Today’s music video of the day is for another song from Thom Yorke’s soundtrack to the upcoming Suspiria remake or rehash or reboot or whatever it is. I’m not really happy about the movie but I do like what I’ve heard of the soundtrack.
Enjoy!
Previous Suspiria Music Videos:
Count Dracula (played by Udo Kier) has a problem. In order to stay strong and healthy, he needs a constant supply of virgin blood. (Or, as Kier puts in, “weergen blood.”) Unfortunately, he lives in 1920s Romania and apparently, there just aren’t many virgins left in Eastern Europe.
However, Dracula’s assistant, Anton (Arno Juerging) has a solution. Dracula just needs to move to Italy! After all, Italy is the home of the Vatican and it’s just been taken over by Mussolini and the fascists. Surely, no one in Italy is having sex! Dracula should be able to find all the virgins that he needs in Italy!
So, Dracula climbs into his coffin and Anton drives him to Italy. Once they arrive, they meet an Italian land owner, Il Marchese di Fiore (played by Italian neorealist director Vittorio De Sica). The Marchese is convinced that Dracula is a wealthy nobleman and he says that Dracula can marry any of his four daughters. He assures Dracula that they’re all virgins but Dracula soon discovers that two of them are not. It turns out that, thanks to the estate’s Marxist handyman, Mario (Joe Dallesandro), it’s getting as difficult to find a virgin in Italy as it was in Romania!
After completing work on Flesh For Frankenstein, director Paul Morrissey and actors Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, and Arno Juerging immediately started work on Blood for Dracula. Though Blood for Dracula never quite matches the excesses of Flesh for Frankenstein, it still taps into the same satiric vein that provided the lifeblood that gave life to Flesh for Frankenstein. Once again, the sets and costumes are ornate. Once again, the frequently ludicrous dialogue is delivered with the straightest of faces. Once again, Udo Kier goes over-the-top as a famous monster. And, once again, Joe Dallesandro plays his role with a thick and anachronistic New York accent and he looks damn good doing it.
Ironically, one of the differences between Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula is that there’s quite a bit less blood in the Dracula film. Then again, that’s also kind of the point. Dracula literally can’t find any blood to drink and, as a result, he’s become weak and anemic. Udo Kier is perhaps the sickliest-looking Dracula in the history of Dracula movies. By the time that he meets the Marchese’s four daughters, he’s so sick that he literally seems like he might fade away at any second. As ludicrous as the film sometimes is, you can’t help but sympathize with Dracula. All he wants is some virgin blood and the communists aren’t even willing to let him have that. Blood for Dracula is, in its own twisted way, a much more melancholy film than Flesh For Frankenstein. Or, at least it is until the finale, at which point one character gets violently dismembered but still continues to rant and rave even after losing the majority of their limbs.
When Blood for Dracula was released in 1974, it was originally called Andy Warhol’s Dracula, though Warhol had little to do with the movie beyond allowing his name to be used. As with Flesh for Frankenstein, Antonio Margheriti was credited in some prints as a co-director, largely so the film could receive financial support from the Italian government.
Sadly, there would be no Andy Warhol’s The Mummy or Andy Warhol’s Wolfman. One can only imagine what wonders Kier, Dallesandro, and Morrissey could have worked with those.
Here are just a few things to be experienced in 1973’s Flesh For Frankenstein:
A fanatical Baron von Frankenstein (Udo Kier) needs a brain for his latest creation so his assistant, Otto (Arno Jurging) goes out with a giant pair of hedge clippers, snips off a divinity student’s head, and then runs off with it.
An incredibly sexy farmhand named Nicholas (Joe Dallesandro) speaks with a thick and very modern New York accent, despite living in Germany in the 19th century. Meanwhile, everyone around him speaks with an extra-thick German accent.
The Baron announces to Otto, “To know life, you must fuck death in the gall bladder!”
Nicholas has an affair the Baroness von Frankenstein (Monique van Voreen), who in one scene loudly sucks on Nicolas’s armpit.
The Baron gets rather obviously turned on while removing organs from a body.
The Baron’s children decapitate their dolls and take a perverse pleasure in being cruel. Some of this could possibly be because the Baron and the Baroness are also brother and sister.
The Baron rants and raves about how, by bringing the dead back to life, he will be able to create the perfect Serbian race, one that will only take orders from him and which will …. well, do something. The Baron has a lot of plans but he’s not always clear on just what exactly the point of it all is.
Speaking of points, one character eventually gets a spear driven through his back an out of his chest. Despite the fact that his heart is literally hanging off the tip of the spear, he still manages to get out a very long and very emotional monologue before dying.
Now, of course, you have to remember about that scene with the heart is that Flesh for Frankenstein was originally shot in 3D, which means that audiences in 1973 would have literally had that heart dangling over their heads while waiting for that endless monologue to stop. How the audience would react to that would have a lot to do with whether or not they were in on the joke.
And make no mistake, Flesh For Frankenstein is not a film that’s meant to be taken too seriously. It’s a satire of …. well, just about everything. Baron Frankenstein, with his sexual hang-ups and his obsession with creating a perfect male and a perfect female so that they can have perfect Serbian children, is the ultimate parody of the mad scientists who usually populate these films and Udo Keir gives a truly mad performance in the role. One need only compare Keir’s Frankenstein to the coldly cruel version that Peter Cushing played in Hammer’s “serious” Frankenstein films to see just how much Keir embraced the concept of pure batshit insanity. Whereas Keir joyfully overacts every moment that he’s on-screen, Joe Dallesandro pokes fun at the traditional image of the strong, silent hero by barely reacting to anything at all. The film’s nonstop flow of blood parodies the excesses of the horror genre while Nicholas’s affair with the Baroness satirizes not only Marxism but also an infinite number of European art films. Flesh for Frankenstein is a film that is so deliberately excessive that it often feels as if it’s daring you to stop watching. Of course, you don’t stop watching because you know the movie will probably start making fun of you as soon as you turn your back on it.
Flesh For Frankenstein is also known as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. Warhol actually had little do with the movie, beyond lending his name. The film was directed by Paul Morrissey, who served as Warhol’s “house director” during the Factory years. The best Factory films were defined by the combination of Warhol’s detachment with Morrissey’s political and religious conservatism. With Flesh For Frankenstein, Morrissey not only satirizes what he viewed as being the excesses of European and horor cinema but he also satirizes the fact that there’s an audience for his satire. Flesh For Frankenstein is definitely not a film for everyone but, in this case, that can be considered a compliment. It’s an audacious and wonderfully over-the-top movie, one that would be followed by Blood for Dracula.
One final note: Because the film was made in Italy, Antonio Margheriti was credited as being a co-director on the film with Morrissey. While Margheriti did do some second unit work, it is generally agreed that he was not, in any way, a co-director. Apparently, Margheriti was credited as being a co-director so that the film could receive financial aid from the Italian government. This scheme later led to both Margheriti and producer Carlo Ponti being charged with criminal fraud.
Tonight, on Kolchak….
Young college students are dying of heart attacks and Carl Kolchak is on the case! Could it be just a coincidence? Could it be drugs? Could it be anything other than a Sumerian demon? Well, if you know Kolchak, you already know the answer to that question!
This episode originally aired on February 7th, 1975.
Enjoy!
Sadly, there are some films that I will probably never get to see and this is one of them.
There’s a lot of reasons that films become lost. Some films have been purposefully destroyed. Some have been merely forgotten. Unfortunately, it took several decades for people to understand that films could also be art. Back during the silent era, I imagine people would have laughed at the idea that someone in 2018 would have any interest in watching a film that was made in 1920.
1920 was the year that a German-Italian production company produced Il mostro di Frankenstein. It was one of the first film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s classic monster. (It wasn’t the first, of course. Thomas Edison produced his version of Frankenstein in 1910 and there may have even been earlier versions.) It was a silent film. It reportedly starred the hulking Umberto Guarracino as Frankenstein’s Monster while the Baron was played by a former circus performer name Luciano Albertini. (Albertini also produced the film.) The completed film reportedly ran afoul Italy’s then-stringent censorship laws and so much footage was cut that the final version only ran 39 minutes.
Il mostro di Frankenstein is considered to be a lost film, one that is now remembered for being one of the few Italian horror films released before the 1950s. (As a genre, horror was frowned upon by both the Vatican and Mussolini, which meant the while the genre thrived across the world, Italian horror spent several decades moribund.) In fact, I’ve read that Il mostro di Frankenstein was the last horror film to be produced in Italy until Riccardo Freda’s I Vampiri was released in 1957. I can’t say for sure whether that’s true or not but it makes for a good story.
Sadly, I’ll probably never see Il mostro di Frankenstein. But, hey — if anyone in your family ever worked in the Italian film industry, why don’t you go up to your attic and take a look? If it’s in your basement, get it out. And if you find it in a storage locker, don’t throw it away because you’ve got a piece of history that many of us would like to see.
Until that happens, we only have this one screenshot to let us know that there was once a silent Italian film about Frankenstein and his monster.
Oh my God, this is an exhausting movie.
Directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, the 1994 film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein sticks pretty closely to the plot (if not the tone) of Mary Shelley’s original novel. What that means is that this movie includes a lot of the good stuff that often seems to get left out of other Frankenstein adaptations. For instance, we learn more about the life of Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) before he created his monster. We find out about his family and his troubled romance with Elizabeth (Helena Bonham-Carter). Victor’s good friend Henry Clerval (Tom Hulce) is included and so is Professor Waldman (John Cleese) and Captain Robert Walton (Aidan Quinn).
It also means that we get to watch as the Monster (Robert De Niro) flees into the wilderness and later befriends a kindly blind man (Richard Briers). The Monster, as always, is happy until mankind interferes and treats him unfairly. The Monster learns to speak and, after it learns to read, it discovers who created it and it sets out for revenge. We watch as everyone that Victor Frankenstein cares about dies, all as a result of his desire to play God.
And yet, while you have to respect the fact that Branagh tried to stay (more or less) true to the plot of the original novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a bit of a chore to sit through. A huge part of the problem is that Kenneth Branagh cast himself to play Victor Frankenstein. In the book, Victor is a rather sickly character and his desire to create life is probably as much inspired by his own poor health and the death of the people close to him. In the film, Branagh plays Victor as being almost a Byronic figure, with the camera emphasizing his flowing hair and his muscular physique. Even when Victor does push himself to the point of death in his research, you never really believe it because Branagh the director isn’t willing to let Branagh the actor look weak or malnourished. However, turning Victor into an alpha male also turns him into a jerk. Unlike say Colin Clive or Peter Cushing in The Curse of Dracula, you never find yourself sympathizing with Kenneth Branagh’s Victor.
And then you have Robert De Niro as the Monster. Now, really, I imagine that — in 1994 — the idea of De Niro playing the Monster seemed like an obvious one. I mean, the Monster is a great role and De Niro’s one of the greatest actors who ever lived so if anyone could find a new and interesting way to play Frankenstein’s Creation, it would have to be De Niro, right?
But no. First off, De Niro may be a great actor but it’s hard to accept the idea that a monster created in Germany would speak with a New York accent. Even under tons of makeup, De Niro does an okay job of projecting the Monster’s rage but, unlike Karloff or Christopher Lee, De Niro never seems to really connect with the character. You never forget that you’re watching a heavily made-up Robert De Niro. De Niro often seems to be rather detached from what’s happening on screen.
Branagh’s directs in a manner that can only be called operatic, which turns out to be a mistake. The story is already dramatic enough without Branagh spinning the camera around every few moments. There’s not a subtle moment to be found in the film but unfortunately, Frankenstein is a story that needs just a little bit of subtlety. It all gets to be a bit overwhelming and, by the time the Monster is literally ripping a heart out of a body, you’re just like, “Enough already!”
It’s just a really tiring movie.
1957’s I Was A Teenage Werewolf combines two genres that were very popular in the late 50s.
On the one hand, it’s a film about a teenage rebel. Tony Rivers (Michael Landon) is a teenager that means well but he keeps losing his temper. If he can’t learn to control his anger, he could very well be looking at a life behind bars.
On the other hand, it’s also a horror film. When Tony visits a hypnotist (Whit Bissell), the end result is Tony turning into a werewolf and going on a rampage, all while still wearing his letterman jacket.
All in all, this is a pretty fun little movie. You can check out my review of it by clicking here.
And you can watch the movie below!
Well, it’s not quite Halloween but it will be Halloween very soon! To be honest, Halloween starts the weekend before the 31st. So, happy Halloween!
This song, of course, comes from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. There’s many different covers that you can find floating around YouTube. This is one of my favorites.
Enjoy!
Tonight on Kolchak….
There’s a headless man riding a motorcycle, using a sword to behead members of a rival motorcycle gang! And …. well, really what else do you need to know? When a headless cyclists start killing people, you don’t worry about why. There is a reason however and everyone’s favorite nervous journalist is going to find out what it is!
This episode originally aired on January 31st, 1975!
Enjoy!
In 1981, The Evil Dead was released in Italy as La Casa.
In 1987, Evil Dead II was released in Italy as La Casa 2.
In 1988, La Casa 3 was released in Italy and retitled Ghosthouse for distribution in America and the UK.
That same year, La Casa 4 was also released in Italy and it was called Witchery in America.
And then, finally, 1990 saw the release of La Casa 5.
Directed by Claudio Fragasso (who, outside of Italy, is probably best known for directing Troll 2), La Casa 5 was also known as Beyond Darkness* and it was the third “unofficial” Italian sequel to Evil Dead. Like both Ghosthouse and Witchery, it actually has nothing to do with any of the Evil Dead films. Instead, it plays out more like a weird mix of Poltergeist and The Exorcist.
Let’s say that you’re an aging clergyman and you’re living in a house that appears to be haunted by the ghosts of several dead witches. Despite your own faith, you haven’t been able to exorcise their evil spirits. What should you do!? When Rev. Jonathan (Steven Brown) finds himself in that situation, his solution is to sell the house to one of his former students, Rev. Peter (Gene LeBrock). Jonathan figures that Peter’s faith is so strong that he’ll be able to exorcise the house in no time! Of course, Jonathan doesn’t actually bother to tell Peter that the house is possessed by evil. Instead, Jonathan just lets Peter and his family discover that on their own.
And discover that they do, as the house quickly reveals itself to be haunted. Meat cleavers fly across rooms. Radios make strange noises. Dishes are shattered. A strange group of black-shrouded women are spotted hanging around upstairs. It might have something to do with the big black swan statute that’s sitting in the kid’s room. Or maybe it has something to do with the strange light that’s streaming out of one of the closets. Eventually, Peter’s son gets sucked into the netherworld and, when he returns, he’s not only possessed but he keeps trying to kidnap Peter’s daughter as well!
Despite being told to avoid him, Rev. Peter is eventually forced to turn to another of Rev. Jonathan’s students, Father George (David Brandon). Ever since he was forced to spend time with a serial killer who ate children, George has been struggling with his faith. Will George be strong enough to help Peter exorcise the demon that has possessed his son?
(Incidentally, Peter’s son is played by Micheal Stephenson, who also starred in Troll 2 and who more recently directed the documentary about that film, Best Worst Movie.)
Watch and find out what happens! Or don’t. Actually,if you’ve seen The Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, or Poltergeist, you’ll be able to guess everything that happens in this film. Even the final twist has been borrowed from countless other horror films. The presence of Claudio Fragasso in the director’s chair might tempt some to watch this in the expectation that it’ll be another “WTF!?” romp like Troll 2 but Beyond Darkness is actually pretty dull.
Beyond Darkness was the last Italian entry in the La Casa franchise but it was not the last La Casa film. When the American horror film House II was released in Italy, it was retitled La Casa 6. This was followed by La Casa 7, which was actually an American slasher film called The Horror Show.
And with that, the La Casa series finally ended.
* While we’re on the topic of titles, Beyond Darkness should not be confused with 1979’s brilliant Buio Omega, which was released in English-speaking territories as Beyond The Darkness and which was directed, under the pseudonym Joe D’Amato, by Aristide Massaccesi.
Through the Shattered Lens 