Taking place in turn-of-the-century England, The Woman In Black tells the story of Arthur Kipps (played by Daniel Radcliffe), a young lawyer who is still struggling to recover from the death of his wife four years previously. Arthur is sent to an isolated village to settle the estate of a woman named Alice Drablow. Despite several warnings from the superstitious townspeople, Arthur goes to Alice’s decrepit old mansion and he soon finds himself haunted by fleeting glimpses of a woman in black who seems to be in the house with him. With each sighting of the woman in black, another child in the village commits suicide.
Despite a few genuinely disturbing scenes (mostly involving children committing suicide), The Woman In Black is, ultimately, a pretty typical PG-13 horror film. There’s a few good, if predictable, jump scenes (most of which involve the title character popping up in the background) and there’s all the usual Insidious-style tracking shots through the creepy old house. However, any time that it seems like the film is about to become truly disturbing or scary, it runs smack into that PG-13 rating and it has to pull back. The end result is that the film is creepy yet oddly bland, like something you might find playing on Chiller around one in the morning.
Of course, The Woman in Black is getting a lot of attention because this is Daniel Radcliffe’s first film since the end of the Harry Potter franchise. How does Radcliffe do in his first adult role? Well, he’s okay. In fact, I would say that he’s better than okay. He’s perfectly adequate. I think the main issue I had with Radcliffe’s performance is that he sometimes seems to be trying too hard to make sure that we understand that he’s not playing Harry Potter. For that reason, he doesn’t shave and he spends almost the entire film with a grim expression on his face. Radcliffe’s a good actor and I think he’ll have a long career but he’s just miscast here. Arthur Kipps is a man who has given up on life and Radcliffe is simply too exuberant of a performer to play defeated. Oddly enough, Ciaran Hinds (who co-stars in this film) would have made the perfect Arthur.
I did enjoy spotting the various references to other horror films that were littered throughout The Woman in Black. While the film obviously owes its existence to the success of the Paranormal Activity films, both the film’s overall plot and isolated village setting reminded me of Mario Bava’s masterpiece, Kill, Baby, Bill. Furthermore, the film’s somewhat effective ending reminded me of the end of Lucio Fulci’s The House By The Cemetery. I’m not sure if any of those homages were intentional but they were still fun to spot.
As a final note, The Woman in Black is the latest PG-13 rated horror film to be advertised with annoying infrared footage of people watching the movie and screaming. Personally, I think it might be time for a new cliché.
For my latest horror review, I will be reviewing another classic film from one of my favorite directors, Mario Bava. Following the suggestion of my twitter friend Tom, I spent last night watching Bava’s 1963 classic Black Sabbath.
Starring Boris Karloff, Black Sabbath is a compilation film that’s made up of three different horror-themed stories. Originally entitled Three Faces of Fear, Black Sabbath has been released in many different versions over the years. Depending on which version you seen, the stories may be in a different order than in the order that Bava intended. The version I watched was the original, uncut, Italian-language version that was released by Anchor Bay. For those of you who want to truly experience the genius of Mario Bava, this is the version to see.
Black Sabbath begins with Boris Karloff playing himself, giving a deliberately over-the-top introduction and informing us that there could very well be vampires and werewolves sitting next to us in the theater. Yes, it’s silly and yes, it’s campy but it’s also a lot of fun. A lot of this is because these words are delivered by Karloff, an actor who could make even the silliest of dialogue sound important. The other part is that, as silly as the introduction may be, it’s beautiful to look at. Instead of going for the standard spooky narrator in a cobweb-filled library approach, Bava frames Karloff standing against a brilliant dark blue backdrop that establishes that this isn’t just your typical horror host … this is BORIS FREAKIN’ KARLOFF!
After Karloff’s introduction, we move on to the first of Black Sabbath’s three separate stories, The Telephone.
In The Telephone, Michele Mercier plays a Parisian prostitute who returns to her apartment after an evening out. As she tries to change for bed, her bright red telephone rings. Every time Mercier opens the phone, she hears a man’s voice taunting and threatening her. Finally, the caller claims to be Frank, Mercier’s former pimp who has just escaped from prison. The terrified Mercier calls her estranged lesbian lover (Lydia Alfonsi). Alfonsi comes over to the basement to comfort Mercier. However, what Mercier doesn’t realize is that it wasn’t Frank calling her. It was Alfonsi, pretending to be Frank. However, needless to say, there’s more twists to come before the night’s over.
Of the three segments, The Telephone is probably the least succesful if just because it has the most pedestrian plot. At the same time, this segment also show just how good Bava was at creating tension even with so-so material. Speaking as someone who has been stalked in the past, I can say that both Mercier and Bava perfectly captures the way that one seemingly simple intrusion on your privacy can leave you suddenly feeling very isolated and very alone. Finally, even after the segment’s over, it’s impossible to forget the sight of that vibrantly red phone sitting like a lurking monster in that artfully drab apartment.
The Telephone is followed by probably the film’s most famous segment, The Wurdalak.
Based on a short story by Tolstoy, The Wurdalak opens with a Russian nobleman (played Italian exploitation mainstay Mark Damon) on a long trip through the Russian wilderness. He comes across a headless corpse with a dagger plunged into its heart. Damon takes the dagger as a morbid souvenir of his trip.
As night falls, Damon comes across a small cottage and asks the family inside for shelter. Inside the cottage, Damon discovers a wall that is covered with daggers similar to the one he found earlier. His hosts explain that the daggers belong to the family patriarch, Gorcha (Boris Karloff). Gorcha left five days earlier to kill a wurdolak (or vampire, by any other name). As the family waits for Gorcha to return, not knowing whether or not he himself is now a vampire, Damon finds himself falling in love with Gorcha’s daughter. When Gorcha finally does return, it’s obvious that he’s not the same man he was when he originally left.
Of the three segments, The Wurdolak is probably the most obviously Bavaesque and a whole lot of the same images and themes would later turn up in Bava’s masterwork, Kill, Baby, Kill. Everything, from the constantly howling wind to the sense of isolation to the well-meaning but ultimately impotent upper-class hero, is classic Bava. Special mention should also be made of Boris Karloff’s performance here. Because Karloff was best known for appearing in “monster” movies, he never gets enough recognition for being a pretty good actor. His performance here, which is full of malice and threat, is just as menacing as his earlier appearance in the introduction was fun and campy.
The final segment of the film is entitled The Drop of Water.
In many ways, The Drop of Water is the simplest segment of the film but for me, personally, it’s also the scariest. In London, a nurse (Jacqueline Pierreux) is called to a large house to prepare a medium for burial. While doing this. the nurse notices a large (and, quite frankly, kinda gaudy) ring on the medium’s finger. The nurse steals the ring and returns to her own apartment. As soon as she goes to her apartment, she finds herself haunted by increasingly ominous events: a buzzing fly refuses to leave her alone, the sound of water dripping echoes through the apartment, the lights go on and off, and — naturally — a mysterious figure suddenly appears in her bedroom.
Mixing the sense of growing paranoia that characterized The Telephone with Wurdolak’s sense of predestined, metaphysical doom, The Drop of Water is the perfect concluding chapter of Black Sabbath. It also happened to scare the Hell out of me. Along with Bava’s usual superb direction, this film was distinguished by some wonderfully creepy make-up work. Seriously, once that mysterious figure reveals itself, you’ll wish it hadn’t.
I usually don’t enjoy compilation films because, too often, it seems that you’re lucky if you get just one above average story surrounded by a bunch of forgettable filler. Far too often, the stories themselves don’t seem to go together. Instead, they just appear to have been tossed together randomly with the weakest of possible connection. Black Sabbath is an exception and that’s largely because of Mario Bava’s iconic direction. The stories aren’t linked together by plot as much as their linked together by motif and theme. Each story — from the emphasis on isolation to the creative use of color to suggest mood and menace — is linked by Bava’s style. Boris Karloff may have been the name emphasized in the credits but the true star of Black Sabbath is Mario Bava.
The genius of Bava wasn’t in the originality of the stories he told but instead, in the new ways that he found to tell familiar stories. Usually, I hate it when directors describe themselves as being about “style” as opposed to “substance.” Too often, it seems like that’s just an excuse to not come up with an interesting story. However, Bava is one of the few directors about whom the term “style over substance” can be used as a compliment. Bava knew how to make style into art and he certainly did that in Black Sabbath.
Later tonight, I’m going to watch Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath but before I do, I want to take a few minutes to review another one of Bava’s films, 1965’s sci-fi/horror hybrid Planet of the Vampires.
Taking place in the far future, Planet of the Vampires begins with two space ships receiving a distress call from an unexplored planet. While landing, the two ships are separated from each other. As the Argos lands, its crew is possessed by an unknown force and suddenly start trying to kill each other. Only the ship’s captain (Barry Sullivan, who gives a surprisingly good performance in a role that most actors would have just sleepwalked through) is able to resist and he manages to snap the rest of the crew out of their hypnotic state.
Once the Argos lands, search parties are sent out to find the other ship. They find themselves on a barren planet where the surface is obscured by a thick, multi-colored fog. As they wander through the planet, it quickly becomes apparent that they aren’t alone. The searchers may have left the ship as human but they return as something else all together. It all leads up to a surprisingly bleak conclusion.
If the plot of Planet of the Vampires sounds familiar, that’s because it’s probably one of the most influential, if not widely known, films of all time. The film has been imitated in several other, far more expensive films but few of them manage to capture Planet of the Vampires’ sense of isolation and impending doom. With this film, Bava again showed that he was one of the few directors wh0 could accomplish so much with so little. While this isn’t an actor’s film, fans of Italian horror will squeal with delight to see Ivan Rassimov pop up here in a small role.
I’ve mentioned Planet of the Vampires before on this site when I was giving 10 reasons why I hated Avatar. To me, Planet of the Vampires stands as proof that you don’t need a gigantic budget to make an effective horror (or sci-fi film). In fact, often times, all a huge budget does is shut down the audience’s imagination and quite frankly, nothing on film will ever be as impressive as what the audience can imagine. With Planet of the Vampires, all that Mario Bava had to create an alien world were two plastic rocks and a smoke machine. Working without the crutch of CGI, Bava had to pull off most of the film’s special effects “in camera,” and he would later say that one of the benefits of all that smoke was that it helped to obscure just how low budget this film was. In short, Bava was working under circumstances that James Cameron would refuse to even consider and yet Planet of the Vampires holds up better upon repeat viewings than Avatar ever will. The low-budget forced Bava to emphasize atmosphere over effects. Yes, this film has its share of gore (it’s an Italian horror film, after all) but ultimately, this is another example of a horror film that works because of what it doesn’t show. This is a film that exploits your imagination, working its way into the darker corners of your consciousness. Bava creates a palpable atmosphere of doom that makes Planet of the Vampires into a surprisingly effective film.
I just had to start out with this because it represents everything that I love about these old school exploitation trailers. It’s just so shameless and cheerful about it all. This film is from Herschell Gordon Lewis and it features ESP, a really kinda scary witch, and a random LSD trip. The title of this film also inspired the name of one of my favorite companies, Something Weird Video. (I make it a point to buy something from Something Weird every chance I get. My most recent Something Weird video is a film from the 60s called Sinderella and the Golden Bra. Haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet but with a title like that, how could it be bad?)
This is actually a really, really bad movie and I think the trailer goes on for a bit too long but it does have a few vaguely effective moments — i.e., when Dennis Christopher stares at the camera with half of his face painted. Plus, you can catch a young Mickey Rourke acting a lot like Michael Madsen.
3) Monster Shark (1984)
Now you may think that since this Italian film was directed by Lamberto Bava (credited here as John Old, Jr. because his father, Mario, was occasionally credited as John Old, Sr.) and has the word “shark” in the title that it’s yet another rip-off of Jaws. Well, joke’s on you because, as they state repeatedly in the trailer, “It’s not a shark!” Even if you didn’t know this was an Italian film before watching the trailer, it wouldn’t be hard to guess. First off, there’s the dubbing. Then there’s the scene of the film’s main character wandering around aimlessly. (Most Italian horror trailers feature at least one scene of someone just walking around.) And finally, there’s the fact that this is yet another trailer that uses a sped-up version of Goblin’s Beyond The Darkness soundtrack for its background music. While I haven’t seen this film yet, I plan to just to find out who Bob is.
Originally, I was planning on including the trailer for a Ted V. Mikels’ film called The Worm Eaters right here but I reconsidered because, quite frankly, The Worm Eaters is one of the most disgusting, stomach-churning things I’ve ever seen. I’m going to wait until I find five other equally disgusting trailers to feature it with and then I’m going to put them all up under the heading: 6 Trailers To Inspire Vomit. Until then, enjoy a far more pleasant trailer — Van Nuys Blvd. This trailer rhymes! I’m tempted to say that I could have written it but then again, I only write free verse poetry. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Van Nuys Blvd.
However, there was a darker side to Van Nuys Blvd. and here it is: Vice Squad, starring Wings Hauser. Eventually, I’ll review this film but until I do, check out our new friend Trash Film Guru’s review.
6) Crosstalk (1982)
We’ll conclude with the only thing scarier than Wings Hauser in Vice Squad — a computer that has not only witnessed a murder but enjoyed it!
It’s time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers. This week’s edition has no set theme beyond the fact that, in-between typing up the six trailers featured here, I was also trying on different outfits. Multi-tasking!
From 1970, it’s the debut film of Nicolas Roeg (though technically, he co-directed by Donald Cammell). Reportedly, acting in this film led to costar James Fox having a nervous breakdown.
This is the trailer for Mario Bava’s infamous, trend-setting giallo. Bava’s preferred title for this film was Bay of Blood though it was released under several titles, including Carnage and my personal favorite, Twitch of the Death Nerve.
This 1978 film is from the criminally underrated director Pete Walker. The trailer has a similar feel to Lamerto Bava’s A Blade in the Dark. Who is Jack Jones and was he actually an international singing sensation? So many questions.
This trailer is from 1968, which — if you’ve seen the trailer — is kind of one of those “well, duh” facts. Based on a book by my fellow Texan Terry Southern (hence, the tag line), the film features Walter Matthau, Richard Burton, Ringo Starr, Marlon Brando, and James Coburn all taking advantage of Ewa Aulin (who, much like James Fox in Performance, reportedly had a nervous breakdown as a result of making this film). The film was directed by Christian Marquand who, years later, would play the main French Plantation Guy in Apocalypse Now Redux.
So, last night, I was talking Oscar fashion over on twitter and, at one point, I somehow ended up promising that if I was ever nominated for an Oscar, I would wear an outfit based the fur bikini that Raquel Welch wore in the 1966 film One Million Years B.C. Well, everyone seemed to think that this was a pretty good idea on my part but it made me realize that I’ve never actually seen this movie. As I was already planning on going to Fry’s to buy the Criterion edition of Fish Tank, I decided to buy One Million Years B.C. as well. When I returned home, I kinda watched it.
I say “kinda” because One Million Years B.C. is probably one of the most draggy movies ever made and my mind wandered considerably whenever there wasn’t a dinosaur on-screen. The movie opens with a really pompous sounding narrator who explains 1) that One Million Years B.C. was a long time ago and 2) not much else. I mean, honestly, Mr. Narrator, I could have figured out we were dealing with prehistory just from the fact that there’s a bunch of dinosaurs wandering around. Anyway, the movie itself is about a caveman (played by a nicely rugged actor named John Richardson) who is exiled from his own savage tribe but who eventually ends up with Raquel Welch’s tribe. But then his new tribe gets sick of him and decides to exile him as well. This time, Welch goes off with him and they eventually join Richardson’s old tribe which then goes to war with Welch’s old tribe and then finally, a volcano explodes. Oh, and there’s a lot of dinosaurs wandering around as well. On rare occasions, they attack the cave people but, for the most part, they just put out the same aloof vibe as my cat does right after he eats.
Most of the film’s dinosaurs were created through stop motion animation and they’re fun to watch. However, for me, what truly made the film was a giant turtle that pops up about 30 minutes in. It’s trying to make its way back to the ocean and, for its trouble, a bunch of little cave people insist on throwing spears at it. But the turtle just kinda looks back at them and shrugs. What a cool turtle!
There’s a certain type of viewer — and we all know the type — who will complain that One Million Years B.C. commits the sin of 1) having dinosaurs existing at the same time of cavemen and 2) having all the different dinosaurs living together at the exact same time. And to those people, I think it’s high time that everyone just finally says, “Shut the fuck up.” I mean, seriously, instead of nitpicking every little cinematic detail, why don’t you concentrate on losing some weight before you drop dead of a heart attack?
Just a suggestion.
Oddly enough, this film has a weird connection to the James Bond film series in that, on the basis of their work here, both John Richardson (who also starred in Mario Bava’s classic Black Sunday) and Raquel Welch came close to being cast in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. However, the roles ended up going to George Lazenby and Diana Rigg instead. (Welch was also nearly cast as a Bond girl in Diamonds are Forever.) Though neither Welch nor Richardson ever became a part of the 007 franchise, Robert Brown (who plays Richardson’s father here) later played the role of M in a handful of Bond films.
This latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers was meant to have a theme. I was only going to include trailers of films that have been reviewed on the Hysteria Lives! website. Unfortunately, I ran in to some trouble with the New Year’s Evil trailer and I ended up going with a different trailer of a movie that hasn’t been reviewed on the site. So, yes, the theme kinda falls apart at the end. But anyway, let’s get things started…
Sergio Martino doesn’t get as much attention as Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Mario Bava but he made some giallo classics and this is one of them. Yes, the trailer’s in Italian but stick with it anyway. Also, the person who uploaded this to Youtube, included another trailer — this one for Lucio Fulci’s Lizard In A Woman’s Skin— after the end of the Mrs. Wardh trailer.
You can tell that this trailer from 1981 isn’t messing around because the birthday cake gets it! I saw this movie on TV a few years ago. The brain surgery scenes really freaked me out. Another thing that freaked me out was a scene where all the high school snobs decided to spend their night at a special showing of High Noon. Why couldn’t I have gone to high school with a bunch of film snobs? Seriously, life sucks.
All together now: “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t…” With all due respect to the very hot Eli Roth, that was my favorite of the fake trailers from Grindhouse. Anyway, Don’t is not a real film but Don’t Open The Door is. Exploitation film of the 70s and the 80s were always trying to tell us how to live our lives. Don’t stand by the window, don’t look in the basement, don’t go in the house, don’t go into the woods…alone, and now, apparently we can’t even open the freaking door. This actually reminds me of this time that we were visiting my grandma and I was up in the attic exploring and I heard my sisters downstairs calling out my name because they couldn’t find me so I tried to open the attic door and I accidentally yanked off the door knob. Agck! That was scary. But I survived and here’s the trailer…
4) Body Count (1987)
I haven’t seen this one so all of my information on it comes from what I’ve read online. Apparently, this was Italian director Ruggero Deodato’s attempt to make an American-style slasher film so, of course, it takes place at a summer camp. David Hess is in this one and apparently, he’s not playing the killer for once. Former Russ Meyer star Charles Napier is in this one too. As for why I love this trailer, just listen to narrator at the end of the trailer when he starts tossing out various taglines. It’s as if the film’s producers were arguing about which tagline to use and finally someone said, “Fuck it, just toss them all in there! Now, shut up and behave! It’s time for dinner!”
Horror will surround you … and we’re not just talking about the acting. I love it when trailers dare you to actually sit through the entire movie. (And, I should add, that I own Scalps on DVD and, bad acting aside, it’s actually a surprisingly effective little horror movie.)
I wanted to include the trailer for a film called New Year’s Evil here but the only one I could find had this huge advertising logo across the bottom of it. But while I searched, I came across the trailer for another New Year’s horror film, Bloody New Year. And you know what? I’ve seen New Year’s Evil and it sucks and it had a really nasty sort of sadism to it that makes you feel dirty after you watch it. So, fuck New Year’s Evil. Now, let’s all have a Bloody New Year!
Finally, since that Lizard in a Woman’s Skin extra actually means that there were 7 trailers in this edition as opposed to 6, I’m going to add one more bonus trailer so that we can end things on an even number. There’s no way I couldn’t take the opportunity to include Edgar Wright’s brilliant fake trailer, Don’t.
Hi there! Welcome to the first edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers for 2011. All 6 of our trailers in this edition are Italian. And, as always, most of them should be watched with caution and definitely not watched at work. (Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if Youtube yanked one or two of them offline within a week or so. So, watch while you can.)
This is actually one of Umberto Lenzi’s not that terrible movies. Which doesn’t mean it’s good. Just means that it’s not that terrible. This is the movie in which Lenzi manages to turn the Jonestown Massacre into a cannibal film. Ivan Rassimov, who looks like a Russian Charlton Heston, plays Jim Jones. Also, you might recognize the music because it ended up being used in about a 100 different Italian exploitation trailers.
One of the most misleading titles of all time as Warhol had very little to do with this film beyond lending Paul Morrissey and Joe Dallesandro. This is better known as Flesh For Frankenstien. The trailer really doesn’t do justice to the movie but I had to include it because, even if it’s not my favorite trailer, it’s a classic exploitation trailer in just the shameless way that Andy Warhol’s name is used to sell the film.
Believe it or not, this movie is actually a lot of fun. One of the stars is apparently a gay porn star but I’ve never been able to figure out who he’s playing in the film.
I had to finish out this all-Italian edition with a little Lucio Fulci. And I had to go with Murderock because it features a lot of dancing. The trailer is also memorable for revealing the identity of the killer.
I read earlier that film producer Dino De Laurentiis died on Wednesday. He was 91 years old and he either produced or helped to finance over a 150 movies. He started his career with Federico Fellini and went on to produce two of the iconic pop art films of the 60s, Roger Vadim’s Barbarella and Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik. Then in the 70s he went through the most infamous stage of his career when he produced several overblown “event” films like the 1976 remake of King Kong. However, even while De Laurentiis was devoting his time and effort to critically reviled attempts at spectacle, he was also supporting the visions of independent directors like David Lynch. In the 21st Century, De Laurentiis was probably best known for producing the Hannibal Lecter films.
De Laurentiis, born in Naples, was a Southern Italian and, not surprisingly, was one of those legendary, larger-than-life moguls who built his career walking on the thin line between the Mainstream and the Grindhouse. Hollywood is run by people who try to be De Laurentiis but De Laurentiis was the real thing.
Dino De Laurentiis, R.I.P.
(On a personal note, De Laurentiis produced one of my favorite films of all time, Bound. And I’m a fourth-Southern Italian myself. Southern Italians are the best.)
It’s the weekend and that can only mean that it’s time for another installment of my favorite grindhouse and exploitation trailers. This installment is devoted to films about women kicking ass.
From infamous director Russ Meyer comes this classic drive-in feature. I just love that title, don’t you? This was the original cinematic celebration of women kicking ass. As the lead killer, Tura Satana has to be seen to be believed. Whenever I find myself struggling with insecurity or fear, I just call on my inner Tura Satana. (All women have an inner Tura Satana. Remember that before you do anything you might regret later…)
This is another one of Russ Meyer’s films. Released in 1968, Vixen is best remembered for Erica Gavin’s ferocious lead performance. For me, the crazed narration makes the entire trailer.
I love this movie! Pam Grier battles the drug trade and kills a lot of people. When we talk about how a film can be both exploitive and empowering at the same time, Coffy is the type of movie that we’re talking about.
Before there was Ellen Page, there was Racquel Welch. Playing her boyfriend/manager in this film is Kevin McCarthy who was the lead in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. My mom used to love this movie.
This was the last film that Mario Bava ever directed and it’s one of my personal favorites. In the lead role, Daria Nicolodi gives one of the best performances in the history of Italian horror.
This is one of the greatest horror movies ever made and it reamins sadly neglected. You must see this film before you die (which, hopefully, will not be for a very long while).
Through the Shattered Lens 