Re: ***Official 8th Annual HTF October Scary Movie Challenge***
10/29/07:
HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR: THE TWO FACES OF EVIL (Alan Gibson, 1980) (TV) 
Rather unpleasant entry in the series, which also seems confused as to what it wants to be: starting off with a maniacal figure in fisherman attire stalking a vacationing family, he’s later revealed to be a
doppelganger for the husband (whom he has replaced) – eventually, it transpires that a widespread INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956)-like takeover plot is in effect! While there is a reasonable amount of suspense (and a palpable sense of dread) throughout, the episode is marred by the irritating central performances of Anna Calder-Marshall (frumpy-looking and resorting too often to histrionics) and Gary Raymond (especially unconvincing when attempting to portray the evil side of his character – the fact that he looks quite a bit like Rowan Atkinson’s Mr. Bean at times certainly doesn’t help any in this respect
!).
10/29/07:
HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR: THE MARK OF SATAN (Don Leaver, 1980) (TV)
This is one of the best episodes in the series – benefiting a great deal from an excellent central performance by Peter McEnery as a paranoid hospital attendant. His obsession with the number 9 and its association with evil gives this almost the feel of a black comedy – as he tries to persuade others to his ‘logical’ way of thinking (especially the local parish priest and the young woman who lodges with him and his mother, and who harbors an affection for McEnery despite having a kid in tow).
There’s even a surreal dream sequence in which the girl assumes a beastly countenance and most other characters (who are shown to be in on the conspiracy) invite the hero to eat the woman’s baby – a perverse Satanic twist on the Eucharist! – as the only way he can exorcise the demon within him…but the priest, wielding a large cross, comes to his aid. Unfortunately, however, the abrupt
denouement to it all is rather limp!
Incidentally, this also makes prescient comments about the danger of transmitted diseases – which would soon become the topic of the day with the advent of AIDS, not to mention the omnipresent threat of biological warfare! By the way, given the similar title of an entry in the following Hammer House series called MARK OF THE DEVIL (1984) – which I watched back in the day when it aired on local TV! – I was mistaken into thinking it was a remake of this one; the “mark” is very different: it has a psychological effect here, whereas it takes a physical shape in the later episode.
10/30/07:
HOWLING II…YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF (Philippe Mora, 1985) BOMB
I have always been somewhat underwhelmed by Joe Dante’s original THE HOWLING (1981) – so I wasn’t particularly interested in checking out any of its sequels; some time ago, I did catch HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS (1987) – by the same director as this one – and found it to be watchable but nothing special.
The second instalment, however, has quite a bad rep and I knew I’d have a good time watching it – if mainly to wallow in the sight of dear but pompous horror icon Christopher Lee squirming in the midst of it all (the gracefully-aged star has pathetically asserted a number of times in interviews that he hasn’t appeared in horror-oriented fare since his last picture for Hammer Films back in 1976!)
. Anyway, this film should have borne the subtitle “Your Movie Is A Turd” – being astoundingly inept in all departments (beginning with the all-important werewolf make-up)!
The plot (and dialogue) is not only terrible, but it has the limpest connection with Dante’s film – strangely enough, the author of the original novel Gary Brandner co-wrote this himself! Still, one of the undeniable highlights (er…low points) of the film is the pointless elliptical editing – which tries to give the whole a semblance of style, but only serves to accentuate its embarrassment factor! Similarly phoney (and grating) are the hokey transitions between scenes, the inane punk-rock theme song, and the cheapjack special-effects at the climax!
What about the characters, then?: Lee is the werewolf expert, naturally, whom everybody thinks a crackpot – until they come into contact with the monsters, that is; at the very least, though, one has to admire the makers’ ingenuity (or gall) in devising a stupid subtitle with a dual meaning! Incidentally, Sybil Danning (as Stirba, Werewolf Bitch – the subtitle by which this is known in the U.K.!) is quite fetching in an assortment of outrageous S&M outfits…but her character is virtually given nothing to do (except preside over her brood of followers and engage in the occasional hilarious three-way lycanthrope sex!); her two snarling lieutenants (one of them a sluttish black girl) are especially irritating.
Aiding Lee on the side of good are the two yuppie heroes (he being the brother of the Dee Wallace character from the first film and she a colleague of hers) and a ragged guerrilla-type band of Transylvians (still, they generally manage to effortlessly overcome Danning’s rather dumb werewolves!). Notable among them is a knife-throwing dwarf who gets a particularly nasty (but, at the same time, side-splitting) demise; he’s later revived, under Stirba’s control, in order to lure Lee (by making childish taunts at him all through the village streets) into a trap. The latter scene has to be a career nadir for the distinguished and imposing actor – well, either this or the early sequence in a discotheque where Lee is made to don a pair of ultra-cool sunglasses so as to appear inconspicuous among the partying youngsters!
In the end, if I were forced to mention elements in this which weren’t entirely displeasing, I guess I could say that the ossuary set (in which the heroine is to be sacrificed) is interesting, or that the hybrid werewolf/bat creature (Danning’s pet who likes to ‘inhabit’ the body of its victims) is just too weird to be despised…
10/30/07:
THE VALLEY OF GWANGI (James O’Connolly, 1969) 
Likeable rehash of KING KONG (1933) with a traveling sideshow instead of a film crew, Forbidden Valley instead of Skull Island, Mexico instead of New York, and a dinosaur instead of a giant ape! The film may lack the essential interaction between the heroine and the monster (the latter seems to be only interested in eating!) but substitutes pleasing Technicolor and the eccentric (yet agreeable) blending of styles – being part-Western and part-adventure/mythical fable!
The script dusted off an unfilmed Willis O’Brien project from the early 1940s – with the necessary elaborate trickwork (exposed somewhat by the digital transfer, but fully maintaining its make-believe factor and distinctive charm) handled by Ray Harryhausen, O’Brien’s former
protégé and who eventually took from him the mantle of cinema’s foremost special effects wizard. Perhaps the film’s most notable sequence in this regard is when Gwangi the dinosaur is roped by a number of people on horseback – involving incredible precision in order to match the movement of the monster (obviously added in later) with two sets of live-action footage brought together by the split-screen technique! The narrative introduces three different species of dinosaur – though, naturally, Gwangi gets the biggest ‘role’; unfortunately, however, this means that the amiable miniature horse (mythical ancestor of the much bigger variety prevalent today) is forgotten after a while – prior to Gwangi’s appearance, it had been intended as the sideshow’s new attraction.
The cast is okay: James Franciscus plays the rugged hero, Gila Golan the atractive (if bland) leading lady, sci-fi veteran Richard Carlson appears as the
entrepreneur figure (though he’s never quite the egomaniac that Carl Denham was!), Laurence Naismith (who comes off best) is the inevitable anthropologist, while Freda Jackson provides some camp value as a blind and superstitious local woman. The rousing score by Jerome Moross recalls his best-known work – the large-scale Western THE BIG COUNTRY (1958).
Though clearly intended as a kiddie film (with a smart local boy teaming up with con-man Franciscus), the antics of the rampaging Gwangi are quite intense and bloody: his ingenious introduction, darting from behind a rock to seize and munch on a dinosaur of a much smaller size, was actually replicated in Steven Spielberg’s JURASSIC PARK (1993). The climax, then, is highly satisfactory as the dinosaur escapes from captivity in the arena (cue an endless parade of screaming Mexicans as they run for their lives!) but is eventually cornered in a cathedral – which is convincingly destroyed in the ensuing blaze.
P.S.I’m now left with only THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953) still to watch from the Harryhausen canon. I hope I can be able to remedy this soon…
10/30/07:
BUG (Jeannot Szwarc, 1975)
This was a surprise: not only is it a solid entry in the monster animal cycle of the 1970s, but it eventually took a totally unexpected path which elevates the film above most of its kind (reminiscent of the well-regarded PHASE IV [1974]). Another big plus here is the excellent central performance by Bradford Dillman – his presence in any film is always welcome, but I’ve rarely seen him
this good!
I’m not squeamish about bugs, so I wasn’t bothered by having to watch a film with hordes of them menacing a community (unlike snakes, for instance – which has kept me from checking out SSSSSSS [1973] during this Halloween challenge
!); even so, it’s not that the insects are used throughout for any overtly revolting effect. Like I said at the beginning – thanks also to the unenthusing write-ups on it by both Leslie Halliwell and Leonard Maltin (online assessment at the time of Paramount’s DVD release, then, is split pretty much down the middle) – I had anticipated this to be a typical (read: low-brow) small-town-invaded-by-insects film
a` la THE SWARM (1978), presenting a succession of contrived situations where various cast members meet a grisly death at the hands of the bugs.
While it has a few scenes in this vein to cater to just that section of its intended audience – and the fact that they are combustible (their sudden emergence the direct cause of an impressively-staged earthquake) certainly provides a novel touch for this type of film! – the second half virtually revolves exclusively around Dillman’s obsession with the insects (following the death of his wife, who fell victim to them). In fact, he isolates a number of bugs in a pressurized container for experimental purposes – the result of his endeavor is, however, far greater than he could have imagined: the concept of intelligent carnivorous bugs must have seemed like the height of silliness on paper, but there’s no denying that its execution in cinematic terms is reasonably persuasive and downright scary (especially since they keep evolving into ever more diabolical creatures)!
The film makes use of an electronic score for maximum unsettling effect; incidentally, this proved to be notorious showman producer William Castle’s swan-song (he also co-wrote the script with Thomas Page, author of the novel on which it was based).
