HALLOWEEN HORROR BINGE ROUNDUP #5
12/10/21
NURSE SHERRI – Anyone with mixed feelings about Al Adamson isn’t going to come away from ‘Nurse Sherri’ a disciple, but even if you’re not a diehard there’s a sprinkling of good stuff here. The early highlight is a bit of psychedelic seventies animation during the possession sequence, which looks positively Lovecraftian with its luminescent, amorphous ‘thing in the dark’. It’s a shame there wasn’t more of that, because the rest of ‘Nurse Sherri’ plods between occasional outbursts of silliness.
13/10/21
THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY – I admire a film that sees fit to fill its last forty odd minutes with basically lots of up and down the (cellar) stairs, it makes a change from my old nemesis, corridor-wandering. Of course, there’s more to this bravura Fulci epic than that, especially if you’re into gratuitous shots of wounds oozing an eternity of maggots; in case this doesn’t entice, there’s also the ketchupy ravagement of a plastic bat. But THBTH is about shadows and dread-laden atmosphere, and captures both magnificently.
14/10/21
DARK WATERS – ‘Dark Waters’ gives dodgy convents, shunned islands and, above all, loads of candles. It’s practically an orgy of flickering flame, so much so that it’s perfectly happy to make do with burning crosses when the wax runs out. A film that exists to overdose us on gothic atmosphere – happily, it succeeds very well in this, presenting a concentration of early eighties Italian nunsploitation vibes without the usual plodding, for narrative is very spare and secondary to imagery. There’s even a bit of monster at the end – don’t know about ‘Lovecraftian’, but very nice that they tried. Highly recommended.
PSYCHO SISTERS – The SOV precursor to um ‘Psycho Sisters’, the latter being a ‘proper’ celluloid film-type affair (where is THAT on blu-ray, btw? It’s excellent). This ‘original text’ follows the same penis-ripping revenge theme as t’other, only it’s less explicit and bigger on washed out scenes of non-event. That’s not necessarily a diss – ‘Psycho Sisters’ works best as a John Waters-esque bad taste comedy, where the bathos of scenes of the twisted sisters rooting endlessly through the bloodstained underwear of their victims is as essential to the whole as all the fumbled strangulations. “For freaks only,” as they used to say.
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