dir. John Gilling  cast Noel Willman, Jennifer Daniel, Ray Barrett, Jacqueline Pearce, Michael Ripper, John Laurie, Marne Maitland

In the Cornish village of Clagmoor Heath, sometime in the late Victorian period, local resident Charles Spalding, visits the manor house of Dr. Franklyn, drawn by a note left at his cottage. There, he is bitten by some sort of humanoid creature which we don't quite see, and dies foaming at the mouth, his face swollen and blackened. Charles' brother Harry (Barrett) inherits the cottage and moves in with his beautiful bride Valerie (Daniel). Harry was told by his brother's attorney that Charles died of heart failure, but quickly finds out things are not that simple. The townspeople are openly hostile to Harry and only the publican Tom Bailey (Ripper) will talk to him. He warns Harry not to live in his brother's cottage and eventually admits that Charles died of some mysterious malady known locally as the "Black Death". A local eccentric, Mad Peter (Laurie), seems willing to reveal more, but he also shows up infected by the Black Death. When Valerie rushes to the manor house to seek Dr. Franklyn's help, the Doctor coldly informs her that it is none of his concern and, in any case, he is a Doctor of Theology, not a physician.

Peter dies and, because there is no medical doctor in the village, Tom agrees to examine the body, having gained some amateur medical experience as a sailor. Tom and Harry find strange puncture wounds on Peter's neck which Harry, who served in the army in India, recognizes as similar to those caused by the bite of a King Cobra. Tom convinces Harry to disinter Charles, which reveals identical wounds on his neck.

Meanwhile, Valerie meets Dr. Franklyn's gorgeous daughter Anna, who seems friendly, but is treated by her father with cold cruelty. When Valerie protests, Dr. Franklyn tells her that there is more to the situation than she knows. A tense dinner at the manor house ends with Dr. Franklyn encouraging a reluctant Anna to play the sitar for the Spaldings, then suddenly, inexplicably, smashing the instrument in a fit of rage. What is going on?

One of Hammer's two Cornwall-set movies filmed back-to-back and directed by Gilling, The Reptile is often considered inferior to the other "Cornwall Classic," Plague of the Zombies. Though I agree with this assessment, I think both films are worthy. It's difficult to judge how compelling the mystery is, since I already knew the answer from reading other reviews, but the script hides the solution fairly well. The monster that is revealed is almost unique (it has a few cinematic precedents) and, in truth, is one of the very few monsters "created" by Hammer and not re-used from the first wave of Gothic horror films in the '30s and '40s. The film's biggest weakness is that the ending feels unimaginative and somewhat rote, resembling that of several other Hammer films.

In the end, this is a film for Hammer fans to watch for the performances. Michael Ripper had a great name for a horror star (sadly, he never played Jack the Ripper), although it was his ability to play kindly, slightly eccentric characters that made him one of Hammer's most-beloved character actors. He appeared in many Hammer films, sometimes for only a few moments of screen time, as in Brides of Dracula, sometimes in more substantial roles, such as here and in Plague of the Zombies (as the local constable), but is always memorable. His cinematic charisma came close to matching that of Peter Cushing, though Ripper was never a headlining star. Pearce, on the other hand, only appeared in Zombies and this film for Hammer, but is also quite memorable. In the Reptile, she looks great in her Eastern costumes, while doing a nice job of portraying an outwardly friendly character about whom there is something just a little "off." Zombies is a better film overall, but I think Pearce gets a better showcase here. It's a pity she wasn't in more Hammer films.

In the final analysis, this film is a worthy addition to the Hammer horror canon mainly because of Ripper, Pearce, and the unusual monster.

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974)

dir. Jorge Grau  cast Cristina Galbo, Ray Lovelock, Arthur Kennedy, Jeannie Mestre

Saddled with a bewildering array of alternate titles, including Breakfast at Manchester Morgue, Don't Open the Window, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Non si deve profanare il sonne dei morti (Do Not Profane the Sleep of the Dead), and others, this Italian-Spanish co-production probably has the most critical love of any of the first generation of cannibal zombie films made between the first two George Romero Dead films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), and Dawn of the Dead (1978). Its reputation is well deserved.

George (Lovelock), a young bearded, long-haired curio shop owner, leaves Manchester on his motorcycle for a relaxing weekend in Great Britain's Peak District. At a highway gas station, he meets pretty strawberry blonde Edna (Galbo) when she backs over his bike in her mini. Now lacking transportation, the assertive George all but forces the meek Edna to give him a ride to his destination in the nearby village of Windermere (he insists on driving). After successfully pleading to be dropped off first at her sister's house, Edna waits in the car while George asks directions at a local farm. Edna manages to escape when a strange man lurches out of the nearby woods, apparently with the design of attacking her. The man matches the description of a well-known tramp who recently drowned in a nearby river, but no one will believe Edna's story. Later, the same man turns up and kills Edna's brother-in-law Martin, an event witnessed by Edna's heroin-addicted sister, Kate (Mestre).

Sergeant McCormick, the detective on the case, won't believe Kate and Edna's story or George's protest that he had nothing to do with the crime. McCormick is a hostile arch-conservative who rails against George's "long hair and faggot clothes". He becomes even more convinced that George and Edna are responsible when photographs of the incident taken by Martin's automatic camera fail to reveal the zombie (this strange detail is never explained). Later, George takes Edna to a remote graveyard to prove to her that the tramp's body lies in its coffin. Of course, it does not and George and Edna barely escape with their lives after encountering more zombies. Further deaths occur, which McCormick also blames on George. George discovers that an experimental sound-wave machine, designed to get rid of agricultural pests, is making the dead rise and attack the living, but can't get anyone in authority to believe him. Carnage ensues.

Grau admitted that he was charged with simply making an imitation of Night of the Living Dead in color, but The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue has enough intriguing differences from the Romero film to have a life of its own. Filmed on location, the movie effectively contrasts the horror of the walking dead with the quaint beauty of the Peak District's woods, valleys, and small villages. The film reveals its menace very gradually, as it takes George and Edna quite awhile to figure out what is happening, and Grau does well in building a sense of mounting dread. Rather than Romero's mass invasion of zombies, we never get more than three or four zombies onscreen at one time. However, these zombies seem more intelligent than Romero's, possessing an ability to use tools and weapons. The only means of destroying them is with fire; even shotgun blasts to the head don't do the trick. In an intriguing touch, the zombies have a desire and ability to increase their number by daubing blood on the eyes of recently deceased corpses. They also have a tendency to strangle or bludgeon their victims before eating their organs. The use of gore is more restrained than in Romero's films, but what we do see is just as intense.

Kennedy is very good as the hateful McCormick; the other performances are acceptable. Galbo is attractive, but regrettably, her character is written as always on the edge of hysteria and perpetually needing to be rescued by George. George is easy to root for when he goes up against the thick-headed officials who refuse to even listen to his story merely because they don't like the way he looks and when he fights the zombies, but his condescending and domineering treatment of Edna makes him seem like a chauvinistic jerk. I'm guessing this is a symptom of the times, rather than the result of any intention of the screenwriters.

In some ways, I like Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, even better than the Romero films. It seems more "plausible" (if that term can even be used in discussing zombie films) and I liked the gradual unfolding of the story. I recommend it highly.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972)

dir. Emilio Miraglia cast Barbara Bouchet, Ugo Pagliai, Marina Malfatti, Pia Giancaro, Sybil Danning

In contemporary Germany, the aristocratic Wildenbruck family is under a curse. Every 100 years, the "Red Queen", their evil ancestor, takes possession of one of the women in the family and murders seven victims, the last her own sister. Now, its been a century since the last murder spree and when a figure in a red cloak sneaks into the bedroom of the family patriarch brandishing an antique dagger and frightens the old man to death, it seems to be happening again. The new spate of murders centers around the friends and co-workers of Kitty Wildenbruck, a beautiful young woman who works as a fashion photographer. Eyewitness accounts seem to point toward Kitty's sister Eveline as the murderer, but there's just one problem. Years before, Kitty accidentally killed Eveline and covered up the unfortunate incident with the help of her other sister Franziska (Malfatti), telling everyone that her sibling had severed all ties with the family and moved to the US. Is Evenline back from the grave for supernatural revenge?

Giallo (Italian for "yellow") novels were cheap, sensational paperback crime novels, often with yellow covers, popular in Italy beginning in the 1930's.  When Italian directors began to adapt the same style to film in the 1960s, giallo began to be used to denote a cinematic genre. Half crime/suspense films and half horror thrillers, giallo films usually featured twisty, at times nearly incomprehensible, plots, abundant eroticism, and bloody, disturbing murders.  Dozens of these films were made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, usually with an eye to the export market, which meant they featured international casts incorporating continental European, English, and American actors.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is a good example of the genre. Like many gialli it has a contemporary setting, but is careful to include numerous Gothic trappings as well. Kitty spends her 
days surrounded by glamorous people in ultra-modern offices and studios, but the climax of the film is set in the crumbling dungeons of the Wildenbrucks' ancestral castle, and the red-cloaked killer, wielding an ancient-looking dagger, is a figure straight from the Gothic past. The murders are disturbing, including stabbing, a fence-post impalement, and one character dragged to death behind a car. The eroticism is also present with Danning, who later became a star of much cheaper and sillier American exploitation firms, providing the major nude scenes. Women are front and center as the major characters, yet there are disturbingly misogynist touches, including one completely unnecessary rape scene, which at least is suggested more than shown, but should have been removed altogether. It has practically no affect on the plot or the characters.

As for the plot, it was made well enough to keep me interested in the solution to the mystery, though the dialogue is often silly and the acting is frequently over the top. Bouchet is acceptable in the major role. I had only seen her in the comic version of Casino Royale (1967), as Miss Moneypenny, so it was fun to see her in a more serious role. The film is flawed, but I didn't find any of the flaws fatal and, for the most part, enjoyed it.

IMDB says that this film is rated PG. They must be referring to a cut US version, because the version I saw had plenty of blood and nudity and was definitely an R. Since it was in unsubtitled Italian (I streamed it on Amazon and had to turn on the closed captioning feature), I'm assuming it was the original Italian version. In a way, it was ludicrous to hear characters with German names speaking Italian while all the signs, documents, etc. were in German, but then American movies do that all the time.  
 

The Devil's Wedding Night (1973)

dir. Luigi Batzella  cast Mark Damon, Rosalba Neri, Esmerelda Barros, Xiro Papas, Gengher Gatti

Karl Schiller (Damon), a scholar of the occult, announces to his twin brother Franz (also Damon), his plans to travel to Castle Dracula in Transylvania to secure the ring of the Nibelungen, which holds great power for evil. His motive is altruistic, to deposit the ring in the "Karnstein Museum of Archaeology" thus keeping it out of circulation. However, Franz needs the money a sale of the ring would bring to pay his gambling debt and beats his brother to Transylvania. There, he seduces an inkeeper's beautiful daughter, Tania, who tells him that every fifty years on the "full moon of the virgins" (the literal translation of the film's original Italian title), five virgins are mysteriously compelled to go to Castle Dracula and are never seen again.

At the Castle, Franz meets the Contessa Dolingen de Vries (Neri), the current owner of the castle, who explains that she was able to buy it cheaply because she is a member of the Dracula family. During sex with the gorgeous Countess, Franz notices that she wears the ring, but he is quickly overcome by her supernatural powers. Soon after, Karl arrives looking for his brother. Can he defeat the Countess, save his brother and Tania (who has been kidnapped by the Countess' servants) and recover the ring?

This is a silly, but entertaining film that amusingly works hard to throw in references to just about every trope of Gothic horror. Franz is introduced reciting lines from Poe's The Raven, the name of the museum is a reference to Sheridan LeFanu's classic vampire tale Carmilla, the Countess' name is from the Stoker short story Dracula's Guest, the Countess bathes in the blood of virgins, just like Elizabeth Bathory, and Dracula features prominently in the story. None of this really hangs together and the script is uneven. The screenwriters have strange ideas about history. The dialogue indicates that Poe is still alive, while at the same time referencing Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, which did not debut until 20 years after Poe's death.

Like many continental horror films of the time, this is at least as much of a softcore sex movie as a horror movie, with as much nudity shorehorned in as possible. For instance, at the climactic satanic ritual, the Countess' henchmen are careful to begin by tearing open the tunics of the virgins who have been hypnotically summoned to Castle Dracula, giving viewers a good view of their breasts. It's a film that's hard to take seriously, but, again like many other European films, it does benefit from being filmed on location, rather than a cheap set. It's also a good showcase for Neri, one of the most beautiful of the many sexy actresses who graced Euro-horror in its heyday. The more well-known Lady Frankenstein was a larger role for Neri, but a much inferior film.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

dir Dan Trachtenberg cast Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher, Jr.

Michelle (Winstead) leaves New Orleans after a phone argument with her fiancee Ben (encountered by the viewer only as a voice on Michelle's cellphone - the voice is supplied by Bradley Cooper). Driving through the Louisiana countryside, she is injured and knocked unconscious in a car accident caused by something we don't see. When she comes to, she is lying on a mattress on the floor of a cell-like room chained to the wall with an IV in her arm. Her captor turns out to be Howard (Goodman), a gruff man who quickly unlocks her, gives her crutches, and eventually lets her out of her cell. He also tells her that they are in an underground bunker that he constructed and that they cannot leave because there has been an "attack" perpetrated by unknown parties (Howard mentions the Russians and "Martians" as possibilities) that has left the outside uninhabitable, either through chemical contamination or nuclear fallout. Michelle doesn't believe Howard at first, being convinced that she heard a vehicle outside, but the only other occupant of the bunker, a young man named Emmett (Gallagher), confirms that he saw signs of an attack before pushing his way into the bunker just as Howard was closing the door. Later, during an aborted escape attempt, Michelle sees evidence that Howard is indeed telling the truth and accepts that she will have to stay in the bunker for a year or two until the outside air is breathable again.

Howard, however, is controlling and jealous and Michelle and Emmett discover revelations about his past which indicate that he may be dangerous, even mentally unstable, and again call the truth of his account of the situation into question. The two begin to plot an escape.

10 Cloverfield Lane began life as an original script which J.J. Abrams purchased and adapted into a sort-of sequel to his 2008 film Cloverfield, about a giant monster attacking New York City. Thankfully, 10 Cloverfield Lane is filmed as a straight third-person narrative and does not use Cloverfield's "found footage" narrative method. 10 Cloverfield Lane is a masterful horror/suspense film, much better, in fact, than its predecessor, which you don't need to be familiar with to understand this film. As Michelle slowly uncovers more information about who Howard really is and what happened in the outside world, we share her anxiousness and this makes for a compelling and suspenseful viewing experience. What's really going on here?

All three central performances are very good, with Winstead's and Goodman's work particularly outstanding. Winstead, an actress who I was vaguely aware of, but had never seen in a major role, was a revelation, at least to me. Her transformation from a frightened and bewildered victim to a resolute (and physically strong) agent of her own destiny is put over with complete conviction and is eminently believable. Goodman also does a great job. Howard at times seems like a basically rational and somewhat friendly, if gruff man, and at other times seems dangerous, even psychotic. Goodman takes a character that could have seemed like a scriptwriter's contrivance and makes him seem like a plausible human being.

Though 10 Cloverfield Lane garnered mostly positive reviews, I was shocked to find that many critics who did not like the movie criticized the ending as anticlimactic or disappointing. Although I did feel this way about the ending of Cloverfield, I found the ending of 10 Cloverfield Lane to be extremely satisfying and I don't understand how anyone could see it as anticlimactic. It does leave open the possibility of a sequel, but even if one is never made, I think it's just fine as a way to leave this story.

10 Cloverfield Lane is an excellent film. It's thoughtful, intelligent, suspenseful, and scary, with a main character that you can really root for.

Honeymoon (2014)

dir Leigh Janiak cast Rose Leslie, Harry Treadway, Ben Huber

Bea and Paul are newlyweds, who, we are led to understand, have both been extremely unlucky in love and are super-excited to have found each other. They're headed to her family's cabin in a Canadian forest to spend their honeymoon. Things are going great until one night when Bea simply disappears from their bed. After a frantic search, Paul finds her standing naked in the pitch-black woods. She dismisses it as a simple case of sleepwalking (which she's never been subject to before), but seems to act strangely afterward as if she's not quite herself. She also has mysterious wounds on her thighs, which she explains as mosquito bites, but which look much more serious. Unfortunately, Paul's feeling that there's something not right here is only too accurate.

The move is well-acted and fine in the technical aspects. I was grateful that it wasn't yet another "found footage" narrative, and the strange events are (kinda, sorta) explained at the end. I appreciated the mystery format and the buildup of suspense without graphic violence (though things get plenty gross by the end), but at the end, it seemed pretty trivial. It was an acceptable time-killer, but didn't really grab me.

Leslie played Ygritte ("You know nothing, Jon Snow!") on Game of Thrones; so it was interesting seeing her in another role. She was quite convincing playing an American.

Night Tide (1961)

dir Curtis Harrington cast Dennis Hopper, Linda Lawson, Gavin Muir, Luana Anders

On the Santa Monica pier, Johnny (Hopper), a sailor on liberty, introduces himself to Mora (Lawson), a distant young woman who seems to want only to be left alone. However, Johnny's persistence pays off and the two strike up a friendship. Mora, it transpires is an immigrant from a Greek isle, who works as a mermaid, wearing a fake fishtail and lying in a tank of simulated water in an attraction run by an Englishman, Captain Murdock (Muir). Johnny's and Mora's friendship turns into a romance, but Johnny learns a disturbing fact: both of Mora's last two boyfriends were drowned under mysterious circumstances that are still being investigated by the police. Mora eventually tells Johnny that she is the descendant of the "Sea People," the man-killing sirens of Greek myth, who are trying to compel her to return to the sea. Captain Murdock tells Johnny that Mora's instinct to kill will eventually get the best of her and that he will meet the same fate as her former boyfriends if he does not leave her.

This is a slow and talky, but not uninteresting film that effectively builds up a feeling of strangeness and dread amid a laconic atmosphere of jazz clubs, carnival rides, and sideshow attractions. Both the Leonard Maltin and Video Hound film guides say that this is not a horror movie, but it is every bit as much of a horror movie as Cat People (1942), which it closely resembles. Like Cat People, it hints at the presence of the supernatural without insisting on it. Mora meets a mysterious woman who seems to share her ancestry, just as Irena did in Cat People, for instance. In fact, Night Tide, is one of the most successful attempts since the Val Lewton thrillers to make a truly Lewtonesque film. Its not as good as the actual Lewton films, but is a worthy attempt.

V/H/S (2012)

dir Adam Wingard, Davis Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence cast Calvin Reeder, Lane Hughes, Kentucker Adley, Adam Wingard, Hannah Fierman, Joe Swanberg, Sophia Takal, Norma C. Quinones, Helen Rogers, Daniel Kaufman, Nicole Erb

A revival of the old portmanteau format made famous by Dead of Night (1946) and the films of Amicus Productions in the 60s and 70s, crossed with the found-footage style of The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007), this is an uneven, but frequently entertaining mix.

In the wrapaound segment, "Tape 56", directed by Wingard, a group of thugs who make money filming their own acts of vandalism and assault sneak into a house to steal a videotape wanted by a mysterious employer. They find a corpse and a stack of VHS tapes that they then watch, hoping to discover the one they are searching for. The rest of the segments, of course, represent the contents of the tapes they watch.

In "Amateur Night", directed by Bruckner, a bunch of drunken slimeballs go out on the town, hoping for easy sex. Unfortunately for them, they pick up the wrong girl and meet a very bloody, but richly-deserved, fate. This segment has obvious strengths and weaknesses. The main drawback is that we actually have to spend time with the bar-crawling idiots, which is even more painful than the horrors that are inflicted upon them at the end of the segment. Of course, watching scummy characters get what's coming to them seems to be a major trope in recent horror, but I think these guys are even more annoying than intended. On the other hand, Hannah Fierman does a masterful job playing the monster. Slim, pop-eyed, and spacy, she's exactly what a supernatural creature masquerading as human would be if such a thing were to turn up on the real world.

"Second Honeymoon" is the most restrained of the bunch. This is not surprising as the director is Ti West who in The House of the Devil (2009) and The Innkeepers (2011), directed two of the most Lewtonesque horror films of recent years. Two young marrieds traveling through the West on vacation are stalked, unknown to them, by a plastic-masked figure with a very large knife. What does this person want from them? This was somewhat conventional, but played to a satisfying conclusion.

The less said about the Glenn McQuaid-directed "Tuesday the 17th", the better. The only good thing about this one is that it's short. Three kids travel to a small lake where a series of brutal murders took place not long ago. You can guess the rest. Just another cookie-cutter 80's slasher cut down to 20 minutes.

The most notable thing about "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" is that we see it through Skype, rather than a hand-held camera. A young woman has regular conversations with a lifelong male friend in anticipation of his imminent visit. He is able to see through her computer that a strange presence seems to be haunting her apartment. No points for guessing that everything is most definitely not as it seems. This episode is just OK, but does feature a very good performance by Helen Rogers as Emily. She's very appealing as an emotionally fragile, but game character who seems to take the weird occurrences in stride. Nicely played. This one also features some hilariously gratuitous topless shots.

The last segment, "10/31/98", directed by the collective Radio Silence, rivals "Amateur Night" and "Second Honeymoon" as the best of the segments. A group of 20-something guys, on their way to a Halloween party in Seattle, get lost. When they think they've discovered the house, it seems deserted, but they do hear some strange noises in the attic. When they go to investigate, all hell breaks loose, almost literally.

I watched  V/H/S late on a dull night on Netflix streaming, and didn't feel that I wasted 2 hours of my time. The found-footage style has definitely been overdone in recent years, but V/H/S does a good job making the style work to its advantage. It's not destined to be remembered as a classic, but is perfectly entertaining for horror fans.

The Babadook (2014)

dir Jennifer Kent cast Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinny, Daniel Henshaw, Barbara West

Amelia (Davis) is in trouble. Almost seven years ago, her husband died in a traffic accident while rushing her to the hospital for the birth of their son, Samuel (Wiseman). She still has literal nightmares about that evening, which left her a single mother barely holding on to a soul-killing job at a retirement home. Worst of all, Samuel is a seriously troubled child. His night terrors keep Amelia up most nights, and he is obsessed with his belief that a monster is coming to harm him and his mother. His eagerness to share this information, and his home-made weapons intended to fight the monster, have caused him to be a social outcast and made him unmanageable at school. Even Amelia's sister, Claire, can't stand him. One night Samuel brings his mother a book entitled "The Babadook" for bedtime reading. Neither have ever seen the book before nor do they know how it came to be in Samuel's bookshelf. In childish rhymes, illustrated with creepy pop-ups, the book warns Amelia and Samuel that the titular monster is coming to get them. Soon, seemingly supernatural events start to happen, and things go from bad to very much worse.

This Australian indie is quite simply one of the best horror films of recent years. Its strongest aspect is the way the it constantly pulls the rug out from under the viewer. I thought I had it figured out 2 or 3 times, but it always managed to subvert my expectations. It did so intelligently; there are no deus ex machinas here. This was one of the few horror films I've seen in which I truly was unable to anticipate the outcome. The performances by Davis and Wiseman are exceptional. When the film starts out, Amelia is a pathetic victim, and Samuel is an insufferable brat, but both become very different over the course of the film, and the performers put the changes across convincingly.

The horror in the movie is intense, not from gory attacks, but from the racheting-up of tension as the Babadook begins to manifest itself more openly. There's also a very grim tone, with little attempt at humor. Even Samuel's improvised weapons, which could be the stuff of comedy in a movie with a different tone, are not played for amusement. There's a real sense of threat here, which more violent movies often fail to pull off. In The Babadook, violence is used sparingly, but is properly horrifying when it does occur. The script, written by director Kent, ensures that we care about the characters. This is one of the few horror movies I've seen that has real emotional impact. It not only has something to say, it has something worthwhile to say. It's nice to see a horror film made for intelligent adults.

This film does have several discernible influences, but it doesn't fit easily into any sub-genre and is clearly not copying any other film. It's truly unique, and it is a masterpiece.

Fascination (1979)

dir Jean Rollin cast Franca Mai, Brigitte Lahaie, Jean-Marie Lemaire, Fanny Magier, Muriel Montosse

 Unlike its neighbors Italy and Spain, France did not produce many horror films for the international market in the 1960s and 1970s. Jean Rollin was the French director who came the closest to attaining the international horror "star director" status of Italy's Mario Bava, or Spain's Jesus Franco. Rollin specialized in highly stylized erotic vampire movies and his reputation rests mainly on four such films that he made between 1968 and 1971, plus The Iron Rose (1973) and this film.

Our story begins in France, 1905, with a group of women drinking cattle blood in a slaughterhouse, which, we are led to understand, has become a popular "cure" for anemia. After this brief prologue, we join Marc, a member of a gang of thieves who have stolen a box full of gold coins (actually "full" may be stretching it, as we see a few coins at the bottom of the box). Briefly taking hostage the female member of the gang, he double-crosses his compatriots and runs through the woods with the gold, pursued by his erstwhile partners in crime. He comes upon a large chateau in the middle of a lake, accessible only by a stone causeway. Seeking refuge in the castle, he finds it occupied by two beautiful young women, the blonde Eva and the brunette Elisabeth. The women claim to be servants of the chateau's owners, who have arrived in order to ready the castle for their employers' arrival. Marc locks the women in a bedroom. They laugh, produce a hidden key, and make love. Then, they let themselves out of the room and tell Marc that there is someone dangerous due to arrive that evening and warn him to leave before nightfall. The seductiveness of the women and fear of his gang keep Marc at the house and he eventually meets the leader and other members of Eva and Elisabeth's "blood cult" (remember the prologue?).

Fascination starts slow, but becomes enjoyable. Rollins opts for a dreamy, not-quite-realistic feel, which he accomplishes quite well. The bleak woods and chateau make a good setting for an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. The interiors of the chateau make a good setting, although they have modern-looking electric lights. The dialogue, at least in the subtitles, seems more like poetic speech than the kind of things people actually say to one another (or probably said to one another in 1905). The film is quite talky, but when Eva grabs a scythe, the promise of bloody murders does not go unfulfilled. Walking toward the castle, carrying her scythe, with the wind blowing the cloak, which has long slits on the sides, to reveal glimpses of breasts and pubic hair, Eva represents a uniquely French view of death personified.

There's an element of sadism in the film. Like Franco's Necromincon, this features a woman knifing a man to death during sex. The women are strong characters who laugh at Marc's attempts to control them; they are the ones in control. On the other hand, they also turn out to be the film's monsters; merciless killers who prey on men without apparent guilt.

Like most of Rollin's horror films, Fascination features quite a bit of female nudity, but does not skimp on the horror, though it is not graphically violent. The most explicit scene is probably the stabbing, though the knife is so obviously a blunt prop that it lends a bit of unintentional humor to the sequence. Like other French horror films, such as Eyes Without a Face, Fascination seems to exist at the nexus of art and exploitation. If you are interested in arty European horror, such as  Necronomicon, or Bava's Lisa and the Devil, this will not be a waste of your time.

Shock Waves (1977)

dir. Ken Wiederhorn cast Peter Cushing, Brooke Adams, John Carradine, Luke Halpin

In a decade that saw Last House on the Left, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Hills Have Eyes, as well as Dawn of the Dead, and Zombi, this is one zombie film that cuts against the grain . Instead of gut-munching corpses, this gives us undead World War II German soldiers who drown their victims, rather than devouring them. As such, it eschews gore for less bloody thrills. Interestingly, it's set in the Caribbean even though these zombies have nothing to do with voodoo.

The film begins with a couple of Caribbean boaters picking up a lone woman from a life raft, then tells the story in flashback. Rose (Adams) was a passenger on a small tourist charter captained by cantankerous Ben Morris (Carradine). After encountering some sort of strange phenomena on the ocean (it's never really specified what this is; a weakness in the film), the boat's navigation equipment doesn't seem to be working correctly. During a pitch-black night, the boat nearly collides with a ship that suddenly emerges out of the darkness. Next day, the passengers discover that the boat has been damaged and is taking on seawater. To add to their troubles, the Captain is missing. However, they find they are near an island next to which rests the rusting hulk of a grounded ship.

The passengers and remaining crew member use the life boat to ferry themselves to the island to seek help. However, all they find is an abandoned resort hotel. Eventually, they discover that an old man (Cushing) is living there, and has a fantastic story to tell. During World War II, he was a member of the German SS and Commandant of the "Death Corps"; a unit of unkillable Nazi zombies created by reanimating dead soldiers. The zombies were effective fighters, but proved impossible to control. Just before Germany's final defeat, they were sent away on a ship to keep them out of Allied hands. When the Commandant learned that the war was over, he sunk the ship, hoping to rid the world of the zombie menace. However, the disturbance encountered in the beginning of the film has awoken them, and they are converging on the island. Being undead, with no need to breathe, they can survive underwater and walk on the sea floor. There is a boat stored on the island, but can the survivors get to it and get away before the zombies finish them off?

Viewers looking for something like the George Romero zombie films will probably be disappointed. The zombie attacks simply consist of holding their victims underwater until they drown. In fact, one wonders what would have happened if the potential victims had simply stayed away from water. The humans in the movie don't really try to fight the zombies; they just hide or try to get on a boat and leave the island. They're unarmed and don't try to find something heavy and bash the zombies' heads in. The zombies all wear dark goggles, and at one point a zombie seems to "die" after Rose accidentally rips the goggles off its face. However, the movie never really follows through on this. There are long sequences of the survivors running or walking through the jungle.

Still, the movie does have several strengths. The Aryan zombies with their scarred faces, German SS uniforms, and dark glasses certainly do look scary. Several scenes of them slowly rising out of the water are very effective. Wiederhorn also does a good job of making a spooky locale out of an unconventional setting (a tropical island) and of building up a feeling of looming danger and dread. The run-down hotel was especially well-used for this. It's also great to watch Cushing, doing a great job and putting the same kind of care into a very small part that he put into his roles as Van Helsing or Baron Frankenstein. Despite some plot holes and the fact that it's relatively slow, the film is suspenseful. I did really find myself caring about the fate of Rose, who is well-played by Adams.

One of the comments made about this film by nearly every source I encounter is that it's the best of the sub- sub-genre of Nazi zombie films (or at least of underwater Nazi zombie films). I'm sure that this is right; though I haven't seen them, other Nazi zombie films like Zombie Lake and Oasis of the Zombies don't have good reputations. I don't think Shock Waves is a lost classic, but it is an entertaining low-budget genre effort that can be enjoyed straight, rather than ironically. It's worth seeing.

Cronos (1993)

dir. Guillermo del Toro cast Frederico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Tamara Shanath

Jesus Gris (Luppi), a Mexican antique dealer, discovers a strange mechanical insect in an old statue. We know from the prologue that this is the Cronos Device, invented by a 16th-century alchemist who used it to prolong his life into the 1930's. The device promptly "attacks" Gris, digging its legs into his arm and drawing blood. Over the next few weeks, Gris feels rejuvenated and finds that he feels compelled to make frequent use of the device. Unfortunately, the device has a nasty side effect; it causes Gris to crave blood. Gris soon discovers that a reclusive, dying industrialist, De la Guardia, has the instructions for the device and desperately wants to get his hands on it. De la Guardia sends his nephew Angel (Perlman) to get it from Gris by any means necessary.

Cronos is more a film of ideas and images than plot. The movie avoids horror cliches. Gris, the film's "monster" is easily the most sympathetic character in the movie. He's a loving husband and is especially close to his nearly silent grand-daughter, Aurora. He never resorts to attacking anyone for their blood; in one cringe-inducing scene, he actually licks blood off the floor of a public bathroom after a fellow partygoer suffers a nosebleed. De la Guardia, on the other hand, is cold and unfeeling, insulting and even violent towards Angel, who returns his contempt. Angel (somewhat inexplicably) is perfectly willing to hurt or kill Gris to get the Cronos device. Del Toro does include one cliche that really works in this context: Aurora, the innocent child, seems to be the only one who really knows what's going on.

Cronos is startlingly original and like nothing I had seen before. It might be short on explicit horror content and lacking a conclusive ending, but its fascinating to think about and to look at, and Luppi is great. Del Toro is now a major Hollywood director. This is the film that put him on the map, and rightly so.

Plague of the Zombies (1966)

dir. John Gilling cast Andre Morell, Diane Clare, Brook Williams, Jacqueline Pearce, John Carson

Residents of a late 19th-century Cornish village are dying mysteriously and the local doctor, Peter Thompson (Williams), seems powerless to find the cause of the deaths, much less stop the "plague." In desperation, he writes to his mentor, Sir James Forbes (Andre Morell), in London for advice. Sir James decides to pay an unexpected visit to Cornwall, bringing along his loyal daughter, Sylvia (Clare), who is a friend of Dr. Thompson's wife, Alice (Pearce). One there, he finds that the local tin mines, abandoned for lack of workers, seem to be operating again, and that the local squire, Clive Hamilton (Carson), is just back from a sojourn in Haiti. Gee, I wonder what could be happening?

Hammer Film's only foray into the zombie sub-genre and one of the last major zombie films before George A. Romero changed the game forever, this is fun if not a certified classic. Like most Hammer horror films, it is well-acted. Andre Morell is the epitome of the capable, level-headed, upper-class British professional. I think he's great as a sixtyish hero (he was 57 when the film was released); he exudes gravitas, but also compassion. Carlson is effectively ice-cold as Squire Hamilton, who can be charming, but is the polar opposite of Sir James, in that Hamilton has no compassion for anyone "beneath" him and is perfectly willing to exploit the working classes for selfish ends. Most reviews pan the performance of the beautiful Clare (supposedly, a direct descendant of Buffalo Bill!) while praising that of Pearce. I think both actresses turn in fine work. Character actor Michael Ripper, who had small parts in dozens of Hammer films, has a medium-sized role as the local policeman. As always, he's great.

The script, sets, and costumes in "Plague of the Zombies" are superior. I especially liked the masks and robes worn by the voodoo cult members. Like most Hammer films, this looks much more expensive than it actually was and easily lends itself to suspension of disbelief. The green-skinned zombies don't really look like dead bodies, but the look is pretty effective all the same.

This film also one of the great sequences in zombie history. After watching a zombie rise (only to be quickly dispatched by Sir James), Dr. Thompson faints. He then dreams of awakening alone in the misty graveyard and watches in horror as the inhabitants of the graves claw their way out of the earth and surround him. Shot mainly in Dutch angles, it's a great, scary scene.

On the negative side, there are lots of plot holes if you care to look for them. Also, the film is structured as a mystery. However, as Bruce Lanier Wright points out in his excellent Nightwalkers: Gothic Horror Movies, this is laughable, as the solution to the "mystery" is obvious by the time the film is a few minutes old. This is one of many, many British and American horror films that equate voodoo with devil worship. At least here, most of the villains are white, though Hamilton does have a couple of black servants/followers.

Still, if you can get past these weaknesses, and don't require your zombies to be of the flesh-eating persuasion, this one is very entertaining.

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

dir Terence Fisher cast Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, David Prowse

Simon Helder, a young 19^th Century German doctor, is convicted of sorcery for attempting to revive the dead. Sent to the same asylum for the criminally insane as was Dr. Frankenstein, he hopes to meet his idol, but is told that the Baron is dead. Helder soon learns, however, that Frankenstein is not only very much alive, but has taken over the asylum. Despite the fact that the fire at the end of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed has rendered his hands useless for surgery, he is attempting to carry on his experiments with the help of the beautiful Sarah, an elective mute. Frankenstein, calling himself “Dr. Victor”, accepts Helder as his assistant. The young doctor learns that Frankenstein has revived the body of a brutish murderer who died by suicide, and plans to harvest necessary replacement parts, including a brain, from other inmates. His plans for Sarah, however, lead Helder to question the Baron’s sanity.

Hammer’s last gothic horror film, this does not quite measure up to their best, but still is worthy. Cushing gives another outstanding performance as Victor Frankenstein, projecting strength and authority in his early scenes, but soon showing signs of an irreversible instability. As always, Cushing is magnetic, making us care about a quite unlovable character. Smith (better here than as Ingrid Pitt’s love slave in The Vampire Lovers (1970)) and Briant provide able support. David Prowse does well as the creature for this outing, giving some pathos to his role as a genius trapped in an ugly, subhuman hulk of a body. As usual for Hammer, the film’s production designs, sets, and costumes are outstanding, lending an authentic air to a fantastic story.

On the other hand, the film is badly let down by the design of the monster. Asking us to accept the hairy, apelike figure as a human body stretches credulity a bit too far. The monster makeup is obviously just that and does not lend itself to suspension of disbelief (according to Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio’s excellent Hammer Films: An Exhaustive Filmography, it was imposed on Fisher because of a promise made to the American distributors). The exterior cutaways to the asylum building are of a laughably obvious model. And, as with many Hammer Films, it doesn’t pay to examine the plot too closely.

Still, this is a worthy finale for a great series. In the 1970’s, Hammer desperately tried to tinker with their formula for the Dracula series, updating it to the present (Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972); The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974)) and even trying to marry it with the trendy Kung Fu genre (The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)). But, with the Frankenstein series, Hammer stuck with what they did best: atmospheric, Victorian-era Gothic horror. Cushing’s performance adds a note of poignancy to the film. Although the ending is left open for further sequels, it is obvious that Frankenstein is insane, and that he will never be accepted by the world in which he lives. It’s a sad goodbye to the character, as well as the studio.

Trivia Note: As fans of fantastic films will no doubt be aware, Cushing and Prowse reunited three years later, to portray (with an assist from James Earl Jones) the primary villains in Star Wars (1977).

Virgin Witch (1972)

dir. Ray Autin cast Ann Michelle, Vicki Michelle, Keith Buckley, Patricia Haines, James Chase, Paula Wright

Christine and Betty (Ann and Vicki Michelle), two 20-ish miniskirted sisters, are alone in London after leaving a repressive home life under the control of their strict father. Christine goes to see Sybil Waite (Haines), one of London's top modelling agents, and seems to be in luck when a last-minute job opens up and all the other models are booked. She agrees to go with Sybil to a remote manor out in the English countryside for the weekend while Betty tags along. However, all is not as it seems; Sybil is part of a coven of witches that may have designs on both sisters. You may think you know where this is going, but things take a very unexpected turn which I will not reveal.

An erotic horror fantasy, with the emphasis definitely on sex rather than blood, Virgin Witch demonstrates why British low-budget horror films were often so much more entertaining than their American counterparts. For one thing, the availability of old estates on which to film gave even the cheapest films a professional look and made it possible to create a creepy atmosphere without a ton of money to spend. The old house in Virgin Witch, hemmed in by a thick forest, seems lonely and sinister and does lend a hint of grim foreboding to the proceedings. Also, the acting in low-budget British films was usually superior to the acting in American B films. There is no one on the level of a Peter Cushing or Barbara Steele in this film, but all the main cast members are perfectly accomplished. The acting does not get in the way of the story.

Virgin Witch is actually more of a sex film than a horror film. It is literally bloodless, with a very low body count. The witches actually don't seem all that evil; their rituals don't invoke Satan or use Satanic trappings and they don't seem to have any kind of agenda that involves bothering anyone outside their coven. In fact, their rituals seem to mostly involve their leader having sex with a willing young (but not underage) woman on an altar, while the other members of the coven dance around naked.

There is a lot of nudity in this film. Both Michelle sisters are astonishingly gorgeous, and both, especially Ann, have abundant nude scenes. In fact, Ann's naked torso is the first thing seen in the film, backgrounding the title. It seems that Christine is being set up to be the victim throughout much of the film, but she never loses her confident demeanor and we always get the feeling she's not as helpless as she seems. Its a good performance and she's fun to watch, even when she's not nude.

Phil Hardy's Encyclopedia of Horror Movies, compares Virgin Witch favorably to Hammer's Karnstein films. I agree that it's better than the silly Lust for a Vampire, but not as good as The Vampire Lovers. In the end, Virgin Witch is light on horror content, even when compared to other non-gory horrors such as Let's Scare Jessica to Death. Most of the horror is in the coven's rituals (which, for some reason, involve the demonic mask from the Japanese film Onibaba!), but they are not violent or terribly frightening.  Virgin Witch is not some kind of landmark of low-budget horror film making, but it's still well-made enough to be worth seeing.

Black Sunday (1960)

dir. Mario Bava cast Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani, Arturo Domenici, Enrico Olivieri, Antonio Peirfederici

It's all about the visuals in this, one of the best-looking horror films of all time. In 17th-century Moldavia, Asa Vajda is executed as a witch (or a vampire, or both). A spiked "mask of Satan" is hammered onto her face as she promises revenge from beyond the grave. When the priests attempt to burn her body and that of her servant, Javutich, they are thwarted by a sudden downpour. Asa is entombed in the Vajda family crypt in a stone sarcophagus complete with a window over her face so she is forced to look upon a cross, thus preventing her from rising. Javutich is buried in the murderers' cemetery. Two hundred years later, the elderly Dr. Kruvajan and his young assistant Dr. Gorobec are passing through on their way to Moscow, when their carriage breaks down right outside the crypt. While the driver effects repairs, the two doctors go into the crypt to look around. Attacked by a (comically huge and slow) bat, Dr. Kruvajan accidentally destroys the cross on top of Asa's sarcophagus, breaks the glass over her face, and cuts himself so that the blood drips into the eye sockets of the dead witch after Kruvajan removes her mask. The doctors leave, meeting Asa's lookalike descendant, Katia on the way out. Gorobec falls instantly in love with her. Meanwhile, Asa awakens. She is still too weak to leave her tomb, but is able to summon Javutich, who, still wearing his mask of Satan, claws his way to the surface in possibly the best rising from a grave sequence ever filmed. Together the two plot their vengeance which involves the death of Katia's brother and father and the possession of Katia by Asa.

However, the plot is not really the point here. The look of this film made Bava an international star director, a status which he maintained up to his death in 1980. Filmed in black and white, this movie is a dark, fog-shrouded fever dream. The impressive sets include the ruined crypt where Asa is entombed, the dilapidated graveyard from which Javutich is reborn, and the spacious interior of the castle in which the Vajdas live. The landscape is made up of dead, gnarled trees, a persistent low fog obscures the ground, and the wind whistles constantly, sometimes combined with the howling of wolves. The look is very reminiscent of the old Universal horrors, though not quite so stylized. However, Bava adds disturbing visuals which paved the way for the gorier (though generally less imaginative) horrors of the late 60's and 70's. When the mask is a pounded onto Asa's face, blood wells up around its edges. When Kruvajan removes the mask, the action disturbs dozens of small scorpions which have nested in Asa's eye sockets. Later, these empty sockets are seen to be full of maggots just before new eyeballs appear in her face. When Asa revives, her face, at first, still bears the marks of the mask's spikes.

In fact, Steele herself is one of the movie's best visual effects. A British actress who at first appeared mostly in Italian-made films, she became a horror star as a result of this movie, with entire films being built around her talents. In fact, she represents the closest any actress has ever come to attaining true Karloff- or Price-style icon status in a genre which rarely has strong roles for women. Black Sunday makes it easy to see why. She is beautiful, but no more so than a dozen other horror actresses. But she has a unique look that is hard to describe. Her thin face, rounded cheekbones, and huge eyes can look truly otherworldly. In Black Sunday, she is equally convincing as the innocent Katia and the diabolical Asa. She truly has a presence that no other actress can duplicate. She is a fine actress, though she was dubbed in nearly all her roles in the 1960s, even in the American-made The Pit and the Pendulum!

Aside from Steele, the acting in the film is hard to judge, since everyone is dubbed in the English-language version and the script for that version is undistinguished. The only other performance really worthy of note is that of Arturo Domenici as Javutich who at least looks wonderfully scary with his mustachioed face, festering skin, and all-black outfit with the Vajda griffon on his chest. However, the acting and script are not the point of this film. The visuals make it great fun, and the fact that it launched Bava's and Steele's careers makes it historically important. It is a must-see.

Horror of Dracula (1958)

dir. Terence Fisher cast Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh, John Van Eyssen

One of the most important horror films ever made, Horror of Dracula, along with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), established Britain's Hammer Films as the preeminent horror studio of its era, much as Universal had been in the 1930's, and gave birth to a revival of gothic horror films that would last into the 1970s. Horror also made a horror film icon out of Christopher Lee, who would go on to play Dracula in six more Hammer films and would star in many other classic horror movies. As I write this, fifty-six years later, Lee is still acting, the last of the great horror icons. Lee had already appeared as the monster in The Curse of Frankenstein, but he was, of course, heavily made up and that film clearly focused on the scientist, not the monster. It was Horror of Dracula that made Lee a star.

Cushing, who earned his horror icon status in The Curse of Frankenstein, turns in an excellent performance as well in the role of Van Helsing. He makes Van Helsing believable as a man of science who also is an expert on the supernatural. His presence is so strong that the sequel, Brides of Dracula (1960), revolved around him, rather than the vampire (Lee refused to appear for fear of being typecast), and was nearly as good as Horror of Dracula.

Horror of Dracula introduced literal blood and new levels of sexuality into the vampire film. One of the first things we see in the film is bright red blood dripping onto Dracula's coffin. We never see whose blood this is, nor does this scene ever recur doing the movie; it is meant to show the viewer that this film will be different. Hammer would be taking a different path than the restrained Val Lewton movies of the 1940's and would be taking advantage of greater standards of explicitness that had developed since the US-made Dracula of 1931. This time we would see the vampire's blood-stained fangs and would witness his attacks in vivid close-ups. There had been a suggestion of a sexual component in Bela Lugosi's interpretation of Dracula, but Horror of Dracula made it much more overt. Lucy Holmwood (Marsh) waits for Dracula nervously but with clear anticipation, to come to her bedroom, the way a young virginal bride might wait for her husband on their wedding night. Dracula kisses Mina (Stribling) before biting her neck and she seems sexually satisfied the morning after their first encounter. The portrayal of the vampire as an overtly sexual figure, which seems the dominant image of vampires today, largely began here.

Aside from its historical importance, the movie is flat-out entertaining. It's very well directed. I especially like the fact that Dracula has not one, but several dramatic entrances during the course of the film. Lee is actually onscreen a very small percentage of the time, but his appearances always have maximum impact. The scenes where Dracula suddenly appears at the top of the staircase to a startled Harker (Van Eyssen), charges into the library with bloodstained fangs and bulging red eyes, looms in Lucy's doorway at night are all memorably dramatic (and are all common stills often seen in guidebooks to horror movies). Equally memorable is the scene where a vampirized Lucy, about to bite her mesmerized brother Arthur (Gough), is suddenly foiled by a cross thrust in front of her face from offscreen, held, it turns out, by Van Helsing. Van Helsing and Dracula's final struggle is also impressive and is one of the most famous scenes in horror, as the adversaries chase each other through the castle, leaping over and on furniture.

In the 1931 version of Dracula, Bela Lugosi gave the definitive performance as the famous vampire. But overall, that movie, hurt by the limitations of early sound films, is static and seems like a filmed stage play (it was based on a theatrical adaptation of the novel). Horror of Dracula is much more entertaining. In fact, I consider the Hammer movie to be the best vampire film ever made.