Today’s episode of televised horror comes from the UK.
First broadcast on October 11th, 1980, the fifth episode of Hammer’s House of Horror was entitled The House That Bled To Death. It’s about a family who buys and moves into a house that has a sordid past. The family plans to fix the house up and then sell it for a profit. The house has other plans.
(Incidentally, The House That Bled To Death would have been a great title for one of Lucio Fuci’s later films.)
Today’s horror movie is an early take on one of the most iconic of all monsters. First released in 1936, Revolt of the Zombies tells the story of what happens when the French discover that the secret to creating zombies is located in Cambodia. Naturally, they organize an expedition to track down that secret and destroy it.
Simple, right?
Unfortunately, when it comes to the French and zombies, nothing is ever simple…
Revolt of the Zombies was directed by Victor Halperin, who had previously directed the atmospheric classic White Zombie. Unfortunately, Revolt of the Zombies is hardly a classic. However, I still find the movie interesting as an example of what a Hollywood zombie film looked like before George Romero revolutionized the genre with Night of the Living Dead. The zombies in Revolt of the Zombies are not the undead cannibals that we’ve all been conditioned to expect. Instead, they’re closer to the original zombies: brainwashed servants without a will of their own.
One final note: the eyes that are frequently superimposed over the action belong to Bela Lugosi.
For the first horror “Song of the Day” I couldn’t decide on which theme from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser I should use.
Fans of the film should know well the original theme composed by Christopher Young for the film. It’s a more orchestral theme that gives the film a sort of grand guignol grandeur. It’s an epic piece that would get used time and time again for each successive sequel. There might be some minute changes to the theme with each new film, but the basic composition remains. It’s a theme that helps one visualize forbidden texts and grimoires laying in wait for the ones brave or foolish enough to turn the page.
Then there’s the unreleased and unused theme that Barker had originally wanted to use from the industrial band Coil. This theme for the film was more about discordant melodies that harkens back to the more disturbing musical composition used for The Exorcist. It’s a theme that brings up images of the sublime and exquisite pain that Pinhead promises to those solve the Lament Configuration.
Some fans prefer the original Christopher Young suite while others have grown to love and prefer the more disturbing piece from Coil. I, for one, think both could’ve been used in the film though if I had to pick one to use as the main theme then I would go with Christopher Young’s composition.
Christopher Young Hellraiser theme
Coil Hellraiser theme
As scary as all the stories of zombies and vampires may be, the most frightening monsters in the world are the ones that walk among us. I may look away when a monster shows up halfway through a movie but what truly scares me is what my fellow human beings have proven themselves capable of doing.
Today’s movie is all about man-made horror. Released in 1963, The Sadist is a dark and rather brutal film about what happens when three teachers have car trouble and find themselves wandering around a seemingly deserted junkyard. They quickly discover that they’re not alone. Watching them and eventually terrorizing them is Charlie (Arch Hall, Jr.), an inartciulate sociopath who quickly proves himself to be a lot more clever than his smugly complacent hostages. This bleak film is memorable for both its starkly effective cinematography and Hall’s disturbingly plausible portrayal of the title character.
SPOILER ALERT
For those who have played the Xbox 360 exclusive game Alan Wake should remember this scene I have chosen. It comes right at the end of the game where the title character has finally figured out the secret of what happened to his missing wife and how to save her from the game’s main antagonist.
This antagonist is not some psycho killer or monomaniacal villain. It’s a villain that’s more akin to an evil entity. In fact, we learn throughout the game that the villain, known as the Dark Presence, is like something out of a Lovecraft story. It’s an evil intelligence that has spanned eons and yearns to free itself from it’s watery prison.
Alan Wake realizes that the only way to save his wife was to take her place and fight the Dark Presence from within and this is where the brief scene begins. It’s a scene that starts creepy enough until the very end when the real payoff arrives.
Today’s horror movie is from Hammer films and, needless to say, it’s lot of fun. In The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, an ennui-stricken Count Dracula (James Forbes-Robertson) leaves his castle and travels all the way to China. Once in China, he resurrects the legendary 7 golden vampires and uses them to raid a nearby village. One villager (played by David Chiang) goes to the legendary Prof. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, of course) for help. Van Helsing, along with his son (Robin Stewart) and a wealthy widow (Julie Ege, who decorated several Hammer films), goes to the village to battle the vampires. Providing protecting for Van Helsing’s group is Chiang’s sister (Szu Shih) and six other brothers.
First released in 1974, The Legend of the 7 Vampires was Hammer’s attempt to revive the failing fortunes of their most iconic monster by collaborating with Hong Kong film producer Sir Run Run Shaw. The result is an entertaining hybrid of a traditional Hammer vampire film and a Hong Kong kung fu movie. While James Forbes-Robertson makes for a poor replacement for Christopher Lee, Cushing is perfect as always.
Here we are once again with the wonderful month of October. This means the place gets an extra dosage of horror in everything we can think of. For my first horror-themed post I shall go with the latest “AMV of the Day” and this time it’s an aptly titled video: “Bloody Ayase”.
This particular AMV takes the cute, romantic comedy series, Oreimo, and subverts it by way of clever editing, song choice and some additions like blood splatters to turn it into an obsessed crush. This video actually does a great job in showing the anime personality type called yandere. It’s the obsessed and mentally unhinged lover or ex-lover who doesn’t want to let go and will kill anyone, even the target of their affection, if it means keeping them away from others.
The only thing this video doesn’t have is a pot of boiling water with a rabbit inside.
Anime: Oreimo
Song: “E.T.” by Katy Perry
Creator: Cheeseharry
Past AMVs of the Day
Traditionally, October is a very special month here at the Shattered Lens. October is the month that we devote the majority of our attention to the horror genre. This month, along with all of the reviews that you’ve come to expect from the Shattered Lens, I will also be attempting to share a horror movie a day with all of our wonderful readers.
Let’s start things off with an odd little B-movie from 1946, Strangler Of The Swamp, a story of love, revenge, and ghosts. A group of swamp men hanged an innocent man. Now, the ghost of that man is having his revenge by strangling the descendents of the people who killed him. One of those descendents is Chris Sanders (played by future director Blake Edwards) who just happens to be in love with Maria (Rosemary La Planche), the granddaughter of the vengeful ghost.
Clocking in at little less than an hour, Strangler Of The Swamp tells a familiar story but it’s still worth watching. Charles Middleton is effective as the strangler and the German-born director Frank Wisbar deals with the restrictions imposed by a minsicule budget by emphasizing the film’s expressionistic atmosphere. While it would be a mistake to call Strangler Of The Swamp a lost masterpiece (as some critics have done), it’s still an interesting example of low-budget, B-filmmaking.
During the panel for The Walking Dead over at San Diego Comic-Con we found out first and foremost the premiere of season 4 for AMC’s huge hit.
The Walking Dead Season 4 will premiere on October 13, 2013.
Now what’s in store for fans of the show when it returns in a couple months. It looks like we get another veteran from HBO’s classic drama series (and best drama series in history, ever) The Wire with Larry Gilliard, Jr. coming on-board as the character Bob Stookey. The season will also see the return of fan favorite Lennie James as Morgan Jones. The new season will also bring with the the show’s newest and latest showrunner in show writer Scott M. Gimple.
The Walking Dead is pure genre storytelling which means that at times it will show the best while at times it fails under the weight of the very narrative it’s trying to tell. It’s not Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad or Mad Men. What the show has become which the other higher quality show still hasn’t reached is a level of popularity that just continues to build with each passing season and episode.
While October 13 is just a little under 3 months away it’s still going to be a long wait.
Like the show or not the one thing that The Walking Dead tv series has always had have been some good marketing people. From the marketing leading up to the premiere season and now leading up to it’s upcoming fourth season the show continues to honor it’s comic book legacy.
For the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con spectacle AMC TV and the people behind The Walking Dead tv series have unveiled the SDCC-exclusive poster for the upcoming season. Season 1 saw noted comic book cover artist and illustrator Drew Struzan come up with the exclusive poster. For Season 2 we had another famous comic book illustrator in Tim Bradstreet with the honor. Last year’s Season 3 at SDCC saw Greg Capullo come up with the poster.
For the Season 4 poster that will be given out at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con one of the best cover and comic book illustrators in the business will do the honors. I speak of Alex Ross who has cemented his place in comic book fandom with his work on such comic books as Marvels and Kingdom Come.
While Alex Ross has been known more for his superhero illustrations the fact that he’s doing a horror-themed illustration just shows that the show still continues to remain strong and people continue to want to be involved with it in one fashion or another (or AMC just paid Alex Ross a nice chunk of change).
Below are the past SDCC-Exclusive posters for The Walking Dead.
Source: AMC TV
Through the Shattered Lens 