Contemporary Time Lord

DOCTOR WHO - THE GREEN DEATH (1973)
DOCTOR WHO - DEATH TO THE DALEKS (1974)

THE GREEN DEATH is primarily recalled as 'the one with the maggots.' In certain scenes, these phallic creatures were actually condoms.

CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO was successful combining adventures with a subtle critique of contemporary issues. In THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH, Terry Nation capitalised on wartime memories by depicting the Time Lord's famous foes as space Nazis. The Doctor's other chief nemesis, the Cybermen, arrived in THE TENTH PLANET reflecting anxieties about organ replacement and cosmetic surgery. And in THE CURSE OF PELADON, a backward planet's attempt to join a Galactic Federation would have been easy to decode for the pros and cons of Britain's membership of the EEC. It is, however, THE GREEN DEATH which lodges most in the memory with its ecological awareness, as The Doctor (John Pertwee) and assistant Jo Grant (Katy Manning) battle mutated insects and giant, man-eating maggots created by toxic waste in the Welsh mining village of Llanfairfach. The villains are Global Chemicals - whose director has been taken over by BOSS, a computer with a will of its own - and the heroes environmentalists.

As well as the memorable monsters and political undertones, THE GREEN DEATH is also remembered as Jo's farewell show, after she falls in love with Professor Jones (Stewart Bevan) and decides to leave UNIT to accompany him up the Amazon. Welsh viewers may not be too impressed by their portrayal (who say "Boyo" and "Blodwyn" and indulge in clichéd banter about rugby) but the parting between the Doctor and Jo is genuinely sad, and like watching a break-up unfold on national television ("so the fledgling flies the coop"). Pertwee and Manning are at their best here - speaking in hushed, barely audible voices – and you can tell that both actors were emotionally moved when shooting this scene. The final images of The Doctor downing his drink and leaving the party before driving off in Bessie packs more raw sentiment than anything in the blitzkrieg tradition of the modern-era reboot.

The Doctor and Bellal (Arnold Yarrow) explore the corridors of the Exxilon city in DEATH TO THE DALEKS. The duo have to pass a series of deadly tests, including using 'Venusian hopscotch' on one particular obstacle.

1970s Britain was a decade of strikes - postal workers, miners, dustmen - and mirroring this institutional collapse was the first episode of Nation's DEATH TO THE DALEKS. Broadcast five days before the General Election defeat of Edward Health, amid the power cuts of the three-day week, there is something particularly resonant about a tale set on a planet drained of power. The TARDIS arrives on Exxilon, where all electrical energy has been interrupted by an unknown force. The Doctor (Pertwee) meets an Earth Marine expedition, who tell him that the planet is rich in Parrinium, the antidote for a plague that is sweeping the galaxy. The Doctor's assistant Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) is captured by a group of savage Exxilons, who take her to their cave to be sacrificed for defiling their city. A group of Daleks land on the planet, also eager for the Parrinium, but their weapons are rendered useless by the drain. The Doctor and the expedition enter an uneasy alliance with the Daleks against the Exxilons, but the Daleks develop mechanical firepower and plan to take all of the Parrinium for themselves.

This four part serial is one of the quirkiest of all Dalek tales - in one scene the Dalek's use a model TARDIS as target practice - and a vast improvement on Nation's tendency to regurgitate the same old plot. The central concept of a city as a living, maintaining organism is fascinating; with the once-advanced Exxilon race giving the sentient structure a brain, it had no need of those who had created it. Subsequently, the Exxilons have reverted to the level of a Stone Age tribe, worshipping the city as their governing deity. Unfortunately, the model work when this piece of alien architecture disintegrates is excruciating, as is the incidental music which accompanies sequences of Dalek movement. Additionally, two of DEATH TO THE DALEKS' three cliffhanger endings are not cliffhangers at all: at the finale of the first episode, the proposed punchline of the Dalek's inoperative weapons is evident before the credits roll, and the third episode ends inexplicably on a red and white patterned floor.

"God is Dead"

THE BUNKER (2001)
DEATHWATCH (2002)

THE BUNKER is rich in flashbacks but low on chills.

ONE of the most popular sub-genres of horror is the supernatural war scenario, particularly German zombies. A precursor to Nazisploitation, THE FROZEN DEAD resurrected members of the Third Reich by attaching their severed heads to new bodies; spirits of an SS torture ship haunted DEATH SHIP; goggle-wearing undead rose from the depths in SHOCK WAVES; German soldiers killed by the French Resistance were dumped in a ZOMBIE LAKE; and in DEAD SNOW, a group of Norwegian students battle Nazi zombies in search for hidden gold. One of the strongest entries in this category is the previously reviewed OUTPOST, where mercenaries explore a bunker once used by Nazis to conduct experiments on reality manipulation and reanimation. The two horror-war hybrids under consideration here are less sensationalist that these previous films, made by first-time directors and both hampered by flat scripts.

Rob Green's THE BUNKER is set on the German-Belgian border during the death throes of WWII, where German soldiers on the run from swiftly advancing Americans seek refuge in a munitions complex. The Nazi troops - who include intensely devoted Schenke (Andrew Tiernan) and reluctant Captain Baumann (Jason Flemyng) - discover that the bunker is attached to an incomplete series of tunnels. The original tenants warn against venturing into the maze, which is supposedly haunted by Jewish workers killed for refusing to finish their work. Living up to its opening Nietzsche quote "If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you," THE BUNKER is a tediously dull affair. The endless, edgy anguish of the infantrymen - who share a guilty secret that in itself is driving them mad - builds to a payoff which never arrives. Fans of war or horror will feel let down by the distinct lack of violence, though the opening sprint for safety is accompanied by a chilling sound design of bullets travelling through air and flesh. Ultimately it is difficult to view any film where seven German soldiers are all played by actors with a range of British accents.

The trench of DEATHWATCH act as a metaphor of 
reanimated evil, regurgitating its warring factions.

The British/German co-production DEATHWATCH - shot almost entirely on location in a field in Prague - is by far the stronger of the two. After the chaos of a battle on the Western Front, 1917, the British soldiers of Y Company find themselves enveloped by a mysterious mist; lost and without communication, they emerge to discover a deserted German trench. Convinced they have broken through enemy lines, they decide to secure the rat-infested network and begin to explore it – only to find mutilated bodies amongst the warren of muddy tunnels. After the rest of the men lose their minds under the influence of supernatural forces and bleeding mud, the underage volunteer of the group enters a hole which suggests that the preceding events are hallucinations of a dying brain.

Director Michael J. Bassett conjures unsettling images such as undead mud-men and corpses covered in barbed wire, and with its constant, rain-soaked pestilence - one character has his gangrenous legs eaten by rats - DEATHWATCH is a sobering reminder of real-life horrors that action-heavy combat movies blind us to. Although the performances are stoic, the narrative is negated by too many character cliches: the underage conscript Private Charlie Shakespeare (Jamie Bell, the BILLY ELLIOT star who was almost blown up during production), the class war evoked by Captain Jennings (Laurence Fox), the thoughtful but sympathetic Sargeant Tate (Hugo Speer), religious fanatic Bradford (Hugh O'Conor) and psychotic Quinn (Andy Serkis in typically scene-devouring mode). As grim as the First World War was, the most horrific moment comes when Starinski (Kris Marshal - light years from his role in MY FAMILY and the BT ads) - masturbates in an isolated part of the trench over some picture cards.

Kiss of Dracula

THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1963)
KISS OF EVIL (1966)
COUNTESS DRACULA (1971)

Isobel Black as Tania in THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE. Her first feature, the Edinburgh-born actress shifts effortlessly between beguiling and malevolence; as Tim Lucas notes in his Video Watchdog review, "[Tania] is never shown biting anyone out of hunger, but rather to indulge a childlike, yet severe, streak of sadism."

DON Sharp's THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE is a Hammer vampire film without Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee, but well worth investing your time. Shot with a colourful Gothic angle by Alan Hume, the setting is an isolated area of Bavaria, 1910. Honeymoon couple the Harcourts - Gerald (Edward de Souza) and Marianne (Jennifer Daniel) - experience car trouble and are forced to stay in the unfortunately named Grand Hotel, whose only other guest is reclusive alcoholic Professor Zimmer (Clifford Evans). Doctor Ravna (Noel Willman) - owner of the chateau that sits imposingly above the locale - invites them to dinner and their association with his seemingly charming family grow. When the pair attend a masked ball, however, they discover that Ravna is the head of a vampire cult. Zimmer performs a ceremony known as the Corpus Diabolo Levitum which forces "evil to destroy itself"; with the ritual taking the form of a swarm of vampire bats (apparently props purchased from Slough and Maidenhead branches of Woolworths), they smother Ravna and his gowned disciples.

THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE develops themes from Terence Fisher's magisterial BRIDES OF DRACULA. Teenage cult member Tania (Isobel Black) imitates Greta from the earlier film by trying to coax a newly buried initiate from the grave; Zimmer extrudes a bite similar to Cushing's branding iron scene; and Anthony Hinds' script also explores vampirism as a social disease/order. Additionally, there are direct transfers from dropped BRIDE sequences: Zimmer interrupting his own daughter's funeral to throw a spade through the coffin lid, and the climactic bat attack (a scene vetoed by Cushing on the grounds that Van Helsing would never evoke evil himself). But Sharp's film has attractions of its own, notably Black's performance: in one scene, Tania tears open the shirt of our hero, scoring her fingernails down his chest, upon which our quick-thinking leading man smears the blood in the form of a crucifix. 

Ingrid Pitt and Sandor Eles star in COUNTESS DRACULA.

Released with the tagline "Shocking! - Horrifying! - Macabre!" THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE was less so when NBC acquired the film from Universal in 1966. Considered too brazen for television viewing as it stood, most of the quirky erotica - and Zimmer's pre-credits shovel scene - was cut and replaced by specially shot footage in Los Angeles by Irving J. Moore, a director who would become synonymous with episodes of DALLAS and DYNASTY. Now titled KISS OF EVIL, these new, bland insertions - totalling around fifteen minutes to fill a two hour slot - tell of a local couple whose teenage daughter rebels when they attempt to prevent her attending the masked ball. The most interesting thing about the TV version is the casting: the mother is played by Virginia Gregg, who gained fame by voicing Mrs Bates in PSYCHO, while the daughter is portrayed by Sheilah Wells, once flatmate of Sharon Tate.

COUNTESS DRACULA is Hammer's pedestrian take on the legend of Elizabeth Báthory, a countess of Hungarian nobility who allegedly killed and bathed in the blood of young virgins to retain her beauty. Made by two Hungarian émigrés working in England - producer Alexander Paal and director Peter Sasdy - it tells of Countess Elisabeth Nádasdy (a robust but dubbed Ingrid Pitt), who discovers that her youth and libido can be temporarily restored if she bathes in the blood of young, virgin women. Her steward and lover Captain Dobi (Nigel Green) kidnaps and murders local girls, whilst she pursues Imre Toth (Sandor Eles), a young soldier. As a cover for her crimes while in her rejuvenated state she takes the identity of her own daughter, a plan that is complicated when her actual daughter Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down) returns home. Despite Báthory's blood-drenched legacy, the production is more historical drama/fairy tale, as Jeremy Paul's script focuses on the aging, widowed Countess. The handsome sets and costumes - inherited from ANNE OF A THOUSAND DAYS - give the film a splendid tableaux, but Sasdy's theme of the disintegrating family unit was much more successful in TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA.

Mindscape of the Comic Gods

THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE (2003)
GRANT MORRISON: TALKING WITH GODS (2010)

On his fortieth birthday, writer Alan Moore turned to magic.

DEZ Vylenz's THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE consists of a seventy-eight minute monologue, in which comic writer and magus Alan Moore talks about his life, career and beliefs from his sitting room. Vylenz illustrates Moore's profound words with comic images, recreations, animation and shots of Northampton, and with no testimonials from others the documentary is an intimate yet dense affair. The subject evaluates changes in communication and fame - lamenting the one-hit wonders who burn out and feed the press - and also the importance of acknowledging self, at one point questioning if drugs, alcohol, TV et al are in fact desperate attempts to shy away from such responsibilities. Ultimately, Moore wallows towards a rudderless world driven by multiplying strands of information: "in the beginning was the word."

Moore has introduced human grime - yet high emotion - into the graphic medium. Grant Morrison - "the rock star of comics" - has created the opposite, celebrating superheroes and imposing a forceful sentientality. GRANT MORRISON: TALKING WITH GODS - directed by Patrick Meany, the author of Our Sentence is Up, which examined Morrison's The Invisibles - takes an in depth look at the mind of the man behind such pivotal titles as We3, Final Crisis and All Star Superman. Here is a more rounded piece than Vylenz's, as we are introduced to an array of writers, artists and other eccentric characters from Morrison's world. An infinitely imaginative creator and explorer of consciousness, Morrison possesses a humbleness that keeps him from pretentiousness. In an alarming sequence, Morrison reveals previously little known details about the origins of his ongoing feud with Moore: allegedly, Glasgow's infant terrible approached Northampton's most famous resident with permission to take over the Marvelman strip in Warrior, only to receive a Mafia-like missive.

Since assuming control over Batman in 2007, Grant Morrison has orchestrated the Caped Crusader's demise in Batman R.I.P., charted the exploits of replacements Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne in Batman & Robin, mapped the Return of Bruce Wayne, and developed the Dark Knight ethos globally in Batman Incorporated.

From his early years as an isolated youth to his anarchic adulthood, GRANT MORRISON: TALKING WITH GODS flows beautifully, as the subject recalls how circumstance has affected himself and his works. He tells of spying on missile silos as a boy with his father, and being brought out into the night by his mother, shown a distant star and told, with no explanation, that that is where his family came from. What is most amazing about Morrison is how he has harnessed all the chaos in his life and moulded it into productive, creative energy. Turning to magic at a young age in order to gain some sense of influence, Morrison was always open to unconventional ways of living. It was when Arkham Asylum became a breakthrough hit on the back of Tim Burton's BATMAN that he finally had the monetary means of exploring sex and drugs at every worldly stop ("to see how close I could get to the complete and systematic derangement of the senses.")

Warren Ellis - who contributes some hilarious anecdotes to the documentary - describes Morrison perfectly, as a pragmatist: he simply identifies the things that work for him, and continues using them. Critical and commercial triumphs have allowed him a flamboyant lifestyle of travel, substance experimentation, cross-dressing and fetishism (Morrison lovingly recalls the Silver Age Flash to sport "the best boots ever.") In his book Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero, Morrison states that the 1966 Flash story 'The Flash Stakes His Life on - You!' is seminal in his mindset of blurring borders between fiction and non-fiction. While he has been branded a space case, his well-documented eccentricities have added to a mystique that complements his impressive - if sometimes near-impenetrable - body of non-linear storytelling.

Loudun Calling (Part II of II)

THE DEVILS (1971) DVD release
AMELIA AND THE ANGEL (1958)

The BFI's DVD of Ken Russell's THE DEVILS is a strong contender for home video release of the year. The fact that the film remains controversial today is a remarkable tribute to the conviction of Russell and his creative acolytes.

AS the British Board of Film Classification celebrates its 100th year, it is fitting that the subject of one of its most volatile battles - Ken Russell's fearsome masterpiece THE DEVILS - was released as a 2-disc BFI DVD on the 19th of March. In this set, the BFI give us the original British X cut, and not the restored and extended 2004 version that has been seen at a handful of film festivals. The second disc of extras include Paul Joyce's 2002 documentary HELL ON EARTH, DIRECTOR OF THE DEVILS - featuring candid Russell interviews and unique footage of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies recording his score - and an audio commentary with Russell, critic Mark Kermode, editor Mike Bradsell and Joyce. For those wondering how this DVD includes HELL ON EARTH - which contained the missing "Rape of Christ" footage from the film, yet not include it in the feature itself – the part of the documentary containing the notorious sequence has also been excised by the powers that be at Warner Brothers.

The "Rape of Christ" - running just over two minutes - was long presumed lost until Kermode discovered the fabled footage in a single canister of film in England. This Holy Grail of censored material also contained other cuts, including Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave) performing lewd acts with a charred bone from Father Grandier (Oliver Reed)'s remains. The "Rape of Christ" segment itself sees Sister Catherine (Catherine Willmer) tearing and burning pages from the Bible while Sister Agnes (Judith Paris) frantically strokes a giant candle between her thighs. Naked nuns then abuse Christ as Father Mignon (Murray Melvin) scales a ladder and pleasures himself overlooking the orgy (here cinematographer David Watkin essentially creates a jerk-off zoom, as the camera darts in and out of the carnal activity to the rhythm of Mignon's strokes). This is all shown with repeated cuts of Grandier giving a solitary Communion, unaware of the pandemonium taking place within the walls of Loudun.

Mercedes Quadros - nine-year-old daughter of the Uruguayan ambassador to London - plays Amelia in Russell's AMELIA AND THE ANGEL.

The story of THE DEVILS is one that tells of battles not just with the censor, but also with the studio. Any film with a toxic mix of religion and politics would be a target, especially when originating from an increasingly conservative American financier (for the United States, it is rumoured that Warners ordered Bradsell to remove every nipple and pubic hair). After Russell showed his cut to the BBFC, the board couldn't release the film intact on grounds that "it would have been subject to the Obscene Publications Act," even though they aired no reservations with the shooting script. As stated in Joyce's absorbing - though re-edited - companion piece, not including the "Rape of Christ" rips the spine from THE DEVILS, as this scene is integral to the narrative both dramatically and philosophically: the debauchery shows the exploitative level of which the authorities aimed to achieve, reducing the easily manipulative nuns - women with no vocation or personal development - to play their game.

The DVD also includes Russell's redemptive 1958 short AMELIA AND THE ANGEL. This 16mm piece sees Amelia (Mercedes Quadros) scouring the streets of London looking for a replacement pair of angel wings for her school play, after she steals the initial set which are subsequently damaged beyond repair. Quadros, with her long dark hair and probing eyes, gives a performance which carries the simple narrative, and its many artistic flourishes skillfully shadow its minuscule budget and library music. On the outside, hand-held camera mimics a child's eye view of the crowded locality; here, Russell is clearly influenced by Albert Lamorisse's celebrated 1956 short THE RED BALLOON, about a little boy who triumphs over adversity in Paris's mean streets. Internally, the opening choreography of the angel ballet beautifully draws on Russell's own training as a dancer, the butterfly wallpaper in Amelia's room openly mocks her loss, and the ascent of a robed, bearded artist into the heavens on a ladder has a much more wholesome conclusion than Mignon's "Rape of Christ" activity. 

Loudun Calling (Part I of II)

THE DEVILS (1971)

Vanessa Redgrave cackles and leers as hunchbacked Sister Jeanne of the Angels. Her demonic voice, implements of masturbation and even a spider-walk were all seen two years before THE EXORCIST.

SYNONYMOUS with the word maverick, Ken Russell has been referred to as "the Wild Man of the BBC," "the infant terrible of British cinema," and a "fish and chips Fellini." Drawing from a wealth of historic and literary references, Russell made some of the most bombastic yet beautifully photographed films in motion picture history. His informed sensationalism not only horrifies but inspires, producing a body of work that is as much smothered in an impish yet intellectual sense of humour as it is in the director's passions and neuroses. After early work as a stills photographer, Russell made a number of ground-breaking programmes for the BBC's MONITOR and OMNIBUS strands, broadcasts which set the scene for television to be considered a serious art form; and in the 1970s and 80s, he practically invented the pop video and provided a template for MTV. Critics have consistently labelled Russell's work as pretentious and frequently vulgar, yet there is always a creative energy which jolts the viewer into his peculiar phallic-worshiping world of gods and demons.

Originally written for United Artists until "somebody actually read the script," THE DEVILS was picked up by Warners, and Russell's screenplay is based on a play by John Whiting - staged in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961 - and Aldous Huxley's 1952 book The Devils of Loudun. THE DEVILS - described by Joseph Lanza in Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films as "postwar British cinema's greatest marvel and nightmare" - tells the shocking true story of political and religious persecution in 17th century plague-infested France. King Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) and Cardinal Richlieu (Christopher Logue) conspire to create a new France where Church and State act as one, and troops are sent to destroy the fortification of Loudun, which is vital to Richlieu's plan to demonise the Protestant faith and ensure that Catholicism is embraced throughout the territories. Father Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), the charismatic Jesuit priest of St Peter's Church, successfully rallies the citizens and halts the destruction.

Oliver Reed shines as Father Urbain Grandier. An otherwise unrelated Reed UK film - 1973's trippy class war oddity BLUE BLOOD - was bizarrely released in Italy as THE DEVILS, PART II.

What sounds like a dour historical drama unfolds into a frenzied pageant of gender-bending libertines, debauched exorcists, enthusiastically administered enemas and sado-masochist nuns. Grandier settles down with the virginal Madeleine de Brou (Gemma Jones), whom he marries in an unorthodox ceremony conducted by himself. Unknown to the priest, Sister Jeanne of the Angels (Vanessa Redgrave) - the hunchbacked Mother Superior of Loudun's Ursuline convent - is sexually obsessed with him and prays to Jesus to "take away my hump." After Grandier rejects an invitation to counsel her order and news reaches Jeanne of his marriage, the sister concocts jealous lies about Grandier visiting her in the form of an incubus. With the aid of sadistic medics Ibert (Max Adrian) and Adam (Brian Murphy), the chief exorcist of the Catholic Church Father Barre (Michael Gothard) tortures Jeanne into confessing herself possessed, and Grandier is arrested for diabolism and burned at the stake. Blistering and boiling, Grandier perishes, as Loudun is felled by explosives.

Though performances are uniformly excellent, this is Reed's finest hour, a stoic portrayal that provides the film with a linear path between the outrages and extremities. An anti-intellectual and dyslexic, Reed relied on Russell's simplistic method of direction, instructing the actor to give a take "Moody 1, Moody 2 or Moody 3." Reed always acknowledged limitations in his inimitable style - telling the director to "piss off" when asked to recite sixteenth-century Latin - and even though he despised the stage, Reed delivers speeches of great gravitas here, but such power is even diluted in one scene by cutting away to the theatrics of the King taking shots at Protestants dressed as blackbirds. Its a contrast you can either hate or love; hate because it deflects from the rhythm of Grandier, love because it shows a contrast of convictions at the centre of the film. Whatever your conclusions, it means you are undoubtedly watching a Ken Russell film.

Sister Jeanne licks the wounds of Grandier 
envisioned as Christ in one of her feverish fantasies.

THE DEVILS acts as a perfect storm of Russell at the height of his creativity, the beautifully lit cinematography of David Watkin, sublime set design by Derek Jarman, and a discordantly effective score by Peter Maxwell Davies. Similar to the outrage that encompassed MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN, THE DEVILS was roundly condemned as being anti-Church, but both works show the genuine mistrust in organisations which have the power to corrupt and distort. As with much of Russell, controversy has clouded the true value of his work: the male wrestling sequence between Alan Bates and Reed in WOMEN IN LOVE generated a tabloid campaign of outrage while its literary origins helped it past the censors, yet THE DEVILS was a target for lasting interference from its inception. During the shoot at Pinewood, stories circulated about the extras - overstimulated by naked nuns and a general environment of permissiveness - who manhandled the actresses and committed at least one confirmed sexual assault. When THE DEVILS was released as an X certificate - deleting the infamous "Rape of Christ" sequence - it was still banned outright by seventeen local councils, and BBFC chief examiner John Trevelyan resigned from his post the following month.

Unsurprisingly, THE DEVILS caused religious uproar. The Festival of Light picketed cinemas, in Rome polizia confiscated prints, and the Catholic Film Office branded the film "C for Condemned," "for turning serious historical fact into a drug-induced cinematic experience" and its "objectionable use of religious symbols reduced to flippant pop iconography." THE DEVILS also produced a scolding critical barrage: Newsweek's Paul D. Zimmerman concluded that the work demonstrated how Russell "has gone beyond extravagance to insanity"; The Iconoclast said it had "all the taste and restraint of a three-day gang bang"; and The Evening Standard's Alexander Walker provided a more personal attack by claiming its vistas "look like the masturbatory fantasies of a Catholic boyhood." Russell later hit Walker over the head with a rolled-up copy of the offending review on a late-night BBC news programme, before storming out of the studio.

Genius, madman, or both? Exploring Catholicism, sexual excess and kitsch, Ken Russell described himself as the saviour of the British film industry.

Over the centuries, scholars have been divided in their attempts to explain exactly why a convent came to believe that they had been overwhelmed by sorcery. One theory has the nuns driven to their fervour by accidentally ingesting ergot - a fungus which contains an LSD-like chemical on rye bread which has been allowed to dampen and warm. Ergot has also been liberally mentioned as a driving force for the Salem witch trials, and inspiration behind the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. But the most widely accepted notion is that the nuns were manipulated by politicians and priests within a hysteria which endures under long-term stress in captive environments. Over forty years later, THE DEVILS, in itself, exists with an aura of social epidemic; it is the film maker's one and only political statement, and a timeless one. "This is not the age of manners" Russell told Time Magazine in 1971, "this is the age of kicking people in the crotch and telling them something and getting a reaction. I want to shock people into awareness. I don't believe there's any virtue in understatement."

Birth of Amicus

THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960)

In an astonishing final sequence, Tom Naylor uproots a graveyard cross and stumbles toward an intended sacrifice; as the shadow of the cross falls upon cowled satanic acolytes, they combust.

IN 1692 the small village of Whitewood, Massachusetts, sees the burning of Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel) and consort Jethro Keene (Valentine Dyall) for witchcraft. Jumping to the modern day, Professor Driscoll (Christopher Lee) recommends his hometown of Whitewood as an ideal place for student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) to research her paper on the black arts. Staying at the Ravens Inn Hotel - which is managed by Mrs Newless (also played by Jessel) at the exact spot where the burnings took place - Nan discovers that all the other guests only appear as darkness falls, hears chanting beneath the floorboards of her room, and is abducted into the catacombs. Nan’s brother Richard (Dennis Lotis) and her boyfriend Bill (Tom Naylor) investigate her disappearance; while Bill suffers a car accident and remains on the sidelines, Richard meets Patricia (Betta St. John), the daughter of the aging local Reverend (Norman Macowan), and discovers that Selwyn still presides over a coven in the locale.

Working alongside British company Vulcan, Americans Milton Subotsky (who co-produces and provides the treatment) and partner Max J. Rosenberg would later found Amicus, and many horror historians look upon THE CITY OF THE DEAD as the first unofficial Amicus release. If only that studio continued with such quality; amusingly Driscoll states early on "the basis of fairy tales is reality, basis of reality is fairy tales," which acts as a much more apt mandate for Subotsky's later films of the fantastic. At a time when Hammer had established the colour period horror film, THE CITY OF THE DEAD is a present era monochrome gem, drawing from the stage bound atmospherics of Val Lewton. Consequently, the film exists in a TWILIGHT ZONE-like alternative universe, directed with finesse by John Moxey, who is greatly assisted by the atmospheric photography of Desmond Dickinson. On the down side the picture suffers from laden performances and Ken Jones' jarringly inappropriate partial jazz score.

Released in America as HORROR HOTEL with the tag "just ring for Doom Service!," this seemingly acknowledged the film's narrative similarities to PSYCHO. A hit in Britain, the black and white film suffered in the US, with the distributor cutting the picture and inserting 3-D footage from Julian Roffman's THE MASK.

The major bone of contention with THE CITY OF THE DEAD is the connection to PSYCHO. Like Alfred Hitchcock's chiller, a young woman travels to a hotel, only be be killed in the middle of the feature. Another similarity are friends embarking to find her as heroine 2 narrowly escapes with her life; even the final shot of Mrs Newless' flame-ravaged corpse echoes the mummified Mrs Bates in her rocking chair. In his book English Gothic, Jonathan Rigby surprisingly fights Subotsky's corner by listing production start dates - THE CITY OF THE DEAD began on 12th October 1959 compared to PSYCHO's on 30th November - but, as Philip Nutman explains in Little Shoppe of Horrors #20, Robert Bloch's source novel was actually first published in 1959, with Hitchcock's film following the structure of the book. Amicus would later have a fruitful relationship with Bloch - and this certainly indicates that Subotsky would have been aware of the narrative - but the situation is clouded further by screenwriter George Baxt claiming it was his idea to prematurely kill Nan.

THE CITY OF THE DEAD was described by Lee as "an American Gothic with a Lovecraftian flavour," with Whitewood replacing that writers Dunwich as a cursed township. Indeed, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft have seldom been successfully transferred to the screen, struggling to find the right mix between hinted horrors and the money shot for expectant audiences. It is ironic that the most memorable slices of Lovecraftian cinema haven't been adaptations at all, rather films that have attempted to portray the author's trademark otherworldly ambiance. Yet while Whitewood may lack the true depth of the Cthulhu mythos, figures loom in and out of dense fog like chess pieces in a game of much greater scale. 

The Greatest Monsters of All

THE MONSTER CLUB (1980)

John Carradine, Vincent Price and friend 
fail to liven up this banal portmanteau.

PRODUCED by former Amicus supremo Milton Subotsky and directed by Hammer veteran Roy Ward Baker, THE MONSTER CLUB opens with horror writer Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine) being attacked by Eramus (Vincent Price), a vampire faint from lack of blood. Assuring the victim that his bite was not deep enough to cause effect, the grateful Eramus takes the author to the title establishment, where Eramus explains the basic rules of Monsterdom, and illustrates with three tales. We see the story of Angela (Barbara Kellerman), her bullish boyfriend George (Simon Ward), and Raven (James Laurenson), the gentle but repulsive Shadmock whose lethal power is his whistle. Secondly we learn of Lintom (Warren Saire), whose father (Richard Johnson) is a vampire. Lintom is having trouble at school and is befriended by what seems to be the local vicar, but is actually Pickering of Special Branch (Donald Pleasence), concerned with eradicating the undead. Finally, an American horror filmmaker (Stuart Whitman) is on a location scout, and finds what he is looking for in a village of ghouls. In the coda, Erasmus proposes Ronald for membership. But the creatures protest that Ronald is a human being, whereupon Erasmus, citing man's ingenuity for destruction, proves that humans are the greatest monsters of all.

Linking these stories are rock bands - including B.A. Robertson swathed in blue for 'I’m Just A Sucker For Your Love' and Stevie Lange singing the sordid tale of 'The Stripper' - while extras wearing mail-order monster masks gyrate their dance moves. Even in the wake of DAWN OF THE DEAD and FRIDAY THE 13TH, Subotsky ploughed on undeterred with his quaint, juvenile brand of terror. Moviegoers no longer identified with ghosts and vampires, let alone a joint full of them, but at least THE MONSTER CLUB doesn't take itself too seriously. The second story - re imagining the childhood of Subotsky as "Lintom Busotsky, vampire film producer" - has been justly cited as one of the worst stories to grace any anthology, and is certainly on the same disastrous scale as the killer piano from TORTURE GARDEN. But Pleasence relishes his role; no-one could have possibly, even in 1980, uttered lines like "I'll see you home from school. It’s alright, I’m not a stranger, I’m a clergyman" with such aplomb.

"You could still love me": a page of John Bolton artwork for the fabled THE MONSTER CLUB comic magazine.

The most interesting thing about THE MONSTER CLUB is its unorthodox evolution. With Price, Carradine and Pleasence signed, but no time to shoot any footage to promote the project at Cannes, Subotsky turned to Dez Skinn, publisher of House of Hammer magazine. The producer had always been envious that his main rival had a promotional outlet, and asked for a comic strip adaptation to sell the film. Writing the strip himself, Skinn assigned artists John Bolton (stories 1 and 3, plus framing sequences) and David Lloyd (for story 2). With a print run of just a few hundred copies, Subotsky had his tool to target buyers, but also had a document that would act as a unique storyboard and source book for the production. The strip later surfaced in Quality's relaunched Halls of Horror, and was also part of Eclipse's John Bolton's Halls of Horror comic under the title 'The Monster Cabaret'. Amusingly, Eclipse took the notion further by dovetailing Bolton's adaptations of THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF and ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. from House of Hammer into this two issue 'Micro-Series,' with Eramus acting as an EC-style horror host. For Bolton, his conceptual art lead to work on the movie itself, producing the striking 'Tree of Monsters' plaque in the club, and the 'Ghoul history' in the final segment.

House of the Uncanny

DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965)
THE UNCANNY (1977)

The Protagonist is revealed as Death himself in the climax of

Freddie Francis' DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS.

GESTATING from a proposed television series to be hosted by Boris Karloff, DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS - Amicus' first anthology - has dated badly. Despite a title that suggests a haunted house or wax museum setting, the framing device actually takes place in a train. Five men are thrown together - apparently by chance - into a railway carriage where they are joined by Dr Schreck (Peter Cushing), who offers to read their futures as prophesied by a tarot deck, his House of Horrors. Each of the five stories are based on horror archetypes: Werewolf deals with Jim Dawson (Neil McCallum), a young architect uncovering the tomb of Count Valdemar, who has cursed the descendants of the man who killed him; The Creeping Vine is the tale of Bill Rogers (Alan Freeman) and a sentient plant; Voodoo has jazz musician Biff Bailey (Roy Castle) visiting the West Indies and stealing the beat of black magic; Disembodied Hand sees painter Eric Landor (Michael Gough) persecuted by Brian Sewellesque art critic Franklyn Marsh (Christopher Lee); and Vampire tells of Dr Bob Carroll (Donald Sutherland), attempting to set up a surgery in a small town where there is a blood-sucker on the loose.

Opening with Schreck enquiring "room for one more in here?" - a direct reference to the Hearse Driver segment of Ealing's seminal portmanteau DEAD OF NIGHT - the stories are unintentionally funny and predictable, subscribing to Amicus co-founder and scriptwriter Milton Subotsky's child-like view of horror. Although there are virtually no exterior establishing shots, Francis' staging and Alan Hume's photography manage to convey some atmosphere and suspense, but DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS is notorious for the Voodoo section. A direct steal from Cornell Woolrich's short story Papa Benjamin, everything about the foreign locale is presented as sinister, with White represented as normal while black – with the exception of cockney Kenny Lynch – portrayed as the dangerous other. In contrast, the Disembodied Hand's scenes between Lee and Gough - playing together for the first time since DRACULA - are immensely entertaining, and this story also benefits from Landor's genuinely unnerving severed digits (an Amicus favourite).

"Cats aren't always cute and cuddly!" Felines are pure evil and the true masters of the world, according to Denis Heroux's THE UNCANNY. This Italian A sheet poster is more striking than anything in the film.

By 1977, the anthology format was not so much faltering but on life support. THE UNCANNY is a batty British/Canadian production co-produced by Subotsky. The film begins with writer Wilbur Gray (Peter Cushing) convinced that cats are taking over, and presents a manuscript to his publisher Frank Richards (Ray Milland). This leads to three tales illustrating Gray's claims: the first ("London, 1912") involves Miss Malkin (Joan Greenwood), who bequeaths her fortune to her cats only for the felines to wreak vengeance when a maid and son conspire to steal her fortune; the second ("Quebec Province 1975") is a black magic story of an orphaned girl whose cat is bullied by her new family; and the final segment ("Hollywood, 1936") has horror star Valentine De'ath (Donald Pleasence) killing his wife with the help of his mistress Edina (Samantha Eggar), only to be menaced by the dead woman's cat. Bookmarked by two pretentious quotes, its all gloriously idiotic, and ends on a memorable shot of Gray's eerie breath, lying dead after being ravaged by his tormentors.

Satan's Playthings

AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970)
ASSAULT (1971)

AND SOON THE DARKNESS sees English nurse Pamela Franklin contend with a serial killer and the language barrier in rural France. The film was needlessly remade in 2010, where American girls go on a bike trip in a remote part of Argentina.

THESE thrillers both exploit rural settings as key plot devices, and play like a rebuttal to the sexual freedom of the Love Generation. Directed by Robert Fuest from a script by Brian Clemens and Terry Nation, AND SOON THE DARKNESS tells the story of Jane (Pamela Franklin) and Cathy (Michele Dotrice), two young student nurses from England on a cycling holiday through rural France. Jane intends to keep to a schedule, but Cathy wants to enjoy the surroundings at a slower pace, especially the local males. This conflict of interests leads to an argument where Jane leaves Cathy to lounge at an off-road spot. However, when Jane returns she can find no trace of her friend and, asking around, learns that a few years ago another blond woman was sexually assaulted and killed in the area. Joined by scooter-riding Paul (Sandor Eles), who claims to be a detective for the Sûreté, the evidence leaves Jane unsure as to whether he might be the killer.

The movie is set completely in broad daylight and unfolds almost real-time over a single afternoon. The bare openness of the fields and countryside brood with sinister effect, as the provincial landscape is a foreboding character in itself. The French language notably is not subtitled so the viewer feels the same alienation as Jane ("Meutre? That's French for "murder" isn't it?"), who is faced with a catalogue of unnerving locals all strangely lukewarm about the need to find Cathy; even the English schoolmistress Jane encounters is matter-of-fact ("loathsome business, sex.") AND SOON THE DARKNESS may be too slow-burning for some - especially as it shows restraint at a time when nudity and gore were beginning to characterise most output - but this British film prefigures the Backwoods Brutality cycle that would be defined by the classic slices of Americana THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES.

An uninspired tale of killer-baiting, ASSAULT is also known under a dizzying amount of alternative titles, including THE CREEPERS, IN THE DEVIL'S GARDEN, TOWER OF TERROR and even SATAN'S PLAYTHINGS. This is a 1980 re-release ad mat for a Miami theatre.

Based on Kendal Young’s novel The Ravine, Sidney Hayer's ASSAULT begins in Devil’s End wood, where Heatherdene Arts School student Tessa Hurst (Lesley-Anne Down) is raped. When a second girl is attacked and murdered in the same location, detective Velyan (Frank Finlay) is struggling for clues, as Hurst is psychologically traumatised and unable to speak. Velyan seeks the help of Dr Greg Lomax (James Laurenson) in profiling the offender, and eyewitness art mistress Julie West (Suzy Kendall) offers herself as bait by using tabloid journalist Denny (Freddie Jones) to run a story announcing she is about to complete a photo fit painting of the killer. The investigation takes on a different angle when Lomax decides to use Pentothal on Tessa to bring her out of her comatose state, but when he arrives at the hospital dispensary to collect the drug, it transpires that a fellow doctor has taken the supply.

Although any number of Italian gialli were set in Britain and/or were UK co-productions, ASSAULT is unique in that it a completely British giallo, illustrating plot devices made famous by the genre. Sadly, unlike the Italian entries, the cinematography here is staid and unimaginative, and the execution linear and logical. The production uses that infamous British trait of casting twenty year old vixens as fifteen year schoolgirls, and dressing them in mini-skirts short enough to get any real schoolgirl expelled. The most lurid scene involves the headmistress's lecherous husband Leslie (Tony Beckley) and a student librarian on a ladder; the "student" is played by Janet Lynn, a British sex star of the period who had featured the year before in Pete Walker's COOL IT, CAROL. Finlay and Laurenson make turgid investigators, and it rests with honey-blond Kendall - who starred in Dario Argento's notable giallo THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE - to bring some interest to the screen.

Maids of Evil

HALFWAY INN (1970)
SOME LIKE IT SEXY (1971)

Before a brief career in features, the Collinson Twins appeared
in the bawdy 8mm short HALFWAY INN.

TWINS have long been a source of fascination in cinema, and they usually get a raw deal. Representing duality and split personality, they often symbolise the battle between good and evil, and signify that sinister events are about to happen. Female examples in this intriguing sub-genre include Brian DePalma's breakthrough hit SISTERS - where Margot Kidder stars as twin siblings, one of whom is most probably a psychopathic killer - and Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING, where the pre-teen Grady Twins are one of many mirroring devices used to add to the horror of Jack Torrance's descent into madness. More recently, Wolfgang Büld's lively TWISTED SISTERS stars Fiona Horsey is an unrelenting power struggle between good twin/bad twin, and even a first season episode of THE X-FILES - EVE - featured nine-year-old twin sisters separated at birth killing their parents.

Born to an English Royal Navy father, Maltese identical twin sisters Madeleine and Mary Collinson caused quite a stir upon their arrival in Britain during April, 1969. After various modelling assignments they became the first twin Playmates in the October 1970 Playboy, after attending a party where they met Victor Lownes, the head of Playboy's European operation. The Collinson's sealed their pop culture immortality by taking the title roles in Hammer's TWINS OF EVIL a year later and, after five flirtations with the turgid British sex scene - the two under consideration here, plus squalid entries GROUPIE GIRL and PERMISSIVE, and the Keith Barron/Kenneth Cope vehicle SHE'LL FOLLOW YOU ANYWHERE - Hollywood beckoned, but their only American credit was LOVE MACHINE, where they shared a shower with John Philip Law.

The Collinson Twins quickly bore of Christopher Matthews - as does the viewer - in SOME LIKE IT SEXY.

HALFWAY INN is a thirteen minute short from George Harrison Marks, the glamour photographer, publisher and filmmaker whose early work included THE WINDOW DRESSER, where his partner Pamela Green starred as a cat burglar who hides from the law by posing as a lingerie shop dummy. Marks' background as a music hall performer is evident in the "little stories" devised for his 8mm films, some of which were appealingly macabre: in PERCHANCE TO SCREAM, an evil inquisitor sentences women to be whipped and beheaded by a masked executioner. It should be remembered that the twins were only seventeen (at most) at the time, and their scenes in HALFWAY INN are relatively strong for 1970. The film is a period piece where a man is soon consumed by a comely maid; after flirting over dinner there follows several sexual encounters, and the man is reduced to exhaustion by the apparently relentlessly lusty maid, and flees. It is only at the end that we are shown that there are in fact two maids, who have been joyfully sharing the intimate duties.

Unlike Continental erotica, British sex films were mainly comedies, a thinly veiled critique on our own private lives. However, the problem with this throwaway sub genre was that the productions were not titillating or funny. Donovan Winter's SOME LIKE IT SEXY was originally released as COME BACK PETER in 1969, but after several countries complained the film wasn't sexy enough extra sequences were shot, including the Collinson Twins in a sisterly menage a trois with professional ladies man and E-type Jag-driving Peter (Christopher Matthews). This "improved version" is also noteworthy for having a body double for Mattews whose standard posterior is replaced by an actor who possesses the hairiest arse in motion pictures. Both versions follow Peter's sexual adventures with the likes of a middle-aged socialite, a blues singer, a hippy and even a Salvation Army officer, surreally inter cut with flashes of a butcher hacking at a side of beef. This inexplicable image is explained in the twist "sex fantasy" ending, where Peter is revealed not as a super stud but as a butcher's delivery boy on the Fulham Road, where the colour image drains to monochrome as he climbs into his tatty white van.

Aliens, Mutants and Terence Fisher

THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING (1964)
ISLAND OF TERROR (1966)

Invading alien robots - impervious to bullets, but not to Land Rovers - shamble around in THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING. Resembling a visage put together from whatever the film maker's could find lying around Shepperton studios, the creation reminds of Cybermen to come. 

ONLY a few weeks after completing his directing assignment on Hammer's THE GORGON, Terence Fisher was at the helm of THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING, a hardly feature-length offering from Lippert Films. An alien gas attack has wiped out the entire population of England - possibly the world - and caused some to be reanimated as white-eyed zombie slaves. Amongst this carnage, American test pilot Jeff Nolan (Willard Parker) is soon joined by Quinn Taggart (Dennis Price), Peggy (Virginia Field), Vi (Vanda Godsell) and husband Eddie (Thorley Walters). All share the same unifying factor, that during the previous evening they were all in purified air conditions, thus avoiding the threat. When two space-suited humanoids are seen walking in the street, Vi runs out to greet them in the mistaken belief they are military assistance; in fact, they are alien robots who kill her by lethal touch. After another pair of survivors arrive - Mel (David Spenser) and his pregnant wife Lorna (Anna Palk) - the group venture to a local Royal Engineers TA drill hall in the hunt for weapons.

THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING is somnolent sci-fi on a shoestring budget - the opening montage even utilises stock footage from VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED - which attempts to host an apocalyptic invasion with two robots and a conservative scattering of dead bodies filmed in the Surrey village of Shere. No-one dies screaming; even the zombies - when shot - regress to the dramatics of a school playground, and the invasion is finally foiled by the destruction of a rickety old radio mast. Fisher was no fan of science fiction, but he does inject some atmosphere into the village-under-siege dynamic, especially the reanimated Vi staircase walk, and the eerie framing of an alien watching Lorna through a netted window. The performances are purely functionary, with the exception of Price and Walters; Walters is entertaining as ever in his trademark role of frightened alcoholic, but Price is the standout as Taggart. There is a wonderful scene where he attempts to rescue wads of useless money from a fire - hinting at a seedy past which is never fleshed out - and the slippery character fittingly leads the robots to his colleagues when in zombie-state.

Menacing bone-sucking tendrils erupt in this German poster for ISLAND OF TERROR.

Two years later Fisher directed the guilty pleasure ISLAND OF TERROR for Planet Films. On Petrie's Island off the coast of Ireland, researchers are working on a cure for cancer, but accidentally create a race of bone-sucking creatures dubbed silicates. After the discovery of a body which has been reduced to jelly, local Dr Landers (Eddie Byrne) seeks help from scientists Dr Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing) and Dr David West (Edward Judd), who travel to the island with West’s socialite girlfriend Toni (Carole Gray). The two scientists discover that bullets, fire and dynamite won’t stop the silicates from advancing on the island’s humans and cattle.

Co-produced by science-horror specialist Richard Gordon, ISLAND OF TERROR can be seen as a inferior re-imagining of his earlier FIEND WITHOUT A FACE. Everything is in place for an effective monster movie: a laboratory destroyed by a new life form, creatures who emit an eerie slurping sound, unexplainable corpses ("like mush with the two eyes a-sittin' in it"), no telephones or form of escape, and Peter Cushing. Although the veteran actor's screen time is shared by Judd's younger, more bullish scientist, it is testament to all of the players who attempt to create tension away from the appearance of the silicates. They may have a fast-moving tentacle, but their plastic-looking bases move so slowly that you wonder how they have effectively snared so many victims (they can even climb trees). Despite all the impending doom, as Kim Newman states in his Video Watchdog review, "as often in British SF, we learn that crises should be left to the experts, even if boffins have started the trouble."

Die Screaming, Susan George

DIE SCREAMING, MARIANNE (1971)
FRIGHT (1971)
STRAW DOGS (1971)

Susan George in Pete Walker's DIE SCREAMING, MARIANNE. George was astutely described by Leslie Halliwell as "British leading lady, former child actress; usually typed as sexpot."

BLOND, olive-skinned Susan George made the most of her nymphet/spoiled girl demeanour in this trio of cult films, two of which were cheap exploitation, the other a masterpiece which defined her career. DIE SCREAMING, MARIANNE begins with Marianne 'Hips' McDonald (George) - working as a go-go dancer in Portugal - almost run over by sports car driving tourist Sebastian (Christopher Sandford). Returning to England, Sebastian impulsively proposes marriage, and in a Pythonesque turn of events, Marianne marries best man Eli (Barry Evans) instead. Back in Portugal, Sebastian tells Marianne's disgraced magistrate father (Leo Genn) of her whereabouts; The Judge and Marianne's unhinged half-sister Hildegarde (Judy Huxtable) are willing to kill the dancer unless she reveals a Swiss bank account number containing an inheritance of £700,000 and damning evidence on her father, which Marianne's mother secreted away before dying in mysterious circumstances.

DIE SCREAMING, MARIANNE is an antiseptic mystery thriller which never lives up to its title. The film was a troubled production which was suspended because of frictions between its young cast, according to director Pete Walker, yet screenwriter Murray Smith suggests the problems were more financial. Whatever the reason, the meandering script surprisingly lacks nudity, sex and violence after an appealingly garish opening credits sequence, which sees George gyrating to the theme music in a black bikini against a glowing red backdrop. With its extensive location shooting its all too glossy and respectable to ever create the erotic charge Walker yearned for, though the incestial relationship between The Judge and Hildegarde provides some memorable tensions ("I ought to spank you - only you'd like it.")

"The scream you can hear is your own." The scariest thing about FRIGHT is that the dream sequence from THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES plays on television. This is the cover to Optimum's R2 DVD, released in January 2010. 

One of the first films to explore a babysitter tormented by an escaped psychopath, Peter Collinson's FRIGHT is another dull affair. Amanda (George) is hired as a babysitter for Tara (Tara Collinson, the director's son), the infant of Jim and Helen Lloyd (George Cole and Honor Blackman). But unknown to Amanda, Helen and Jim are not a married couple heading out to celebrate their anniversary, but are going to meet a psychologist to discuss Helen’s husband Brian (Ian Bannen), who has been placed in an asylum. Back at the house, Amanda is harassed by would-be boyfriend Chris (Dennis Waterman), and spooked by various noises. When she finds Chris battered unconscious, in her panic she lets in an apparently friendly neighbour. But that person is in fact Brian, who has escaped from custody.

Amanda is a plucky heroine, paving the way for the multitude of final girls to come, and Tudor Gates' script deals with a good many plot elements that would become staples of the bludgeoning slasher genre: the beleaguered babysitter, the boyfriend playing pranks and/or pestering the heroine for sex, the friendly neighbour/visitor who may not be what they seem, phone cords cut et al. Yet it all feels too dated; 'Nanette' sings a tepid song (Ladybird) over the opening titles, Waterman is embarrassing in pink flares and cardigan ("Oi reckon you've got a lovely pair of Bristols"), and Bannen overacts to a point of parody (in his Video Watchdog review, Charlie Largent is more lenient, likening his growls to Karloff while referencing SON OF FRANKENSTEIN). The film also has the most ineffective police force you're ever likely to see, and it is amusing to note that the Constable is played by Roger Lloyd ('Trigger') Pack.

George in STRAW DOGS. Sam Peckinpah's Westcountry Western was accused of glamouring rape and glorifying misogynistic sadism. 

Cast on the strength of these minor outings, George gives an extraordinary performance as Amy in Sam Peckinpah's STRAW DOGS. The film exists at the heart of Amy's world, a rural West of England of which her and American mathematician husband David (Dustin Hoffman) have relocated. The couple soon realise that his intellect and her girl next door image cause resentment, factors festering with the couple's own marital problems. In the final act, David runs over suspected paedophile Henry (an uncredited David Warner) and takes him home, unaware that he has broken the neck of a flirtatious teenager. When the girl's drunken father (Peter Vaughan) discovers that the couple are hiding Henry, a whiskey-fuelled posses besiege David and Amy's abode of Trencher's Farm.

Shot by John Coquillon - who similarly gave us a tableaux of rural English violence for WITCHFINDER GENERAL - STRAW DOGS is a draining experience. The notorious double rape sequence is still troublesome, particularly because of its ambiguity: after initially resisting her first assailant - former boyfriend Charlie Venner (Del Henney) - Amy appears sympathetic toward him, seemingly on the grounds of their past relationship during her formative years. During the climactic pitched battle - which includes a shotgun blast to the father's foot and Venner dispatched in the giant jaws of an antique poachers trap - David becomes as bestial as the raiders, and loves it. David's regression - or progression? - to feral state defending his home feeds Peckinpah's career-long blood lust. The director had read books by Robert Ardrey, who hypothesised that man's voracious appetite for violence is not the product of environment or childhood trauma as Marx or Freud believed, but pure instinctual drives, creating a murderous ape who fashions ever more sophisticated weaponry to satisfy a desire for control of territory. It is this need for territory, not women, that subscribes most to Peckinpah's oeuvre, and the climactic chaos leaves Amy suitably abandoned at film's end.

Terrors Below and Above

X THE UNKNOWN (1956)
QUATERMASS 2 (1957)

Fuelled on the then-current fears of radioactivity,
X THE UNKNOWN is Quatermass without the nuances.

IN the wake of THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT's success, Hammer approached the mentor of their breakthrough picture - Nigel Kneale - for permission to use the Quatermass character in a sequel. When Kneale refused ("I said 'No, you can't - it's mine' - they were funny people"), the company progressed with Leslie Norman's X THE UNKNOWN, from an original screenplay by Jimmy Sangster. The film begins with a sudden appearance of what seems to be volcanic fissure in military grounds. When a soldier, then a young boy, die of first-degree radiation burns, Dr Adam Royston (Dean Jagger) - a scientist working on a radio signal capable of neutralising bombs  - investigates. Collaborating with McGill (Leo McKern), a representative for Atomic Security, Royston surmises that an opening has unleashed a mass of energy from the centre of the Earth, a sentient being that has fed off natural radiation for millions of years.

X THE UNKNOWN is sombre 50s Hammer, using its premise of internal horrors primarily for budgetary reasons - at least the studio wouldn't have to build expensive sets and spaceships. Royston is no Quatermass, and the sloppy movement of the titular creature (which, when finally glimpsed, looks like chocolate mousse) mimics the film's lack of thrills. Impervious to "Machine gun bullets! Dynamite! Flame Throwers!," this combination of radiation and molten crust is often mentioned in the same breath as THE BLOB which followed a year later, yet the latter was an extraterrestrial mineral, and X shares more in common with particle masses CALTIKI THE IMMORTAL MONSTER and THE H-MAN. Where X THE UNKNOWN does deliver is with its disintegrating radiographer; Phil Leakey placed a heating element in a plastic skull housing a wax mask of actor Neil Hallett, a scene which is still a show-stopper.

A stylish French poster for QUATERMASS 2 makes the paramilitary zombie guards centre stage.

When Hammer did return with Quatermass at the helm a year later, the result - in contrast - was one of the finest science fiction films produced by a British studio. Val Guest's QUATERMASS 2 sees metallic meteorites rain down on Winnerden Flats, a town near a highly guarded chemical plant. Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) is startled to discover that contact with the shells causes deadly infection, and that the facilities - supposedly producing synthetic food - appear to be modelled on his own aborted moonbase design. Quatermass uncovers a sinister conspiracy that extends to Government level, and has to battle zombie-like guards who will stop at nothing to protect the top secret complex. With the aid of old friend Inspector Lomax (John Longden), the Professor discovers that the plant is in fact housing an alien invasion, and that gestalt creatures have been arriving inside the meteorites.

Britain's answer to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, QUATERMASS 2 drips with postwar paranoia. Scripted by Kneale (from his 1955 BBC teleplay) and Guest, the film is as urgently paced as the alien takeover (the actors even indulge in "cue biting"). Kneale was always critical of Donlevy's brutish approach to the beloved scientist, but the actor's forcefulness here actually works with the rapidly unfolding horrors and realisations, especially when the Professor commandeers a guard uniform to infiltrate the plant. This insurrection culminates in a memorable pressure control room scene, where oxygen is being pumped to kill the alien manifestation in the plant domes. When workers venture out to talk to their "superiors," they are murdered and their body parts stuffed into the pipes to impede the oxygen flow, an action, as Jonathan Rigby states in his book English Gothic, is "as grotesque an image of capitalist exploitation as can be imagined."