October Horror Movie Marathon

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

A beautifully stylish piece of Gothic horror. Surely an influence on Dario Argento with it's fantastic tracking shots and avant garde photography. The Spiral Staircase is a classic old dark house film crossed with a Giallo movie twenty years before the Italians decided to make them.

The film features a black gloved killer who murders young disabled women. Helen a young mute girl who works as a live-in companion for a wealthy bed ridden woman fears that she will be the next victim and the killer could already be in the house.

The cast featuring Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Elsa Lanchester and Ethel Barrymore is uniformly superb, especially McGuire who goes the whole film without dialogue, having to convey her thoughts and fears through other means.

The house itself, a large many bedroomed almost palatial affair, is one of the "stars" of the film. Shadowy, cavernous and creepily eerie, the cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca, under the direction of Robert Siodmak brings the place to life, (or perhaps death) giving it an almost foreboding personality in it's own right.

All in all, The Spiral Staircase is a terrific example of suspenseful Gothic thriller which is guaranteed to keep you guessing right to the very end.

Highly recommended.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974)

Dracula is dead and well and living in London as Christopher Lee plays the great vampire for one final time for Hammer in this unpredictable (if you've never seen it before) horror thriller.

Set in a contemporary London this pretty much follows on from Dracula AD 1972 (1972) as we meet Peter Cushing's Lorimer Van Helsing once again along with his granddaughter Jessica (Joanna Lumley stepping into Stephanie Beecham's shoes) and Michael Coles police inspector, as the three team up once more this time attempting to prevent Dracula releasing the bubonic plague into the world.

Director Alan Gibson moves things at a cracking pace in a film reminiscent of The Sweeney crossed with Hammer horror. The scene where Van Helsing finally reveals Dracula in the swanky apartment of D.D. Denham is among Hammer's finest.

I've now come to the conclusion that a film i saw on tv back in the heady days of BBC double bills which featured a full on occult ritual with blood and naked girls must have been this even though i could have sworn the setting was a cave and not a country house.

One of my personal favourites from the studio that dripped blood.

[MrBarlow]

From Beyond The Grave. 1974.

Peter Cushing stars as the old antiques dealer who's purchases always come with a nasty surprise. David Warner buys a old mirror that harbours a dark spirit within that that instructs him to kill. Ian Bannen steals a military medal to show off to a street peddler. Ian Carmichael purchases a snuff box that a ghost has attached himself to him and Ian Ogilvy buys a old door that opens up to a blue room at night. This has always been a great piece of entertainment right from the start even though the second segment goes on for a bit too much but you can't get enough of Diana Dors when she is on screen and the last segment goes a bit too quick. Right from the start with the haunting score over the opening credits certainly gives off the atmospheric vibe.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

HERENCIA DIABOLICA - Dolls, clowns and dummies, all flow with the lifeblood of horror. I'm more of a 'Tourist Trap' guy than a Chucky fan though; there are films that simply use automatons as convenient vessels of horror, and there are those that really get what's so uncanny about a frozen plastic grin. Where does early nineties Mexican SOV-adjacent horror 'Herencia Diabolica' sit? The inheritance spoken of by the title is a clown doll (two in one!) handed down to the scion of a wealthy industrialist after a family tragedy. It hangs around in the attic looking a bit sinister before doing the usual evil doll shit. There is nothing about its narrative that isn't simple or rote, and yet 'Herencia Diabolica' still feels as if it's transmitting from a place beyond human ken. It is both dull and bizarre, like the pilot for a discontinued soap opera half remembered through the haze of a years-ago drug fugue. It twists banality into nightmare with scenes that go nowhere, slowly, to the pulsation of syrupy vet's office synthesisers, all the while parading ghostly VHS variants of its decade's bad fashion. It has no idea how to place drama or tension but is perfectly OK with showing us two minutes of someone rolling down the stairs in slow motion whilst a small person dressed as a toy laughs hysterically. For me, the pinnacle was the bit where a maid is terrified in the attic by a sinister train set... flashing disco lights make the point that something deeply supernatural is going on. 'Herencia Diabolica' invites us all to reach beyond its veil of tedium and touch the beating heart of madness. Reader, I did it, and now I stand before you with eyes full of dread and tears ie. I liked it.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

HERENCIA DIABOLICA - Dolls, clowns and dummies.

A film about this place?

[MrBarlow]

The Taking Of Deborah Logan. 2014.

A documentary crew record a elderly woman suffering Alzheimer disease and uncover something darker and sinister. Another found footage film in the genre that this creeped me out at first. People with the horrible disease can't control what they are doing which can be hard to watch and what seems like a medical documentary swiftly takes a slow turn into something else. Combined with a serial killer and ritual sacrifice is slowly blended in and then makes its appearance then you know some things in a family circle will come to light. This is one of those films that needs to be watched in the dark or you be straining your eyes.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Dark Eyes of London (1939)

A classic slice of British Grand Guignol starring Bela Lugosi as the head of an insurance company who commits murders in order to claim their inheritances aided by his henchman, the ghoulish Jake.

Lugosi is excellent here, holding back from his typical excesses in a role that exudes creepy menace whilst for once he isn't playing a vampire or mad scientist. The script serves him well, in fact he's better served than in the majority of his Hollywood movies.

Aside from Lugosi the film stars Hugh Williams as a Scotland Yard inspector trying to get to the bottom of the murders and Edmon Ryan as a New York cop helping out. The pair have some terrific dialogue together and this early movie could be seen as a precursor to later films such as 1959's Jack the Ripper which has the exact same almost buddy cop / fish out of water set up as well as non horror films such as 1975's John Wayne vehicle Brannigan and it's loose 1993 remake The Young Americans.

Norwegian actress Greta Gynt also has a meaty role as the film's heroine, she's especially good and not simply there to scream in terror.

Whilst the first half of the film is taken with the police investigation which isn't surprising seeing as it's based on an Edgar Wallace story who himself wrote German Krimi stories (Think Giallo but German), it's the second half where the film becomes a delightful and atmospheric horror film with an attack on Gynt particularly well realized.

Breeders (1986)

Ultra gory, low budget, T&A gore fest about grotesque looking aliens who rape the female virgins of New York in order to breed.You'll be surprised to discover that practically every girl in Manhattan appears to be 'saving their selves'.

Yes, it is as tacky and exploitative as it sounds with some dumb writing, dumb acting and even dumber decision making but also some of the gloopiest gore ever seen in an MGM production. Ending with a climax that seems to feature a group of naked girls squirming about in a hot tub full of alien jizz in the sewers of NYC as our wooden heroes battle gorgeous eighties slime monsters in a fight to the death.

All in all, a hugely enjoyable double bill of contrasting movies.

[Frankie Teardrop]

THE MARSUPIALS: HOWLING 3 - As bad taste desecrations of 'The Howling' go, 'Howling 2 - Your Sister Is A Werewolf' takes some beating. I think it might've met its match in 'The Marsupials: Howling 3'. Not coincidentally, they're by the same director, Philippe Mora, who has shown himself capable of considerable class with the likes of 'The Beast Within' and 'Mad Dog Morgan', but who here seems to be working inside a lineage that originates not so much with 'The Howling' as with 'Troll 2'. 'The Marsupials' is so beyond the pale it makes 'Howling 2' seem like the sanest film on the planet. Before you stop me, yes, I'm talking about the same low-stooping 'Howling 2' that put Christopher Lee in a punk club and staged lycanthropic threesomes in the hope of shits and giggles. All things considered though, the least you could say of 'Howling 2' is that it didn't turn into a spy thriller about the search for a werewolf ballerina. 'The Marsupial's problems don't end there. It starts with a tribe of marsupial werewolves who live on a shit camp site and ends several years into everyone's future, when they're taking a reflective moment; the sprawling mass in between contains jaw dropping scenes of were-marsupial pouch birth and endless stretches of hilarity / tedium / confusion. It's such a shitpile of tonal swerves, dead ends, throwaway bizarreness and random plot shifts that it's nigh on impossible to make out what the f*ck's going on. It really doesn't know its arse from its elbow, and even though I mentioned 'spy thriller' there, five scenes down the line it's... what? Jungle adventure? Wry film industry comedy? Back to 'horror'? Oh, least of all horror. From alpha to omega, so little is certain beyond the excruciating performances and bad lines that twist it beyond redemption. I think it was intended as a parody at least SOME of the time, but it is a huge comedy fail whose only humorous moments occur during thirty seconds of Dame Edna. I make no secret of the fact that I like some pretty rubbish movies. 'The Marsupials' was difficult to metabolise, but a weird part of me wanted to watch it again as soon as it finished. I didn't though, and if I forget it exists, I doubt I ever will! OK, I probably will.

[nosferatu42]

Inspired by your review i'm putting Howling 3 on right now.
But i'm fairly drunk anyway so will probably veg out in half an hour before too many brain cells evaporate.

[MrBarlow]

Dolls. 1986.

Gordon and Yuzna team up with Charles Band, Guy Rolfe plays the old vintage toy maker along with his wife Hilary Mason, they play the perfect grandparents who won't say boo and offer cakes to anyone but hide a darker secret with the toys they make come to life and kill people. I have always enjoyed this little number, ok it may be 70 minutes long but its a happy 70 minutes of viewing.

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Vampire Circus. 1972.

One of Hammer's vampire movies that didn't have Christoper Lee or Peter Cushing and didn't use the Karstein name or Dracula and like Captain Kronos fell under the radar and made a slow comeback. This is one I have always enjoyed due to the story line of a evil count being killed by the townsfolk, the village going through a plague and then a small circus appears to seek revenge on the townsfolk who killed the Count. Re-using the same set pieces from Twins Of Evil, this made it the perfect setting for a 17th Century town that is dying slowly and made it feel more atmospheric.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

Inspired by your review i'm putting Howling 3 on right now.
But i'm fairly drunk anyway so will probably veg out in half an hour before too many brain cells evaporate.

Did you survive?