Tales that Witness Madness (1973): or, Try the Veal

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 5!

 
In a high-security, hi-tech asylum in the British countryside, Professor R. C. Tremayne (Donald "Fucking" Pleasence) is doing psychological research on a ragtag group of inmates, each of whom is a "special case." Imaginative little moppet Paul (Russell Lewis) arrived after his neglectful and constantly scream-fighting parents got a first-hand introduction to his imaginary friend "Mr. Tiger." Fire-scarred junk dealer Timothy (Peter McEnery "the-Eigth-I-Am") went koo-koo upon receipt of "The Penny-Farthing," a time-traveling antique bicycle somehow linked to the constantly-changing picture of sinister Uncle Albert. (We're so sorry.) In another room, Brian (Michael Jayston) reflects on the demise of his hot, bitchy wife Bella (a never hotter nor bitchier Joan Collins), apparently at the hands...er, branches...of a jealous hunk of wood he cals "Mel." And the final patient, Auriol (screen legend Kim Novak) is still overcoming indigestion thanks to a cannibalistic "Luau" that may or may not (but almost definitely DID) include her daughter Ginny (Mary Tamm) as a main course. Dr. Tremayne claims he has "absolute proof" in these cases--but of what? And to what purpose?

Tales that Witness Madness is an old school British anthology film of the kind I absolutely ate up as a kid on Saturday afternoon TV matinees.  Director Freddie Francis is no stranger to the format (having helmed the classic Amicus anthology Tales from the Crypt just a couple years earlier), nor to the horror genre generally, as one of Britain's more prolific terror tale directors of the era (The Evil of Frankenstein, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave ,  The Creeping Flesh, and many more). Here he's got a star-studded cast who all seem game enough, but sadly the quality of the stories is not up to the same creepy level of Crypt. The stories are serviceable enough in a second-tier Twilight Zone-y kinda way, with my favorite being the opener "Mr. Tiger." The little boy's creepy Schroeder-esque piano playing, the riotously over-the-top performance by blustery Welshman Donald Houston as the boy's dad, and some nicely filmed blood-spatter imagery near the end make it a stand-out. (Another creeptastic image is the "paper faced" Uncle Albert in the time-travel segments of "Penny-Farthing." Also, the strangely sensuous half-woman/half-tree thing in "Mel" is more than a little pleasingly perverse.) Still, the lack of explanation for any of the goings on--which wouldn't have bothered me at all as a kid, it bears noting--left adult me wanting more.

Not the best example of the British horror anthology, but not terrible either. If you're looking for something a little fun that doesn't require too much mental engagement, this one could fit the bill. 1.5 thumbs.

"Show me your pecker, big boy!"

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Top 10 Inexplicably Awesome Bit Characters: Part 1 of 2

It should almost go without saying by now that Mad Movies are not like regular movies. Different rules apply; different dialectics are at work. Things that would get a mainstream director hounded off the set and sent back to the Music Video Bush League are transformed by the filmmakers' enthusiasm and joie de vie into something charming and even emotionally resonant. Performances that would make the average moviegoer toss his popcorn in disgust become emotive tours des force that earn their actors a permanent place in the b-movie lover's Pantheon of Awesome. Reviewers who don't know enough French to order breakfast at their local Le Madelaine suddenly grab their baguettes and start gushing over the film's je ne sais quois.

It's easy to love a particularly resourceful hero or a deliciously evil villain. But often the real joie of a Mad Movie resides not in the pro- or ant- agonists, but in the supporting characters who add that certain special indefinable something to the flick, sometimes pushing the film from horrible trash-piece to joy-bubbling giggle-fest by sheer force of personality. Today on Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies, I would like to pay tribute to a few of these minor stars in the constellation of awesome with my Top 10 Inexplicably Awesome Bit Characters.

Today's post celebrates honorees 10 through 6; enjoy, and be sure to check back tomorrow for the Top 5!

Nota Bene: in the interest of simplicity and pumping up my archive-reading traffic, I've limited my choices to movies that have been previously reviewed here on the site. I invite my loyal parishioners to propose their own honorees in the comment section--because God knows I need more movies on my To Be Watched list.

10. Sheriff Liggett in Silent Madness (1984)


There are lots of neat little touches in this largely forgotten 3-D slasher effort to warm the cockles of the mad movie fan's heart, but chief among them is Sydney Lassick as the foul-mouthed, combatatively incurious Sheriff Liggett. Despite bearing an ugly neck scar from a previous encounter with the movie's killer, Liggett is aggressive in his determination to let bygones be bygones and stay as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. Sort of like the anti-Loomis. Plus, how can you not love a police chief who looks like Zelda Rubenstein in man-drag and delivers lines like "Just because the goddamn broad is so good-lookin' don't mean we all have to think with our dicks! Huh? Right?" I'll answer that for you: you can't. You can't NOT love this guy.

9. Sherry in Three on a Meathook (1972)

William Girdler's early-70s paean to cannibalism and Mommy Issues focuses mostly on the trials and tribulations of young Billy Townsend (James Pickett) as he tries to come to terms with having an alcoholic father, a dead mother he may or may not have killed when he was a kid, and heaps and heaps of frustrated sexuality. But the real star is for me is compassionate-beyond-belief barmaid Sherry, played with inexplicable awesomeness by Sherry Steiner. With a voice like the world's most soothing dental hygenist, Sherry is indugent of Billy's drinking, accepting of his father's rudeness and tendency to pickaxe her friends, and works in a bar where the house band is the similarly inexplicably awesome AMERICAN XPRESS. But most importantly, when after a night of wild passion she awakes to find Billy has WET THE FUCKING BED, she shrugs it off with a smile, kisses her urine-soaked lover, and heads off to fix breakfast. Maybe she's a saint or maybe she's a freak, but in either case, she's a keeper.

8. Nicky in Savage Weekend (1976)

Cinematic history is littered with portrayals of the Flaming Gay Friend. He's almost always played for comedy, and hardly ever given more to do than flounce about commenting archly on the female characters' taste in clothes and periodically making double entendres about the hero's "package." Well, that ain't how Nicky rolls. Played with uncommon intensity by Christopher Allport, Nicky does his share of flouncing in a early scene at a redneck bar, but reveals the iron fist below the velvet glove when he throws off the sheepskin and proceeds to beat the asses of every local tough in the joint! He's the only character man enough to remove the totemic vampire bat nailed to the cabin door on their arrival, and his protectiveness of best friend and total slut Shirley (Caitlin O'Heaney) borders on the psychotic--in the best possible way. His final, ambiguously sexy dance number with Shirley is a highlight. In fact, if he hadn't been distracted by his own fabulousness in a full length mirror in the hallway, I doubt the killer would ever have got the drop on him. Nicky, you rule.

7. Harry DuBaul in The Guy from Harlem (1977)

A piece of wild folk art masquerading as a blaxploitation movie, The Guy from Harlem is something special, in both the "extraordinary" and "riding the short bus" senses of the term. One of the major contributing factors is the explosive screen presence of Steve Gallon as gang lord Harry DuBaul. (Pictured above right.) Dressed like a $300 picnic and delivering all his lines as if his vocal chords can barely contain the awesome bubbling up inside, Gallon bleeds charisma and confidence, making the most of his sadly limited screentime. When I say he's like a less shy and reserved Don King, I mean it as the highest complement.

6. Rodriguez in Die Screaming, Marianne (1971)

Though Pete Walker's family drama-cum-thriller is one of the more misleadingly titled films of the era, if one can get past the lack of screaming and dying, there are quite a few things to enjoy here--such as beautiful Portuguese scenery, a fairly risque incest subplot, and Susan George shakin' it like a Polaroid in the movie's rightly revered opening titles. (Check youtube now, thank me later.) But my favorite character is Rodriguez (Kenneth Hendel), the strong, silent bodyguard to the deliciously nefarious Judge. Hendel plays the thin, seldom-speaking heavy with quiet, self-assured menace throughout, and a late-reel face-turn is both surprising and perfect. One of those characters whose importance you don't appreciate till the end credits roll, Rodriguez makes the movie for me.

What bit characters will make the top 5? Come back tomorrow for the rest of the list! And tell us your favorite bit characters in the comments below!

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Cannibal Girls (1973): or, I Wouldn't If I Were You

Director Ivan Reitman has had a lot of success outside the world of horror, mostly in the realm of wacky, star-studded comedy. He first struck comedic gold in 1979 with a young, top-of-his-game Bill Murray in 1979's Meatballs. He followed that in 1981 with Stripes, perhaps still the funniest army movie ever made. And then he and Murray mixed giggles and ghosts in the 1984 blockbuster Ghostbusters and its sequel. By the time the 80s drew to a close, it was clear that not many directors could do wacky big-budget comedy like Reitman.

But nobody starts at the top--often it takes an artist a few false starts before he finds that perfect vehicle for his unique talents, the one that will allow him to showcase his abilities in the best possible way. Ivan Reitman is no exception to this rule, as proven definitively by his last pre-Murray flick, the 1973 would-be horror/comedy Cannibal Girls.

We open in the snowy, craggy Canadian wilderness, where a couple spreads a blanket on a comfortable-looking snowbank so they can lie down and make out--I guess when you're Canadian, you get used to the cold. Before they can generate any significant body heat, however, a mysterious figure clad in a knee-length skirt, nylons, and sensible shoes strolls out of the woods and pickaxes the both of them! Just goes to show the wisdome of the old maxim: GET A ROOM.

Meanwhile, in the extremely ugly rural town of Farnhamville, an old van goes by with a telling legend on the side:

"I'm your Cold Meat Man, Stop Me When I'm Passin' By..."

Yes, we're all about the subtlety here, folks. To drive the point home, the local Sheriff (Bob McHeady, doing a pretty fair Edward G. Robinson impression), informs the local doctor "It looks like we've got another one!" and sends some boys to collect the corpses. This is a town with an industry, and it's obviously not tourism.

But despite the almost universal agreement in horror films that it's NEVER a good idea, there's always some tourist who likes the idea of going off the beaten track. In this film it's hippie couple Cliff and Gloria, played by future SCTV stars and comedy middleweights Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin. They haven't been dating long, and Cliff has arranged this dirty weekend in the wilds of Canada in hopes of getting some comedic tail. After some meant-to-be hilarious car trouble solved by ditzy Gloria's "talk nicely to the car" method, they make it into Farnhamville and set about looking for a hotel wherein to GET IT AWN.

I wish I could say that Levy and Martin bring the full weight of their respective future comic brilliance to the proceedings here, but sadly we seem to have caught them (like Reitman) several years before they came into their own in their chosen field. Reitman's script doesn't do them any favors, but we can't lay all the blame on Ivan, since much of the "comedy" seems to be improvised. Obvious gags like Gloria honking the horn instead of cranking the engine, leading to Cliff hilariously bonking his head on the open hood, are pretty much the acme here. And Levy's chemistry with Martin is nothing like that he would develop decades later with a much better comedienne, Catherine O'Hara, in films like Christopher Guest's mockumentary Best in Show, which he also co-wrote. Maybe Ivan should have handed the pen over to Eugene.

Still, is is kind of fun to see Levy in full-out, near-unrecognizable hippie garb:

"Man, I sure could go for some Doritos."

It turns out that GET A ROOM is perhaps not all that great a piece of advice either, as Cliff and Gloria settle in to the only local motel and are regaled by the elderly owner with tales of the town's sordid past. According to legend, three girls used to live in a house on the outskirts of Farnhamville, aided only by a hunchbacked, inarticulate servant named Bunker. After picking up travellers at the local tavern, the girls would invite them back to the house, coax them into staying with promises of free food and free love, and then murder them for their meat. "They were cannibals," the old lady beams, "and they et men! And rumor has it they were never sick a day in their lives!"

Through a poorly constructed flashback we get to see the story of three such victims, giving Reitman the chance to focus on his cast's nonexistent improvisational skills once again in the form or boring, repetitive, and really atrocious dialog. The characters are meant to be wacky and hilarious (one is a professional parade organizer, another an ice-cream truck driver, the third a nerdy, horn-rimmed glasses-wearing rich kid), but all the jokes fall flat ("Are you sisters?" "No, we just share a lot of similar tastes.") and the attempts at building suspense just fizzle. The Cannibal Girls themselves are pretty enough in a 70s way, though, and when they finally get around to the killings after reciting a nice little ceremonial verse ("Within me, and without me, I honor the blood which gives me life..."), they do it in their underwear or fully nude--which goes a long way toward making up for their somewhat lacking acting skills.

As for the kills themselves, Reitman actually manages to pull off a few competent grindhouse-level gore scenes, including an in-the-throat scissor kill and a bra-and-panties axe-murder. The best scene comes when the three girls handcuff the sole surviving victim to a bed, leading him to believe he's in for some kinky foursome action--then they pull out the gravy boat, add some sauce, fall on him and start eating him alive, buffet-style! It's actually almost chilling in a weird way, with the victim screaming and straining under their teeth--and it's probably the closest the movie gets to legitimate horror.

Axe Me No Questions

Upon learning that the girls' old house is still standing and is in fact the town's only gourmet restaurant (DUN DUN DUN!), Cliff and Gloria decide to go see the place and grab a bite--like you do. Once there they meet the only real reason to watch the movie, the Reverend Alex St. John (the absolutely EXCELLENT Ronald Ulrich). Dressed less like a man of the cloth than a stage magician you'd hire for a kid's birthday party--top hat, tails, even white gloves and a red satin-lined cape at one point--Ulrich totally OWNS every scene he's in, delivering his lines with the drawn-out creepy tones of Riff-Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and obviously having a blast. After treating his guests to the specialty of the house--it's the only dish on the menu--he invites them to stay the night, and of course they accept.

You can probably see where this is going. Turns out the Reverend is the one who initiated first the farm girls (who are still on hand as his servants-cum-harem) and later the rest of Farnhamville into his black magic, cannibalistic ways. Gaining power and immortality from the flesh of the living, the Reverend makes mincemeat out of every tourist who comes through, sharing the spoils with the rest of the town, and occasionally recruits a pretty girl or two into his inner sacreligious circle. No points for guessing his plans for our hippie-dippy couple.

In the movie's favor, the idea of the whole town being part of the enigmatic Reverend's cannibalistic cult is a nice way of expanding the horror outward, giving a Lovecraft-lite vibe to the proceedings that slightly recalls the much scarier and more excellent US film of the same year, Messiah of Evil. But Reitman seems more interested in wringing gags out of his script than shivers, and obviously hadn't yet developed the directorial chops to do either effectively. The editing is slapdash, the shots are static and uninteresting (with the exception of a few nice pre-credit garden compositions and one almost-LOL-worthy visual reference to the Sweeney Todd legend), and the script--what there is of it--is kinda stupid.

Ulrich Revs it Up

As I said before, Levy and Martin are shadows of their future selves here, and the rest of the cast seems mostly composed of non-actors. Ulrich as the Reverend is the sole bright spot, imparting even the corniest dialog with an infectious charisma. (One scene where he narrates the family history over a slow pan of the house's den that was obviously shot without the actors present, shows not only his talent but the film's extremely limited budget.) Unfortunately Ulrich never appeared in another film, according to IMDb--a shame, since I think he'd have been spectacular in a vehicle worthy of him.

In the final analysis I can say I'm glad Reitman built on his experience here and went on the bigger and funnier things, but I can't in good conscience recommend the movie, unless you're a Canadian Comedy Completist, or the president of Andrea Martin's fan club. If you catch it on TV sometime it might be worth sticking around for ten or fifteen minutes, just to get a flavor--especially if Ulrich is onscreen or one of the girls is getting naked. But there are better ways to spend your movie watching time--like watching Ghostbusters again, for instance. Final rating: 1.25 thumbs.

Whoa-oh, here she comes...

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Slave of the Cannibal God (1978): or, Sometimes Shorter is Better

Most of my parishioners should understand by now that, while your ever-lovin' Vicar could not really be called a "perfectionist," he does take pride in having at least a rudimentary idea what he's talking about. That's why it's often not enough for me just to watch a movie and then foist my opinions on the breathlessly anticipatory blogosphere; no, sometimes I have to go that extra mile, do that extra little bit of research, find that one bonus tidbit that will make everyone's visit to the dungeons of the Vicarage worthwhile. Say what you will about me, but if there's one think I hate, it's going off half-cocked.

Sometimes, though, the knowledge I gain is hardly worth the torment of its possession. Such was definitely the case with my inaugural movie of 2009, Sergio Martino's infamous 1978 cannibal flick, Slave of the Cannibal God. The version in my collection comes from the Mill Creek 50 Drive-In Movie Classics box set, and clocks in at a lean 82 minutes. It had its gruesome moments, but even to an untrained eye it's obvious some censor has taken a hacksaw to the print. A cursory glance through my Internet Sources (the BEST sources!) told me I was missing anywhere from 9 to 19 minutes of prime sex-and-gore infamy. Not one to let an omission like that stand, I put on my pith helmet and struck out into the jungles of the web, searching for that elusive lost footage.

But before I discuss the result of *that* ill-fated expedition, let's talk about the shorter, kinder, gentler print.

In both versions, Martino (who showed a much defter touch in the previously reviewed All the Colors of the Dark) opens with a seemingly conservation-minded text crawl:

New Guinea is perhaps the last region on earth which still contains immense unexplored areas, shrouded in mystery, where life has remained at its primordial level. Today, on the dawn of the space age, it seems unimaginable that only twenty hours' flight from London there still exists such a wild and uncontaminated world. This story bears witness that it does...

Fair enough--but that green message is accompanied by examples of what Alfred Lord Tennyson famously called "Nature, red in tooth and claw": we get to see an alligator eating a snapping turtle, an albino cobra spreading its hood, and various other shots of animals basically being beastly to one another. Of course this is to establish the metaphorical backdrop for our tale's easy moral, which as usual has to do with men not being any better than komodo dragons when it comes to compassion and survival. However, next to the above sentiment, it seems a little out-of-context.

"Here I go again on my own...Goin' down the only road I've ever known!"

The plot-related portion of the movie begins when Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress, whose forehead has never been higher) arrives in New Guinea with her brother Arthur. (Despite the preponderance of reviews claiming it's Helmut Berger in this role, it is in fact the only slightly less sinister and Germanic-looking Antonio Marsina. Minions of the Tenebrous Empire, you were warned.) The crowd of reporters that greets her lets us know she's rich and important, presumably for being the wife of a world-famous anthropologist who's gone missing in the New Guinea bush. She and Arthur have come to New Guinea to look for him, and there's your plot.

After striking out at the embassy, Susan heads to her husband's jungle compound where she meets his partner Professor Edward Foster, played by a young, buff n' scruffy Stacy Keach. Edward has a hunch about Professor Stevenson's whereabouts, as the old man had been fascinated by the legends surrounding the island of Roaka and its sacred mountain, Ra-Ra Mi. Unfortunately, Ed tells us, the island is off-limits--"They say it's for conservation reasons, but the truth of the matter is...they're afraid of the curse too." Resolved not to leave Papua without her Papa, Ursula recruits Keach and his band of merry natives to lead an illegal expedition to the mountain to get her husband back.

From there it's a short helicopter ride to the middle of jungly nowhere, and our intrepid band of explorers spends quite a bit of time hacking through the brush in close-up. Ursula gets the first brush with death in when she falls over to find herself face to face with a gigantic tarantula! The tarantula, in turn, gets the first ACTUAL death as Keach cleaves it in twain with his handy machete. (Yes, as is usual with this kind of flick, ANIMALS WERE HARMED.) Keach then delivers a chilling monologue about what Ursula could have expected had she been bitten by the deadly beast--a cautionary tale that would carry more weight, I think, if Keach himself were clad in more than mid-thigh camo shorts. I guess he's relying on his cunning to keep him alive.

"Of course the surest way to make them bleed is when you bust their ass and steal their weed."

As it turns out, the spider got off easy. Believing the killing of a spider was a bad omen, the natives in Keach's outfit set about appeasing the gods...by killing an iguana! The tied, writhing animal is gutted graphically for your viewing pleasure, and one of the natives goes the extra mile by pulling out the lizard's heart and using it for chewing gum. My brain was spinning a little--if killing the spider was bad, wouldn't killing the lizard be worse? Will they have to kill a goat to make up for the lizard? Then a tapir for the goat? Then a pygmy hippo and so on? WHERE WILL IT END?

Luckily the natives are untroubled by sacrificial escalation scenarios, and our group continues through the jungle, narrowly avoiding a police copter patrol and giving Arthur the chance to show his douchebaggy side when he interrupts the sacrifice and gets some Keach-knuckles to the gums for his trouble. Offended by the guy's Teutonic insensitivity to their customs, some of the natives split, leaving the band short-handed but still determined. They eventually reach the ocean and (presumably) sail across to the cursed island.

After a brief shot of a python eating a monkey, it's back to the close-up trek for several minutes, never showing more than a few square feet of coverage around the actors. Just when you think they might be filming this in a greenhouse, however, we're on-location and river-rafting! This is supposed to get us to the mountain quicker, but really it's just an excuse to show one of the native guides getting his arm chomped off by an alligator. Which admittedly is pretty awesome. A little later another native is caught in an animal trap, letting Keach show his acting chops by spouting nonsense "native language" to calm his rapidly dwindling crew.

Stumped.

About this time the Evil Cannibal Natives appear in Nightmare Mummenschanz masks and attack the crew, graphically beheading one guide and chasing Ursula through the forest, separated from her protective menfolk. Luckily another stranger, Manolo (Claudio Cassinelli) comes out of nowhere to save her. Danger averted and a few more expedition members gone, they make it to the jungle Mission of Father Moses, played by the awesomely named Franco Fantasia.

Not much happens at the village except for a booty-shakin' native ritual and Arthur availing himself of the opportunity to beat some native bush, IYKWIM. Unfortunately the Cannibal tribe attacks again, killing the girl in flagrante de douchebag and inspiring Father Moses to kick them (the fuck) out of the village. Having conquered the jungle and needing a new challenge (not to mention getting some serious play from Ursula), the manly Manolo agrees to join them as they press on to the last leg of their quest.

So on they trek--Keach dies in a freak waterfall-climbing accident (aided by Arthur's douchebaggery), we see our crew torturing and eating seafood, Ursula is attacked by a snake and saved by Manolo, we learn that the prof had actually been looking for uranium on the island, we get a nice heel-turn by Ursula, who reveals she doesn't care about the Professor, she just wants that radioactive loot. She asks Manolo to help, but the steadfast good guy refuses for reasons even a Greenpeace member would have to find suspect at this point: "Help you exploit this island and its peoples? Help you destroy the forests and bring your so-called progress to a place like this?" Um...dude, have you SEEN this place? It's crawling with fucking CANNIBALS!

Schnitzel on a Stick

As if on cue, the Cannibal tribe shows up, spears Arthur, and FINALLY they get taken back to the cavern where most of the grodiness the film is infamous for will take place. There they find the corpse of Professor Stevenson with a Geiger counter in its chest, Ursula is recognized from a photo the doc had with him and dolled up to become the Cannibal God's queen, and Arthur is gutted and eaten by the cannibals, leading to a meat-crazed sex orgy that in my version is cut very, very short. (More on this below.)

Highlights in the cut version include EXTENDED CANNIBAL DWARF sequences, a rapey native who snuggles up to Ursula and gets castrated for his transgression, and an escape that relies heavily on the Cannibal Warriors' practice of NOT shouting for help, even when mortally wounded. Clinging to a log in the raging river with the man(olo) she loves, Ursula has a change of heart and the movie ends happily. Ta-da!

So that's the cut version. Apart from few scenes of animal cruelty (which while bad, is nowhere near the level of what we see in most of the other films of the genre) and not much gore fx, it does have brisk pace with some entertaining twists to keep it moving. Actually, except for being a little bland, at 82 minutes I had to say it worked pretty well as a jungle-adventure movie--without the animal deaths, it would run even leaner and better, imo.

He may be little, but he eats a LOT.

So WHY couldn't I leave well enough alone? WHY did I have to pick at the scab? I can't tell you, but driven by journalistic integrity, I delved further and came up with an uncut print of the movie (under the alternate and more literal title Mountain of the Cannibal God) for research purposes. I didn't rewatch, but fastforwarded through just to see what, if anything, I missed.

The uncut version, as you might assume, is just MORE SICKER MORE. It was first noticeable in the monkey-eaten-by-python scene, which is much longer and more agonizing: you can see the primate looking at the camera several times, as if pleading for help, before his expressive face disappears into the snake's gullet. The snake/falcon fight is longer too, though with nothing like the same brutality.

As for the NON-real sections of the flick, those up the ante as well. The alligator-gets-arm scene is longer and grosser, as are some of the natives' deaths. When Arthur is made a douche-kebab in the cavern, the gutting and ripping out of entrails goes on much longer, with much more detail and gnawing on the part of the natives. The dwarf cannibal's death by falling backwards on a rock is more graphic too, as in this version he actually pops the top of his skull off, revealing the quivering brain beneath. The rapey cannibal gets a post-castration close-up as well, which while not exactly realistic, still gets the point across.

The centerpiece though is the meat-mad orgy the natives go into after feasting on Arthur's Germanic goodness, which makes up the bulk of the cut footage. Natives eat live snakes and hump each other against the walls of the cavern, and a native girl masturbates graphically for a good two minutes while the drumbeats blare. (I guess German food makes her horny.) But the ne plus ultra occurs when, in the midst of the frenzy, we see a warrior performing energetic (and hopefully simulated) intercourse on a BIG-ASS DOMESTICATED PIG. This probably only goes on for a few seconds, but believe me, a little dab will do you.

That pig has haunted me ever since I saw it. Where did it come from? These natives were obviously NOT agriculturally advanced enough to have domesticated livestock--no goats or chickens or ducks in evidence--and the thing was so large it was obviously fed well. And what about human meat made this guy immediately and uncontrollably want to go have his way with the cattle? And why eat people if you have all the pork you want? Then again, maybe that question answers itself.

Yes, there you have it--some things you see and can't unsee, and they diminish you. It happened to me.

Had I stopped with the 82 minute version, I might have given Slave of the Cannibal God 1.75 or even a soft 2 thumbs; however, getting a glimpse of it in its full terrible majesty, I have to knock it down to a 1.25 at the highest. In an attempt to get that piggy image out of my mind, here's a picture of Ursula Andress in a state of undress. And may the Cannibal God have mercy on us all.

"Let me change clothes...I feel dirty."

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Messiah of Evil (1973): or, He'll Be Comin' From the Ocean When He Comes

It's been a while since I sang the praises of Mill Creek's 50 Chilling Classics set, but the time has come to do so once more. I've said it before and I'll say it again--the best $20 I've ever spent for which I got a receipt.

Of course whenever you're buying your movies in bulk you're going to end up with a high crap-to-gold ratio, but the 50CC set keeps that ratio admirably close to the 1:1 mark. Not only that, but the goldiness of the gold is so much greater than the crappiness of the crap, it ends up as much more than a net win--it's a treasure.

Really, I'm not kidding. Go buy one now.

But even if the ratio were more like 5:1 on the crap side, the set would have still been worth double the price for introducing me to this wonderfully creepy and astonishingly overlooked fright flick from 1973, Willard Huyck's Messiah of Evil (aka Dead People). A movie that for my money does almost everything right, Messiah of Evil combines slow-build suspense, Lovecraftian story elements, and go-for-the-throat set pieces to deliver a tale that always leaves the Vicar smiling, satisfied, and more than a little creeped-out.

I'll be the first to admit the movie stumbles coming out of the gates: a blandly handsome young man runs down a shadowy street, from who or what we can't see. As he stops to catch his breath, a young girl beckons to him from a hidden courtyard. He goes in and drinks from a fountain before collapsing on the ground. The girl kneels over him, offers her hand to kiss--and then pulls out a straight razor and slits his throat!

Which by itself is not a bad scene...except that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the movie it introduces. Neither character is spoken of again, the girl's method of killing is unlike that of the film's baddies--hell, even the location looks completely unlike anything else in the film. It really serves no purpose except to open with a shock, which it gains by sacrificing storytelling integrity.

(Still, the wonderfully overblown theme song that plays over the scene almost redeems it: "I gave my message to the wind,/ I told my story to the sea--/ NObody else...is listening...to meeee..../ HOLD OOOOOOON TO LOOOOOOOOVE!")

While you're waiting for the REAL film to start, how about a nice game of solitaire?

The choice of opening becomes even more perplexing once the credits have rolled, since it's followed by ANOTHER introductory scene, this one much more germane and a hundred times more effective. In this one we stand at the end of a long corridor, the far end of which is lost in the glare of harsh sunlight. Slowly a shadowy figure emerges from the gleam, a woman weaving erratically as she draws ever nearer. In voice-over she tells us the basics of her situation, her voice starting in a whisper and building at last to a mad wail:

"They say that nightmares are dreams perverted. I told them here it wasn't a nightmare--but they don't believe me. They nod, and make little notes in my file...But there's so little time left! You've GOT to listen!

"Not far from here there's a small town on the coast--they used to call it New Bethlehem, but they changed the name to Point Dune, after the moon turned blood red...Point Dune doesn't look any different than a thousand other neon-stucco towns--but what they did to me...what they're doing now...

They're coming here...they're waiting to pierce the city. They're peering around buildings at night, and they're waiting...They're waiting for you. And they'll take you...one by one, and no one will hear you scream! NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU SCREAM!"

See? A woman everyone thinks is crazy, who's gone through some horrific experience, and the fate of the world depends on her convincing the viewer to believe her incredible tale? THAT'S the way you should have opened the movie! (Though admittedly, following that awesome speech with "HOOOLD OOOON TO LOOOOVE!" might have undercut the effect.)

That's More Like It

The voice-over continues as we flash back and find our narrator, a young woman by the improbable name of "Arletty" (Marianna Hill), traveling to Point Dune in search of her father. Pops is a moderately famous artist who moved to Point Dune to paint; he often wrote Arletty letters, and over time the missives got more and more bizarre and finally stopped altogether. In his last letter, Dad told her not to come looking for him, lest his terrible fate ensnare her too--so naturally, off she goes!

Huyck wastes no time piling on the creepiness, even before Arletty gets into Point Dune proper. She stops at a gas station on the outskirts of town and finds the attendant emptying his revolver into the dark field behind the garage. He explains that he's shooting at stray dogs, a claim immediately undercut by unidentifiable but still scary animal noises echoing through the darkness. "Doesn't sound like dogs," Arletty observes. "HAS to be," the attendant replies. "Has to be dogs! I've hunted out in them woods--nothing but rabbits and quail. Rabbits don't make that sound!" When their transaction is interrupted by the appearance of the SCARIEST ALBINO EVAR in a pickup truck with a strange cargo, the attendant advises her to leave, even without paying. "Just GET OUT!" he whispers...and soon enough, we find out why.

I don't think it's racist to admit I'm terrified of this guy.

Oblivious to the attendant's fate, Arletty soon arrives at her father's house, a lighthouse-looking bungalow on the beach. The sound of wind and waves drowns out all else as she explores the deserted studio, which is decorated with unsettling paintings of pale men and women on every wall, a taxidermied dog frozen in mid-snarl, and an awesome bed suspended on chains from the ceiling! (I'm TOTALLY getting one of these when I remodel the Vicarage.) In short order she finds her father's sketchbooks and diaries, and we get to hear the old man (also in voice-over) telling about his strange experiences in Point Dune:

"The visions are coming from areas of my mind that I don't understand...these grotesque images keep crowding in on me...At night I find myself wandering through the town...catching glimpses of horrid animals I know can't be real...Women with pale faces and shadowy figures, staring out at the black water..."

Students of literature will immediately recognize this as a classic Lovecraftian story set-up, in more the "uncanny happenings and unimaginable creatures revealing unendurable truths" way than the "OMG AN OCTOPUS-FACED MONSTER" way. It's very well done, and the writing for the old man and Arletty's speeches will give you the campfire-story chills if you're not made of stone.

The next day Arletty goes to an art gallery in Point Dune, run by an art dealer who just happens to be blind! Through her smarmy/creepy interpreter-son, the old woman does her best to make Arletty unwelcome, denigrating her father's work and advising her to leave town. But when the son lets slip that some other strangers had come in that morning asking about her dad, Arletty heads to the Seven Seas Hotel to follow up her only lead.

At the hotel, Arletty finds the strangers--dapper folklore hobbyist Thom (Michael Greer) and his two traveling companions, exotic dark-haired beauty Laura (Invasion of the Bee Girls' Anitra Ford) and petulant, childlike blonde Toni (played by the all-time "I can't believe you didn't take a stage name" winner, JOY BANG). The groovy trio invite Arletty in to listen to an homeless wino Thom has befriended in order to learn more about the history of the town, Old Charlie--portrayed by the legendary God of Character Actors, Elisha Cook Jr.! He's only in the movie for around five minutes, but Elisha makes all of them count, laying out the terrifying legend of the Blood Moon, a supernatural occurence that had strange, horrifying effects on the populace:

"My daddy called it the Blood Moon...he said that was the night he lost religion. Folks started bleedin', out of control...they found babies, little children eating raw meat! It was like the redder the moon got up there...the more people were bein' jerked toward Hell!"

LEGEND.

Thom pays Charlie in booze for his story, and explains to Arletty that they saw her dad's paintings in the gallery that morning--"In fact, it was a portrait of you!"--and asked about him, after which the dealer must have removed them, since Arletty saw no such painting. Unsatisfied, Arletty leaves only to be stopped by Old Charlie in the alley. Elisha Cook Jr. shows why he had nearly 200 films to his credit by the time he checked out, out-crazying even Crazy Ralph with his warning:

"If you love your daddy...you have to kill him! You have to! You...you can't bury him--don't put him in the ground! You've got to burn him! You gotta put fire to his body!"

Later that night Thom and the girls show up at Arletty's dad's pad, having been thrown out by the manager after Old Charlie turned up dead in the alley. Inviting themselves to stay, the oddly-mannered menage a trois moves in, and before long all four of them are suffering the strange effects of the Point Dune air, not to mention the unwelcome attentions of its nocturnal residents...

Thom's aristocratic suavery makes the detective hang his head in shame.

And you know what? That's all I'm going to say about the plot of the movie. This is one of those films where the story is so good, and it's presented in such an artful way, it should really be experienced as freshly as possible. Of course knowing what happens didn't dampen my enjoyment of the movie the second time I watched it...or the third, or fourth--because director Huyck does a lot of things that stand up for appreciation on subsequent viewings. Just go find yourself a copy--it's available on public domain sets like 50 Chilling Classics, and available to watch or download online pretty much all over the place. So do it--you really have no excuse, and you'll thank me. BELIEVE IT.

What I would like to talk about a little are a few of those artful touches that really enhanced my enjoyment of the film, one of them being the use of sound. This was made in the days before surround sound, obviously, but that doesn't stop Huyck from making the most of the aural as well as the visual. The score is minimalist and synth-based, largely eschewing songs and recurrent musical themes for discordant, disconcerting swells and vaguely sci-fi ambient noise that are much more effective than an orchestral score probably could be. More than that, though, the near-constant sound of wind and waves in the background gives the whole film a mournful, lonely sonic backdrop, against which scenes of Arletty wandering through her father's abandoned studio or Thom walking the deserted streets of Point Dune after dark play out with spooky, ghost-town gloom. In the few scenes where the wind-and-wave track ins not present--as in the standout Grocery Store Scene where the hapless Laura is introduced to Point Dune's nocturnal residents--the silence becomes uncanny, with a thematic and emotional weight it would otherwise lack.

The visuals Huyck is able to achieve are often striking as well, despite the sometimes garish lighting and unfortunate beat-up condition of every print I've ever seen of the film. Several times in the film we get long, wide-angle crane shots showing one of our protagonists as a tiny figure in an ominously empty landscape, which emphasizes both the strange emptiness of the town and the character's vulnerability, out in the open with no place to hide. And again, the incessant sound of the wind and waves amplifies this effect by a full factor.

Anitra Ford: Messiah of Hawtness

Other design choices also pay dividends--for instance, Arletty's father's studio is one of the creepier sets it's been my pleasure to witness, with the aforementioned odd paintings of pale human figures lining the walls--they look like dead bodies, mounted so their eyes are always focused on the center of the room where the living go about their business. As rad as that chain-suspended bed is, I doubt I'd be able to get much sleep on it. And don't even talk to me about settling in for a nice warm bath.

Because much of the film focuses on slow discovery and events unfolding in uncanny relative silence, when that hush is disturbed by scenes of horrifying action, once again it packs an amplified wallop. The exits of Thom's two traveling companions are definitely the standout scenes here, the aforementioned grocery store discovery trumped by Toni's ill-fated visit to the local cinema. It's really an awesomely built-up scene, as the initially empty rows behind Toni slowly fill up with Point Dune's strangely silent residents, turning the tension screws until finally it all breaks loose in a truly frightening way.

The performances here are mostly good--Mariana Hill is effective as Arletty, particularly when the strange effects of the approaching Blood Moon start to show. Michael Greer as Thom is coolly deadpan and weirdly appealing; Anitra Ford adds some nice depth to her sultry, spurned lover character, and Joy Bang as Toni is also good at portraying her character's wild-child naivete. Memorable cameos by Elisha Cook Jr. and his fellow character-actor veteran Royal Dano lend a certain gravitas, and whoever played the Ominous Albino--my friend, welcome to my nightmares. You've earned your place.

For some reason, Joy didn't find her bubble bath all that relaxing.

Overall, I've got very little bad to say about this movie. Even things that ordinarily bother me in films--such as the heavy dependence on the voice-over, which I often feel is a sign of lazy filmmaking--here are made to work in chilling, wonderful ways. (The excellent creepy writing of the narration certainly doesn't hurt.) It's a real crime that no one has picked this flick up and given it the special edition, features-laden treatment it so richly deserves. Entertaining, artful, literate and above all CREEPY AS FUCK, Messiah of Evil easily merits the coveted 3+ thumb rating. Find yourself a copy--and stay off the beaches at night. You won't like what you find out there.

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Frightmare (1974): or, Must Have Been Something She Et

After watching and enjoying Pete Walker's mistitled but still-interesting thriller Die Screaming Marianne, and then LOVING his gore-and-booby-filled horror flick The Flesh and Blood Show, I had high hopes for his 1974 terror trip Frightmare. I mean, just look at that poster. Creepy old woman holding a bloody power tool, the font of the film's title itself shattering under the onslaught of HORROR--it just had to be good, right?

Well, perhaps it was a case of expecting too much, or maybe the Vicar was just a little down this week, but somehow this Walker effort just didn't come together for me. In spite of a seemingly can't-fail set of ingredients--Beautiful sisters at one another's throats! A dark family secret! Abandoned carnival grounds! Ultra-mod bikers!--it managed to wind its way through all the reveals and a few reasonably gory set-pieces without making the strong impression it was probably trying for.

It's a shame, because the film starts out very strong. After a bright color shot of "LONDON, 1957," we're suddenly thrust into a black-and-white flashback in which hapless sap Barry (Andrew Sachs of Fawlty Towers fame!) is walking through the aforementioned abandoned carnival, his brows knit with purpose. There are few things creepier for my money than an abandoned or empty carnival, and the crane shots here showing Barry traipse across the strangely silent grounds are full of atmospheric possibility. Finally he comes to a dingy-looking trailer and knocks at the door. After a moment it opens, and Barry tells the unseen inhabitant that he "needs help" as he's in "rather a mess." As soon as the door shuts, Walker gives us a strange but cool montage of the grubby interior of the trailer--unwashed dishes, fluttering drapes, fortune-telling posters on the walls--all to some creepy minimalist piano music. Again, great stuff that gets even greater when we track over to the bench by the door where Barry sits, half his head mangled to a bloody pulp! The door opens and closes, and we're off!

"¿Que?"

Not very far, though, as we suddenly find ourselves at the Old Bailey where a bewigged judge is pronouncing sentence on an unseen husband-and-wife team. Though the husband was not involved in the murders, the judge intones, he's still culpable as an enabler. His honor is inclined to pronounce a death sentence, but since they're both obviously koo-koo, he instead sends them to an institution for the criminally insane until such time as they can be proven cured. An extreme close-up of the still-unknown hubby and wife's hands clasping, and CREDITS.

If you've been paying attention you know I'm a sucker for a good credit sequence, and I like the one Walker gives us here--a deck of tarot cards are dealt out, a different card with each credit, some of them seeming to make a comment on the credit being shown. (For instance "DEATH" falls under the film's title, and when Walker's director's credit rolls around, "THE DEVIL" turns up. Nice.) It's not the booty-shakin' grooviness of Die Screaming Marianne's credits, but then what is?

Next we're whisked away to full-color present-day, where a Totally Mod Motorcycle gang is pulling up to the Toby Jug, a groovy pub and dance joint in swingin' 70s London. The chief troublemakers in the group are little Debbie and her Biking Boyfriend. When the barman refuses to serve the obviously underaged Debbie, she reports the insult to her Boyfriend, whose rage at the conscientious drink dispenser gets them all tossed from the club. The ne'er-do-wells lie in wait for the barman after closing time, though, and give him a vicious beatdown that leaves him bloodied and helpless. They scarper when an old man threatens to ring the constabulary, but Debbie stays behind a moment to say her goodbyes...

Debbie Has That Certain Flare

Meanwhile Debbie's sister Jackie is at a stuffy dinner party with stuffy friends, including Matthew, a goofy-looking dweeb of a psychiatrist to whom she is inexplicably attracted, despite his hyper-analytical emotionless bearing and distinctly unflattering spectacles. After dinner Jackie comes home, has a venom-laden confrontation with her kid sister, and then heads out again on a mysterious errand in the wee hours.

The mystery is soon solved when we discover that Jackie and Debbie are the daughters of the couple from the b&w prologue, who have just been released from the asylum after 15 years (which is EXACTLY Debbie's age, it turns out); her nocturnal errand is to visit them at the country farmhouse they now call home. Her father Edmund is played by British character actor Rupert Davies as a kind, congenial sort who is slavishly devoted to the still batshit-crazy mother Dorothy (Walker regular Sheila Keith). Jackie has brought a mysterious package for Mum and warns Dad that "Debbie suspects" something amiss. On the train ride home Jackie has an unsettling dream in which a gothed-out Dorothy cradles the package like a baby in her arms, leaving tell-tale spots of blood in her wake.

Up to this point (and indeed, mostly throughout) Pete Walker's direction is very creepy and disturbing--odd angles and dissolves, minimalistic scoring, and strange imagery put together with an expert's touch as each new piece of the puzzle comes into view. The weird family dynamic between Edmund and Dorothy is well-drawn too, as the kindhearted old man seems powerless in the face of his wife's insanity, desperately worried that she'll have a relapse even though she's been certified sane.

"Go on, take it! It's Brain Food!"

Well, it wouldn't be much of a movie if Dorothy DIDN'T relapse, and she wastes no time in getting round to it. Taking up her old hobby of telling fortunes via the magic of the Tarot, Dorothy lures unsuspecting lonely women to the farmhouse while Edmund's out being a chauffeur for some rich guy. Though it takes a while to get there, we eventually learn that Mum is offing her clients with a power drill (She can't help it! The DEATH card keeps coming up!) and stowing their bodies in the farm's hay bin for some nefarious purpose. Meanwhile Jackie learns from Dad that her still-mysterious packages are not having the desired effect--whatever that might be--and Jackie's psychiatrist admirer decides to stick his nose into the whole mess in a well-meaning but predictably disastrous way.

Along the way we also learn that Debbie is a chip off the ol' maternal block, as after an unproductive session with the police she leads her biker BF to a locked garage where she's stowed the body of the Beaten Barman, having murdered him and gouged out his eye post-smackdown! Mirroring this, Mum gets another attractive Tarot client and skewers her with a hot poker before drinking her blood, which she finds hard to explain when Edmund comes in and catches her in the act. ("It's my MEE-Graines!" she offers, unhelpfully.) Thereafter she reveals her stash of corpses in the hay to her husband, who ruefully but dutifully cleans things up and assists in the removal of the fresh body, thus falling back into that murderous co-dependency that got them where they are in the first place.

Meanwhile Matthew has taken matters into his own hands and gone to the asylum where Jackie's parents were committed to speak to the head headshrinker, Dr. Lytell, played by DSM's The Judge, the inimitable Leo Genn! (He's much more subdued and less fabulous here than in that other movie.) We also learn the Big Secret of Mum's incarceration thanks to a wonderfully casually delivered line from the chief inspector: "She was a cannibal...The fact is, she et people." Now we know why she held onto the remains! Haystacks? Hay-SNACKS, more like!

Nellie's reaction upon stumbling into the Vicar's Study was sadly typical.

The whole thing drags a bit toward the final confrontation. We learn that Jackie's been bringing Mum cow and pig brains to eat (the "packages"), telling her that they were human and leading her to believe that she, Jackie, was carrying on the family butchery business. Mum's smarter than they give her credit for, however, and in the big twist (Spoilers!) has tracked down Debbie and recruited her as an apprentice psychopathic murderer, a trade for which the girl has no small knack. The whole thing ends in tragedy and bloodshed, of course, with a downer ending of the sort that will appeal to many fans and a sort of touching fade out of Edmund, still powerless to stop his wife's insanity, resigned to being there for her anyway like a good husband should.

Frightmare is a well-made movie with some really cool visuals sprinkled here and there, and even some nice chunky gore on the post-mortem victims. The twisted family here, sort of a "Suburban Sawney Beane gone matriarchal," is a neat idea too. Still, I found myself a little bit bored by the end. It's fairly linear in its storytelling, which is not a bad thing in itself, but then everything plays out pretty much exactly as expected with few deviations or curveballs to divert you--even Debbie's involvement doesn't really surprise, as she's been a bloodthirsty psychobabe since square one.

Walker seems to have an axe to grind about the psychological health care system here, as Genn's Dr. Lytell says more than once, "Oh, we had to let them go--they were CERTIFIED SANE!", and the judge's pronouncement that the couple be held until they're "PROVEN ABSOLUTELY SANE" is echoed again in v.o.-flashback at the ending. It feels like Walker's poking you in the ribs going, "See? See? They SAY these nutso killers are sane, but they're NOT! And they LET THEM OUT ANYWAY! See? See? Get it?" It's an observation without weight, however, as from her first appearance it's pretty unbelievable that any doctor would have let Dot out of the looney bin without a second glance. Perhaps it was thrown in as a bone to the "social significance" cravers in the audience and on the censorship board. Or maybe it just popped up in the coke-fueled screenwriting binge and stuck.

Good CRAZYFACES run in the family.

Anyway, for me Frightmare was quite a letdown after The Flesh and Blood Show and Die Screaming Marianne, so I have to give it only 1.75 thumbs--fans of Walker's and people who like this sort of thing might find something to like, but I like my cannibalistic family dramas a bit more MAD than this one gets. Jaded? Perhaps--but I know what I like.

Oh well. I still have House of Whipcord on the shelf. Where there's life, there's hope...

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...