Today’s horror scene that I love comes from 1941’s The Wolf Man.
In this scene, poor, unfortunate Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr) visits a gypsy camp and learns that sad truth of his fate from Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya). I love this scene not only for the iconic dialogue but also for George Waggner’s atmospheric direction and Maria Ouspenskaya’s performance. Even Lon Chaney, Jr. gives it his all in this scene. Larry Talbot may have been a dumb lug but he was our dumb lug!
Oh my God, this film freaks me out!
Listen, I’ve watched a lot of Italian horror films. I know how violent they can be. I know how gory they can be. I know how sordid they can be. I know how disturbing they can be. It’s not like I sat down and watched Torso with virgin eyes. But with all that in mind, Sergio Martino’s 1973 giallo still totally freaks me out!
Why does it freak me out?
Well, it’s going to be hard to really explain it without spoiling the movie’s biggest twist. It occurs about halfway through the film and it totally took me by surprise when it happened. Suddenly, Torso went from being just another film about a seemingly unstoppable murderer to becoming a tension-filled game of cat and mouse. So, I’m going to discuss the movie but I’m going to give a spoiler alert before I talk about the twist and, if you’ve never seen Torso before, you should stop reading and you should discover what happens for yourself.
Torso takes place in Perugia, Italy. During the day, it’s a beautiful city that’s surrounded by a beautiful countryside. The nearby University of Perguia seemse to be exclusively populated by beautiful students, including American exchange student Jane (Suzy Kendall) and her best friend, the wealthy Daniela (Tina Aumont), and beautiful instructors, like the rather opinionated Art History teacher, Franz (John Richardson).
But at night, Perugia changes. The countryside around the university becomes considerably less beautiful. A masked killer stalks through the fog-covered woods, carrying with him a knife and an endless supply of red scarves. He kills anyone that he comes across in the wilderness, including one of Jane and Daniela’s friends!
With everyone panicking about the serial killer in their midst, the ineffectual police investigate the usual sordid collection of suspects but with little success. Daniela, meanwhile, thinks that she may have seen the killer and, for her own safety, she, Jane, and their friends all go to her family’s villa for the holiday weekend.
And then….
(SPOILER ALERT)
(SPOILER ALERT)
(SPOILER ALERT)
Jane breaks her ankle and is given a sedative by the local doctor. This knocks Jane out for the night and when she finally wakes up, she discovers that all of her friends have been murdered and the killer is still in the villa! Fortunately, he doesn’t realize that Jane’s in the villa as well. Unfortunately, he’s also locked all the doors and the windows, so that he can have the privacy necessary to dispose of the bodies. For the rest of the film, Jane has to try to get someone to notice that she’s trapped in the villa without drawing the attention of the killer. Needless to say, this proves even more difficult than it sounds.
Torso is often dismissed as being a lesser giallo, particularly when it’s compared to some of Sergio Martino’s later contributions to the gnre. While Torso might not feature as complex a plot as some of Martino’s other films (and you’ll probably guess the killer’s identity long before the film reveals it), it does feature a second act that is so nerve-wracking and suspenseful that I barely breathed while watching it. Visually, Martino does an excellent job of contrasting the beauty of the outside world with the horrors inside the villa and both Suzy Kendall and Tina Aumont give good and sympathetic performances in the lead roles.
Torso totally gave me nightmares but I’d watch it again.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today, we pay tribute to a very special breed of monster with….
4 Shots From 4 Werewolf Films
Werewolf of London (1935, dir by Stuart Walker)
The Curse of the Werewolf (1961, dir by Terence Fisher)
Werewolf Woman (1976, dir by Rino Di Silvestro)
The Wolfman (2010, dir by Joe Johnston)
The 1961 Hammer film, The Curse of the Werewolf, is a good example of a film that could succeed on casting alone.
As you can probably guess from the title, this film is about a werewolf. And there was never an actor more perfect for the role of a werewolf than Oliver Reed. Set aside Reed’s legendary reputation for wild off-set behavior. Set aside the fact that Reed specialized in playing men who often seemed to have a beast lurking deep within them, a beast that was constantly bursting out. With his handsome but scarred face and his burly physique, Oliver Reed looked like a wolf. If I had to sit down and paint a picture of how I visualized a man who transformed into a beast, the picture would probably end up looking like Oliver Reed.
In fact, Reed is so perfectly cast in this film that it’s easy to overlook the fact that he doesn’t even show up until the last quarter or so of the film. Clocking in at a relatively leisurely-paced 91 minutes, The Curse of the Werewolf plays out more like an extremely grim fairy tale than a traditional horror film.
It begins in 18th century Spain, with a beggar stumbling across the wedding of a cruel nobleman. When the beggar asks for food, he’s mocked. He’s cruelly forced to beg and then, for his trouble, he’s thrown into jail. Isolated from the world, the beggar’s only human contact comes from his kindly jailer and the jailer’s mute daughter. When the nobleman tries to force himself on the daughter, he’s rejected. As a result, he throws the jailer’s daughter into the cell with the now animalistic beggar. When she’s eventually released, she promptly murders the nobleman but she’s now pregnant with the beggar’s child.
That child is named Leon Corledo and eventually, he’ll become Oliver Reed. But first, we watch as he grows up, the adopted son of the kindly Don Alfredo (Clifford Evans). Alfredo’s housekeeper considers Leon to be cursed because he was born on Christmas Day and his mother died in childbirth. Alfredo may dismiss that as a silly superstition but, as Leon grows up, strange things do happen. Goats are murdered and, even though a dog is blamed, we know that it has something to do with Leon.
Yes, Leon is a werewolf but interestingly enough, it’s not the full moon that transforms Leon into a beast. Instead, it’s stress and depression. When Leon grows up and goes to work in vineyard, he’s fine until he realizes that he’ll probably never be a rich man like his boss and he’ll never have enough money to marry Christina (Catherine Feller). That’s when he loses control and transformed.
The Curse of the Werewolf is a dark and moody film, directed in an appropriately atmospheric fashion by Terence Fisher. Leon is one of the more tragic Hammer monsters, having been born with an affliction that he can’t control and which no one else is capable of understanding. Oliver Reed gives a wonderful performance, revealing the tortured soul that lurks underneath the fearful exterior. This Hammer film may not be as well-known as the Dracula or Frankenstein films but it’s definitely one that deserves to be seen.
Today’s horror on the lens is Killers From Space, a 1954 film about …. well, killers from space!
Like a lot of 1950s sci-fi films, this one features Peter Graves as a properly grave-voiced scientist. It’s about some googly-eyed aliens who abduct people and force them to reveal America’s nuclear secrets! This low-budget, independent film has quite a pedigree. It was directed by Billy Wilder’s brother and written by his nephew, Myles.
Enjoy!
This just seems right for Halloween, no?
Enjoy!
It appears that YouTube is finally back up (for the sake of future historians, YouTube was down for several hours on the night of Tuesday, October 16th, 2018, leading to great panic on twitter) so I can share tonight’s episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker!
In this episode, our favorite neurotic journalist investigates several cases of spontaneous human combustion. It all appears to have something to do with the spirit of a dead gangster, one who is wandering around in the form of a famous (and still living) conductor.
I swear, Chicago was a crazy place to live in the 70s.
This episode originally aired on November 8th, 1974.
Enjoy!
Prof. Edward Derek (Ramy Zada) teaches a class called The Psychology Of Fear. He claims that the things that most scare us are the things that we can believe in. (To quote the observers from the peanut gallery, “No shit, Sherlock.”) After Prof. Derek demonstrates fear by pulling out a fake gun and pretending to kill himself, a jock ends up pissing himself and the class is suspended. Fortunately, Prof. Derek has a backup plan. He invites his students to his house, where he tells them three horror stories that are all designed to prove that the scariest things are the things that could actually happen in real life.
What does Prof. Derek believe to be scary?
In the first story, it’s scary when your wife decides that the perfect way to throw a surprise party would be to trick you into thinking that you’re trapped in a haunted house and you’re going to die if you don’t start chopping off some heads.
In the second story, it’s scary when a group of girls take a wrong turn, piss off the wrong gas station attendant, and end up getting chased by pack of killer dogs.
In the third story, it’s scary with an answering service operator (played by a pre-CSI Marg Helgenberger) starts getting calls from a psycho.
None of the three stories are really that scary but the first story does have a twist ending that would have made EC Comics proud. The third story is the best, if just because it focuses on one character and that character is played by Marg Helgenberger. There’s also the wrap-around story involving the professor and his students. Just when that story’s getting good, it cops out with an ending that you’ll see coming from a mile away.
With the exception of Marg Helgenberger’s segment, After Midnight is a largely forgettable horror anthology film that will be best appreciated by viewers who are nostalgic for 80s fashion and cheap special effects.
Today’s horror scene that I love comes from the 1957 classic, The Curse of Frankenstein!
In this scene, the Monster (Christopher Lee) reveals himself and then promptly attack his maker (Peter Cushing). My favorite thing about this scene is that zoom shot of the Monster’s face after the bandages have been removed. The look he’s giving Frankenstein leaves no doubt about how the Monster feels about being reanimated.
Knowing that Lee and Cushing were close friend in real life makes this scene all that more enjoyable.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today, we pay tribute to the TSL’s favorite British studio with….
4 Shots From 4 Hammer Films
The Plague of the Zombies (1966, dir by John Gilling)
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967, dir by Terence Fisher)
The Mummy’s Shroud (1967, dir by John Gilling)
The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973, dir by Alan Gibson)
Through the Shattered Lens 