10/27/09: I DON’T WANT TO BE BORN (Peter Sasdy, 1975) 
This was shown on local TV as part of a Horror movie season back in the Summer of 1983 when we still owned a black-and-white TV set; other similar screenings included TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA (1970; that I caught up with only a few years ago) and LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF (1975; that I did watch back then). Although the film under review has been available on DVD in R2 land for some time now (including from reliable label Network), I shirked from purchasing it for two reasons: its being a bare-bones affair – as opposed to, say, Sasdy's COUNTESS DRACULA (1971) from the same label – and its (somewhat undeserved) maligned reputation as being one of the least among British horror films of the 1970s. The theme of a possessed infant, of course, harks back to Roman Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) but the medical tests/exorcism bits naturally had the more current THE EXORCIST (1973) as its template. Since the film utilizes the services of several Hammer veterans (Sasdy, Joan Collins, Ralph Bates, Caroline Munro), it can be mistaken for one of their productions; genre regulars Donald Pleasence and John Steiner (in a rare appearance in a non-Italian film) are also featured but the acting honors are stolen from 'newcomer' Eileen Atkins (as the exorcising nun!). The seedy atmosphere of British night-life is well-captured as Collins – playing an ex-stripper who marries Italian businessman Bates(!) – is cursed when she rejects the sexual advances of the dwarf who performs with her in the cabaret shows!!; frankly, it was quite disappointing to find that it was his evil spirit that possessed Collins' child as opposed to Satan (or one of his minions)...especially since the sinful dwarf is still alive at the time! Still, the recurring images of him in the baby's cot (as they appear to the increasingly distressed Collins) are disturbing enough in themselves. Also, the fact that the baby is born during the credits sequence robs the film of much-needed audience empathy with the characters (especially the ineffectual Bates); suffice it to say that the baby is only 'seen’ at the very end of the much-longer ROSEMARY'S BABY! For the record, the ‘devilish’ antics of the baby include: the repeated trashing of his room; spitting at his visitors; scratching bloodiedly (both Collins and Atkins receive this facial treatment); biting fingers (the sullen maid – whose fate should have been much worse given how much she comes to loathe the boy!); slapping potential father Steiner's face; pushing the baby-sitter to her death in a pond; strangling Bates and hiding his body in the sewer!; beheading Pleasence with a shovel!; and fatally stabbing Collins. The baby – or, rather, the dwarf's evil spirit – finally gets his comeuppance when Atkins (Bates' nun sister) performs the exorcism rite (causing the dancing dwarf to expire agonizingly in mid-routine). As a whole, the film proved sufficiently enjoyable if decidedly too preposterous and silly to be taken too seriously and, at the end of the day, Atkins' performance and Ron Grainer's groovy score (that, alternately, reminded me of both Frank Zappa and Pink Floyd!) emerge as its outstanding qualities. While the film's original title, I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN, is the one I am most familiar with, it should be said that the film was released under the totally misleading moniker of THE DEVIL WITHIN HER in the U.S. (which probably got it confused with the recently-released Italian EXORCIST rip-off, CHI SEI? aka BEYOND THE DOOR – which I will be getting to presently) and, more recently, it was released on R2 DVD as the ultra-generic THE MONSTER (despite there already being a totally unrelated Lon Chaney movie from 1925 with that name)!
10/27/09: THE BRUTE MAN (Jean Yarbrough, 1946)
Earlier on during this Halloween Horror challenge, I had watched HOUSE OF HORRORS (1946) which was basically a precursor to this one – similarly dealing with a hulking criminal with a penchant for back-breaking dubbed “The Creeper” (actually first seen in the Sherlock Holmes mystery THE PEARL OF DEATH [1944]!). In this case, we are given the character’s tragic back-story – though it actually does a disservice to actor Rondo Hatton (deformed in real life by acromegaly) by making his condition self-inflicted and rendering him homicidal into the bargain! Anyway, though it shares many a credit with the subsequent film, this one (which proved to be Hatton’s last) was actually made by the Poverty Row company PRC. Running a brief 59 minutes, it is simply a succession of incidents showing The Creeper either taking revenge on his former colleagues at college (including an ex-girlfriend and a romantic rival – played by DETOUR [1945]’s Tom Neal) or else killing others who happen to get in his way. To give some measure of sympathy to the titular figure, we also get a subplot in which he is sheltered by a blind pianist (shades of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN [1935] and THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK [1941]): eventually, though, she allows herself to be used as bait in a trap set for him by the Police (with flustered Donald MacBride at their head!). In itself, then, the film is watchable as an example of low-budget horror from this vintage but in no way a classic.
10/27/09: THE TELEPHONE BOX (TV) (Antonio Mercero, 1972)
This 35-minute surreal Spanish short is a one-joke movie that, while perhaps a mite too extended to achieve maximum effect, has a splendidly horrific punch-line that belies the blackly comedic touches of its earlier stages. In fact, for at least half its length, this virtually resembles a Tatiesque farce (complete with negligible dialogue and pompous characterizations) with a Bunuelian premise (the inexplicable confinement of its protagonist in the titular cubicle seems to come right out of my own second favorite among the Spanish maestro's films, THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL [1962]). The plot itself is disarmingly simple: a newly-installed red phone booth incites the curiosity of a man who has just accompanied his boy to school but, as he is making a call, the previously invitingly open door shuts itself and, subsequently, he is unable to open it from the inside. As time passes, bystanders start to accumulate and become a veritable microcosm of humanity: from laid-back pensioners to mischievous school-children, from young couples to old housewives...and, of course, a gluttonous onlooker, the heavy-set man who clearly thinks he can effortlessly break the door open and the incredulous police officers who, invariably, all make fools of themselves; before long, the professionals come to the rescue: first the firemen who are about to use the axe on the thing when the phone company people who installed it in the first place appear on the scene and literally lift the telephone box off its hinges and drive away with it wholesale! Then follows the lengthy trek through the city streets (where a couple of other equally imprisoned callers can also be seen being carried away!) until the truck arrives at its destination: a tunnel replete with similar telephone boxes whose occupants have either gone off the wall, killed themselves or even decomposed!! Although nothing further is explained about this phenomenon, one cannot fail to be reminded of similarly bleak ‘twist’ endings like those seen earlier in John Frankenheimer's SECONDS (1966) and later in Richard Fleischer's SOYLENT GREEN (1973). Finally, I watched this Spanish TV production in its original Spanish language version with no subtitles whatsoever but, as I said before, one can easily follow what is going on the screen and, thankfully, the mostly dialogue-free movie is further boosted by an excellent music score.
Edited by Mario Gauci - 10/31/09 at 3:45pm
