Since I reviewed Robert Bloch’s Night of the Ripperearlier today, it only seems appropriate that Jack the Ripper should play a role in today’s horror scene that I love.
In the 1929 silent German film, Pandora’s Box, Louise Brooks plays Lulu who, through a series of misfortunes, goes from being the mistress of an upper middle class newspaper publisher to living in squalor in London. Reduced to working as a prostitute, Lulu picks up her first client on Christmas Eve. Little does she know that her client is actually the infamous murderer known as Jack the Ripper. At first, Jack attempts to resist his urges by throwing away his knife but once they reach Lulu’s apartment, he discovers another.
This scene, which served as the film’s finale, was considered to be so controversial in 1929 that it was edited out of some prints, which had the effect of turning a tragic story about a woman forced into prostitution into a story about a woman who, following some bad luck, moves to London and is redeemed by volunteering for the Salvation Army.
It certainly is! Today is the 55th anniversary of Dr. No and therefore, it’s the day when we celebrate all things Bond!
Now, it may seem strange to start a review of a classic giallo like 1972’s Who Saw Her Die? by talking about the James Bond franchise but the two do have something in common.
George Lazenby.
George Lazenby was the Australian model who was selected to replace Sean Connery in the role of 007. It was Lazenby’s first big break and it also nearly destroyed his career. Lazenby played the role only once, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Though many modern critics have come to recognize that film as one of the best installments in the franchise, contemporary critics were far less impressed. After the disappointing reception of OHMSS, it was announced that Lazenby would be leaving the role and, in Diamonds Are Forever, Connery returned to the role.
What happened? Why did George Lazenby exit one of the biggest film franchises in the world? In my research, I’ve come across several different theories. Some say that Lazenby voluntarily quit because he either wasn’t happy with the direction of the franchise or he didn’t get want to get typecast. Others say that Lazenby was fired from the role because he was difficult to work with and was viewed as being a diva. Others have said that Lazenby was viewed as being too stiff of an actor to continue in the role of James Bond.
Obviously, I can’t say whether Lazaneby was difficult to work with or not. Nor can I even begin to speculate on what he thought of the franchise’s direction. But, as far as this idea that Lazenby wasn’t a good actor goes … well, all I can say is have you even seen Who Saw Her Die?
As you can probably tell from the trailer, Who Saw Her Die? might as well take place on a totally different planet from the Bond films. Who Saw Her Die? is an atmospheric and, at times, nightmarish giallo. A murderer of children — complete with black gloves and a black veil, because this is a giallo film, after all — is stalking Venice. When the daughter of architect Franco Serpieri (George Lazenby) is murdered, Franco and his ex-wife (Anita Strinberg) search for the murderer and discover a connection to a previous murder that occurred, years before, at a French ski resort.
It’s a dark and disturbing film, perhaps the most emotionally intense giallo film that I’ve ever seen. A year before Nicolas Roeg did the same thing with Don’t Look Now, director Aldo Lado captures Venice as a city of both great beauty and great decay. Every scene features the ominous shadow of death hanging over it and, after the murder of Roberta Serpieri (Nicolette Elmi), the viewer is painfully aware that everyone that we see is a potential child murderer. Is it the artist? Is it the priest? Or is it some random passerby? This film keeps you guessing.
And holding the entire film together is George Lazenby. At the time, I’m sure that some said it was a step down to go from playing James Bond to appearing in a low-budget Italian thriller but Lazenby gives such an emotional and empathetic performance that it should silence anyone who has ever said that Lazenby was a stiff actor. It’s not just that Franco wants justice for his daughter. It’s also that he’s haunted by his own guilt. Franco abandoned his daughter, leaving her on the streets of Venice, so that he could get laid. If he had been with there, the killer never would have targeted her. As played by Lazenby, Franco is motivated not just by rage but also by a need to redeem himself. He is equally matched by Anita Strindberg, who perfectly captures the raw pain and rage of a mother who has lost her child. Perhaps the film’s strongest moment features Franco and his ex-wife making love after their daughter’s funeral. The scenes of their love-making are intercut with scenes of them crying in bed afterwards, a technique that, a year later, Nicolas Roeg would also use for Don’t Look Now‘s famous sex scene. Together, Stindberg and Lazenby make Who Saw Her Die? into the rare whodunit where you care as much about the future of the characters as you do the solution to the mystery.
Who Saw Her Die? is an excellent and powerful giallo and proof that George Lazenby was more than just someone who once played James Bond.
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 celebrate the horrors of the London Fog!
Seriously, I know that everyone in the world is always going on about how brilliant he is but I have to admit that I always approach his film with a bit of trepidation.
I mean, yes, Soderbergh can be brilliant. He’s made some legitimately great films, some of the best that I’ve seen. The Informer! holds up brilliantly. So does Traffic and The Girlfriend Experience. Even a film like Logan Lucky remains amusing on a second viewing.
And yet, at the same time, he can be one of the most annoyingly pretentious directors around. Contagion was a raging bore and, with Haywire, Soderbergh squandered the potential of Gina Carano. Che started out strong before turning into a dull Marxist tract. With the exception of Out of Sight, his friendship with George Clooney always seems to bring out the worst instincts in both men. And don’t even start with me about the Ocean’s films. Have you tried to rewatch any of them lately?
Whenever I start a new Soderbergh film, I find myself wondering which Stephen Soderbergh am I going to get. Am I going to get the Soderbergh who is a crafty storyteller and a good director of actors? Or am I going to get the pretentious Soderbergh who always seems to think that he’s doing all of us favor by lowering himself to make a genre film?
With Unsane, which was released way back in March, I got both.
Claire Foy plays Sawyer Valentini. A year ago, Sawyer was working at a hospice when the son of one of her patients became obsessed with and started stalking her. Fearing for her life and realizing that the police weren’t going to be much help, Sawyer moved away from home and tried to restart her life.
Seeking help for dealing with her trauma, Sawyer makes an appointment with a counselor at the Highland Creek Behavioral Center. What she doesn’t realize is that Highland Creek is a scam. The papers that she signed at her appointment allow her therapist to hold her for a 24-hour evaluation. When Sawyer resists and attempts to call the police, her stay is extended by seven more days. Every time that Sawyer demands to be released, she’s judged to be a threat to herself and others and more days are added to her stay. As another patient explains it, Highland Creek basically holds onto its patients until their insurance runs out.
If that wasn’t bad enough, things get worse when Sawyer meets the new orderly (Joshua Leonard). He says that his name is George Shaw but Sawyer swears that he’s David, the man who has been stalking her. Of course, no one listens to her when she tries to tell them. After all, she voluntarily committed herself to Highland Creek….
Unsane received a lot of attention because Soderbergh shot the film in secret with an iPhone. The end results of Soderbergh’s experiment were mixed. At its best, this technique gives the film a gritty look and it visually captures the shaky state of Sawyer’s sanity. At its worse, it’s a distraction that leaves you feeling that you’re supposed to be more impressed by how Soderbergh made the film than by the story being told.
Fortunately, Soderbergh gets two wonderful performances from Claire Foy and the reliably creepy Joshua Leonard. Foy brings just the right combination of fragility and strength to the role of Sawyer and she gives such an empathetic performance that you get involved in her story even if Soderbergh’s style is often distracting. As for Leonard, you’ll recognize him as soon as you see him. He’s a character actor who specializes in playing off-balance people and he’s memorably menacing in this film.
I probably would have liked Unsane more if I didn’t always have the feeling that the movie was mostly made so that Soderbergh could show off. Whenever I see one of Soderbergh’s “genre” films, I get the feeling that he’s looking down on the material and that my reaction is supposed to be one of, “Soderbergh’s such a genius that he can even make crap like this entertaining!” (You get the feeling that Soderbergh might be willing to make a B-movie but he’d never be caught dead actually watching one.) That said, regardless of the motives behind it, Unsane was actually an effective and twisty psychological thriller.
A serial killer known as “The Avenger” is murdering blonde women in London (which, once again, proves that its better to be a redhead). And while nobody knows the identity of the Avenger, they do know that the enigmatic stranger (Ivor Novello), who has just recently rented a room at boarding house, happens to fit his description. They also know that the lodger’s landlord’s daughter happens to be a blonde…
Released in 1927, the silent The Lodger was Alfred Hitchcock’s third film but, according to the director, this was the first true “Hitchcock film.” Certainly it shows that even at the start of his career, Hitchcock’s famous obsessions were already present — the stranger accused of a crime, the blonde victims, and the link between sex and violence.
Also of note, the credited assistant director — Alma Reville — would become Alma Hitchcock shortly before The Lodger was released.
Tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond deals with a bellboy named Gerald Perkins (David Opatoshu). Gerald keeps telling everyone that there’s going to be an earthquake but no one’s willing to listen to him. Everyone knows that Gerald is a recovering alcoholic so they assume that he’s just drinking again. Needless to say, it’s far easier to fire someone than to listen to his insane ramblings, right?
Well, considering that this story takes place in San Francisco in 1906, perhaps they should have listened.
According to host John Newland, this is a true story. It originally aired on January 12th, 1960!
Once upon a time, when the fascists still controlled Spain, there was a man named Marcos (Vincent Parra) who lived in a tiny house that appeared to be sitting in the middle of trash dump. Marcos worked at a slaughterhouse and had a loving girlfriend named Paula (Emma Cohen). Marcos wasn’t a mean person but he did have a temper. Because he was poor and unedcuated, he was permanently on the outside of Spanish society.
One night, Marcos was out on a date with Paula when he got into an argument with a taxicab driver. The argument escalated until Marcos finally (and accidentally) killed the man. Paula thought that they should go to the police. Marcos disagreed. Eventually, to cover up his crime, Marcos strangled Paula in his tiny house.
Then, Marcos’s brother came by and discovered what had happened. So, Marcos killed him too. Then his brother’s fiancée came by and insisted on knowing what Marcos was hiding in the bedroom so Marcos killed her. Then his brother’s fiancee’s father showed up at the house and started asking too many questions so Marcos killed him.
And soon, Marcos’s house was full of dead people.
Towering over Marcos’s house was an apartment building. Living alone on the 13th floor was the handsome Nestor (Eusebio Poncela). Nestor use to spend his days watching Marcos through a pair of binoculars. Though he never knew what was happening in the house, Nestor still became fascinated with Marcos and his refusal to move out of his crummy house.
Eventually, Nestor befriended Marcos. Though Nestor was wealthy, his status as a gay man in 1970s Spain made him as much of an outsider as Marcos. Both Nestor and Marcos had reason to distrust and fear the police and this created a bond. With Nestor’s help, Marcos got a hint of the life that he could have been living if 1) he hadn’t been born poor, 2) he didn’t live in the middle of a garbage dump, and 3) if his house wasn’t full of dead bodies….
In the late 60s and early 70s, European art films were often disguised as being exploitation films when they were released in the United States. That’s certainly the case with this Spanish film from 1972. The original Spanish title of this film was La semana del asesino. In English, that translates to The Week of the Killer, an appropriate title since the film follows a week in the life of Marcos. However, when the film was released in the U.S., it was retitled Cannibal Man, despite the fact that there’s not any cannibalism to be found in the film.
Regardless of what it’s called, the film itself is a surprisingly sensitive and well-done portrait of two outsiders trying to survive and find some sort of happiness under an authoritarian regime. For all the murders that take place, the film itself is far more concerned with the friendship between Nestor and Marcos. When Nestor takes Marcos to his health club and they share a dip in the pool, it’s a rare chance for both Nestor and Marcos to escape their problems. It’s a nicely done scene, one that’s directed in such a way that you understand that this is one of the few times in Marcos’s life when he hasn’t been angry or scared. Even he’s not sure how to handle it.
Director Eloy de Iglesia combines scenes that have a gritty, documentary feel to them with sequences that seem almost dream-like. When Marcos kills his brother’s fiancee, the sound of the clock ticking in his house becomes almost deafening. Vincent Parra plays Marcos as being an inarticulate man who often seems to be in a daze, as if not even he can believe what he’s done and what his life has become. Eusebio Poncela is equally well-cast as the sympathetic Nestor.
Cannibal Man is a film that definitely deserves to be rediscovered.
Lou Ford is 29 years-old, the deputy sheriff of a town in Texas that’s so small that Fort Worth is viewed as being the “big city.” Lou is friendly. Lou appears to be popular among the citizenry. Lou has a sweet and wholesome girlfriend named Amy. Lou speaks in a cheerful clichés and seems to be content with his reputation for being a dependable but slightly slow-witted good ol’ boy.
Of course, we know the truth about Lou. We know the truth because Lou tells us. In Jim Thompson’s 1952 novel, The Killer Inside Me, Lou narrates his story to us. Underneath his friendly exterior, Lou is an ice-cold sociopath who is proud of the fact that he could literally beat someone to death if he wanted to. He speaks in clichés only because he’s mocking his listeners and even Amy is ultimately expendable to his plans. Most disturbing of all, Lou knows that he’s a sociopath. He even reads a book on the subject. He knows but he doesn’t care.
Lou has plans, most of which involve blackmailing a local construction magnate. His partner in his blackmail scheme is the local prostitute, Joyce Lakeland. Lou’s been having an affair with Joyce and, as far as Lou knows, she’s the only person who is aware of his true nature. Lou’s solution to that problem is to not only frame Joyce for murder but to also beat her into a coma. While Lou waits for Joyce to die, he’s busy covering his own tracks and committing additional murders. Through it all, Lou struggles to keep everyone else in the world from catching a glance of the killer inside of him.
The Killer Inside Me may be over 60 years old but it’s still one of the most intense and disturbing portraits of a sociopath ever written. Secure that he will be forever protected by his status as a member of law enforcement, Lou Ford feels free to pursue every sadistic whim that pops into his head. Jim Thompson traps us in Ford’s mind but interestingly, the best parts of the book are the parts that suggest that Ford may not be correctly interpreting what’s happening around him. Towards the end of the book, it starts to become evident that Ford may not have been as clever as he insists that he is and we’re force to consider that we just spent several chapters taking the word of a sociopath.
You may be tempted to watch the 2010 film version instead of reading the book. Don’t do it! The book is a hundred times better and the movie totally screwed up the ending.
After murdering a drug dealer at an amusement park, Hawk (Brad Fisher) and his gang of teenage thugs take Chandu (Frank Finlay) and his daughter, Lisa (Marcia Layton), hostage. As Hawk and company set up shop in Chandu’s mansion, Chandu warns them that they should leave before the mansion destroys them. Chandu has been summoning the forces of darkness and now they’re living in his basement. They already killed Chandu’s wife and now, they’re prepared to kill Hawk and the gang.
Hawk doesn’t believe a word that Chandu has to say. Plus, Hawk’s younger brother has been shot in the leg so they have no choice but to spend at least one night in the mansion. That turns out to be a big mistake. Before the night ends, Hawk’s brother ends up possessed, a woman gets pulled into a refrigerator, Hawk’s second-in-command drowns in a shower full of blood, and the mansion’s just getting started!
A Spanish-American co-production, Cthulhu Mansion was directed by Juan Piquer Simon, who earned a cult following for directing movies like Pieces, Slugs, and the immortal Pod People. Cthulhu Mansion never comes close to being as good as any of those films. Legitimately great actor Frank Finlay hams it up as Chandu and gets to wear some headgear that makes him look like Carnac The Magnificent but everyone else in the movie is forgettable and, with the exception of the blood shower, none of the deaths show any of the creativity that Simon brought to Slugs. Worst of all, Cthulhu doesn’t even make a cameo appearance.
While some may be tempted to watch because of the film’s appropriation of the Cthulhu name, resist the call of Cthulhu Mansion. H.P. Lovecraft wouldn’t have even stepped foot inside this house.
Since I reviewed A Quiet Place earlier today, it seems appropriate that today’s scene that I love is taken from that film.
In this scene, Lee Abott (John Krasinski) and his son come across an old man in the woods. The old man is looking down at the remains of a woman who we presume to be his wife. What he does next is a reminder of just how brutal and unforgiving life can be. When the man screams, it’s the first human voice that we’ve heard in a while. It’s also a cry of surrender and sacrifice, one that sets up the conclusion of the film.
After murdering a drug dealer at an amusement park, Hawk (Brad Fisher) and his gang of teenage thugs take Chandu (Frank Finlay) and his daughter, Lisa (Marcia Layton), hostage. As Hawk and company set up shop in Chandu’s mansion, Chandu warns them that they should leave before the mansion destroys them. Chandu has been summoning the forces of darkness and now they’re living in his basement. They already killed Chandu’s wife and now, they’re prepared to kill Hawk and the gang.
Through the Shattered Lens 