Witchfinder General (1968)

Title: Witchfinder General (1968) a.k.a. The Conqueror Worm

Director: Michael Reeves

Stars: Vincent Price

Review:

Michael Reeves, the director of Witchfinder General was a director that started making films at a very young age. He directed four films in his life time before he died of a drug overdose a couple of months after Witchfinder General was completed. Reeves was a very driven person and could think of nothing else that he wanted to do except direct films. His repertoire included Castle of the Living Dead (1964) with Christopher Lee, Revenge of the Blood Beast (1966) with Barbara Steele, The Sorcerers (1967) with Boris Karloff and finally, Witchfinder General (1968) with Vincent Price. But it was Witchfinder General that got him noticed because of the violence portrayed in the picture, which was considered excessive at the time. The film was coproduced by Tigon Pictures and American International Pictures. Upon its release on the U.S. the title was changed to The Conqueror Worm, in order to capitalize on the success of Roger Corman’s Poe Cycle of films. They did this even though the film has nothing to do with Poe.

Witchfinder General takes place in the 17 century, right smack in the middle of the English Civil War. During this time, there was chaos in the land and the time was ripe for devious characters to take advantage of people. The church would send out its inquisitors to hunt down, torture and eventually kill any unbelievers, sorcerers, witches or anyone who followed any other religion other then Christianity. We follow a lawyer called Mathew Hopkins who appointed himself grand inquisitor. He would go around towns slaughtering people in the name of Jesus. Interesting part is that nor the Church nor Parliament ever appointed him as anything; he simply went around doing this on his own. It is hinted on this picture that he did it out of personal pleasure (the guy enjoyed killing what can I say?) and not because he had any interests in ridding the world of paganism. But on one of these murdering sprees he rapes a soldiers girlfriend (and kills her father!) so soon after the soldier goes on a hunt for the witchfinder himself, to avenge the death of his fiancé.

This film is considered by some to be one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It appeared in Total Film magazines best horror films ever made list. It was 15th on that list! Many critics agree (though many don’t as well) that this is a great horror film. With all the polarization going on with this film, I was eagerly awaiting the moment in which I would finally get to watch it. I will admit that the film does have a great look to it, it does have some beautiful shots of the English country side, it has Vincent Price in it, and it does have some violence in it, but I wouldn’t go and say that this is one of the best horror films ever. I personally found it to be a bit slow.

There are a couple of things that make this one noteworthy though. Number one, the films themes. There are a lot of films that deal with the abuse and death brought upon by the church, but the theme is always shocking to me no matter how many times its been depicted on film. I personally always find these historical events to be so nausea inducing. To try and force people into believing in something like Christianity (which at times preaches brotherly love and compassion) by using horrible methods of torture. What’s really great about this movie is that it points a finger at these events, and maybe this is why some people consider this film to be an important one. But to me that’s really not enough. Just because a film shines a light on a dark chapter of humanity does not make it a good film. In order to do that, the film has to be well written, acted and shot.

Another thing that makes this one noteworthy is that Vincent Price, who normally tends to over act in his films and hams things up on repeated films, is actually very evil on this movie. Michael Reeves didn’t want Vincent Price for this role; he really wanted Donald Pleasance for it. I think the reason for this was because Reeves wanted his witchfinder character to be menacing and not funny like Price often portrayed his characters. When you watch a Vincent Price film; you kind of get the vibe that he is having fun with the whole thing. You can see him trying to be funny with his performance. He would say his lines as if he was reading poetry in a theater play or something. Michael Reeves didn’t want that on this film. Reeves wanted to shoot a film with a somber evil tone to it. Not the campy type of film that AIP was producing at the time. So, Reeves molded Price’s performance on Witchfinder General to his liking. He would stop Price if he was doing his funny routine and would actually tell Price “don’t do that!” Supposedly, they never really got along during the shoot of this film, but in some strange way, this on set tension between director and actor helped produce Vincent Price’s most serious performance. So if you are looking for Vincent Prices hammy acting, you won’t find it here. It’s not only toned down, I would say Price’s hammy acting is non existent on Witchfinder General.

The film got a lot of heat upon its initial release because of its graphic violence. Back in 1968, people apparently didn’t have much resistance towards violence, because they really burnt this one at the stake for its depictions of torture and murder. You might watch this movie today and will probably think that the film needs more graphic violence and gore, but back in the 60s the violence quotient of this film was considered high. Personally, I didn’t think this movie was that violent. The methods of torture portrayed in the film are not the worst they could have chosen to show. There is one scene in which a character gets chopped to death with an axe, apparently this is supposed to be the most amazingly violent moment of the film, but to me it was such a disappointment, it wasn’t very well executed if you ask me, and you can tell the person isn’t really getting chopped up with the axe! The actor seems to be slightly tapping Price with the axe. The film has a rape sequence, but not graphic at all. So this movie isn’t really all that when it comes to violence as reviews and write ups of this movie might make you believe. Maybe at the time of its release it was considered shocking and graphic by people, but it cannot be qualified as such today. Not after the avalanche of torture porn films (like SAW) that we have been submitted to during the last decade.

And finally, my big issue with this movie is the pacing. It’s so dang SLOOOOOW! It drags and drags and drags! We go from one guy riding on a horse through the country something happens, then they get on the horse again and ride through the country side. Then, more shots of dudes riding horses! The thing with the horses bored me to tears. I also think that the violence sequences could have been handled more effectively, with a bit more intensity to them. Though I will say that the last sequence, where they are torturing a girl was effective. For its UK release, the censor boards actually got the screaming on this film edited down because it was so extensive!

Michael Reeves was set to direct The Oblong Box for American International, but that never happened due to Reeves death at the tender age of 25. Great things were expected from him as a film director, but we will never find out, since in my opinion he was half way through his growth as a filmmaker, he never really got a chance to fully mature into full blown cinematic genius. At least he left this film (considered his masterpiece by many) and influenced countless others that came after like Mark of the Devil (1970), and even Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971). And it even helped usher in a new cycle of Poe films like The Oblong Box (1969) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971). Also, Cry of the Banshee (1970) which was another American International Pictures production was essentially a rehash of this films storyline, with Vincent Price playing the witchfinder once again, pitting him against a coven of witches.

Finally, this film might interest some people as a historical film, as a form of exposing dark events in history, but as a horror movie or even as a film, I didn’t find it all that entertaining. It might have beautiful cinematography and a stern and more menacing then ever Price, but it was too slow paced and had way too many scenes of people riding horses from here to there.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Surrogates (2009)

Title: Surrogates (2009)

Director: Jonathan Mostow

Stars: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, James Cromwell, Ving Rhames

Review:

The only extras included on the Surrogates DVD are a commentary from director Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) and a music video by a band called Breaking Benjamin. The song is called “I will not Bow”. Immediately upon watching this music video I knew who this movie was made for. Teenagers. Teenage boys to be precise. I got nothing against teenagers (I was one too at some point!) what Im actually worried about is the type of shitty films that are being made for them! So anyways, I decided to watch part of the music video, just to see what kids are listening to nowadays. The song is so vomit inducing I stopped half way (sorry if I insulted any Breaking Benjamin fans) but watching this video helped me understand the main reason why this movie sucks so much. I mean it’s as if the filmmakers thought “this movie is for teenagers, we don’t have to explain things a lot, don’t take things too seriously!” You could almost feel the filmmakers not caring much for what they were making. You could almost hear them say “this is just a PG-13 sci-fi movie, lets hurry this thing along!”

The premise of this movie is that everybody has a cyborg that does everything for them. People don’t even bother to go out of their homes because the cyborg will do it for them. People have to connect to the cyborg at home while the cyborg goes out into the world and lives their life for them. This has its pros and cons. Pros are you don’t have to go out and risk anything. You don’t catch deceases; you can do dangerous things and not be afraid of dying. You can go out and get crazy without worrying about any negative repercussions. The downside? You’re not living your life. Your real body stays at home, it doesn’t get any exercise, and basically, you stop wanting to really live. You become so dependant of the machine that you become ashamed of your humanity and want to be the cyborg all the time. They market the surrogate experience as being “like real life…only better!”

Interesting premise for a movie no? Yeah, I thought so too. Unfortunately, it is executed in the worst way possible. I’m a huge science fiction nut, don’t know if you guys have noticed it, but I like to really watch science fiction movies. I love how society can be explored through them. And to some extent, this movie does explore a part of our society. It speaks about our dependency on technology, about our loss of humanity. And that’s all fine and dandy (and not all together new) but damn it, why did the movie have to be so bad? One of the major horrors of this movie, is its atrocious script. It never really dwells on anything too long. Its like a child with attention deficit disorder. It shows quick little snippets of information that we are supposed to take for granted just because a character said it. Explain something quickly, move on to the next thing.

Case in point? The leader of the “Human Coalition”. The character that Ving Rhames plays in the film. This is a very important character because it represents the counter point to the way things are. It’s the character that has to stand up for what is right. He has to stand up for the humans. How do we grasp that he is rebellious? That he hates machines? Well, there is this one five second scene where he is sitting in some sort of radio station thing. He grabs the microphone and says: “Look at yourselves. Unplug from your chairs get up and look at the mirror. What you see is how God made you. We’re not meant to experience the world through a machine!” and then he has to stop talking because the government has discovered him. I mean, is this how we “flesh out” a character in this movie? Is this how we know what this guy feels? Ving Rhames appears only about three times in the film. Briefly. We never really get to know him as a character, we only get to know his functionality. This is the leader of the rebels, that’s all you need to know. Pfft. And this is supposed to be the leader of the humans! The characters in this movie are about as superficial as the cyborgs that the film is criticizing. Not much attention was paid to characters and situations. This is as simple a script as they come. Some plot points are simply explained away in a sentence, and we are supposed to take them for granted. As a result, you know exactly where the film is headed, and the film is over before you can blink.

Another thing that bothered me a lot about this movie was that it had an epic storyline that was delivered in such a small scale. I don’t know if this has to do with the economy and with studios tightening their budgets, but this films storyline implied world wide repercussions, yet the film chooses to show only what happens in a small city street. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Like there’s this scene where all the surrogates are deactivated and I thought to myself “okay, this is where the shits really going to hit the fan, were going to see how this is going to affect the whole world” I mean, think about it. If everyone uses their cyborgs to live, that means that even people flying planes are using surrogates. This means that doctors performing operations are using surrogates. I was expecting to see the shutting off of the Surrogates to be a spectacular part of this film. Sadly, repercussions of this world affecting event is reduced to seeing a couple of small scale car crashes on one small city street. (END OF SPOILERS) This just showed me that this film was epic in scale, but not epic in execution. I felt cheated. That’s the best way to describe it. I felt that if I had seen this film in theaters, I would have felt like they stole my money.

The whole idea of robots doing everything for us and us loosing our humanity has been done before in way better films then this one. And since I think you shouldn’t even bother watching Surrogates, I have compiled a list of better films that address the same themes, only better. So take notes, for you will have yourself a far better time watching the following films then you ever will watching Surrogates.

Artificial Intelligence A.I. (2001) - Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, now there’s a movie big in scale that explores these same themes in detail, not as if it was reading the cliff notes. Cause that’s what I felt like Surrogate’s script was like. As if I was reading the cliff notes for a much better film. A.I. is one of Spielberg’s masterpieces with excellent special effects, performances and it explores the whole aspect of artificial intelligence taking over our lives in much detail.

I, Robot (2004) – This film comes to us from Alex Proyas (Dark City, The Crow) and though I would never go as far as saying that its one of his best films (actually its one of his most commercial ones) its still better film then Surrogates. Its kind of like a murder mystery about the first “murder” committed by a robot. Will Smith investigates. Not awesome, not great, but a hell of a lot better then Surrogates.

Strange Days (1999) On Kathryn Bigelows Strange Days people also start preferring to live experiences through technological means rather then through real life. It also has a “leader of the revolution” that is being hunted down. The future in this film is not as squeaky clean as the one depicted in Surrogates. This is a grimy city on the verge of chaos. The film takes place on New Years Eve 1999, all the chaos and “end of the world” mentality that people had during the last year of the old millennium is executed very well thanks to Kathryn Bigelows excellent direction.

Brainstorm (1983) – This film stars Christopher Walken wanting to live in a virtual reality world. This film plays with a lot of the same themes as in Strange Days, actually Im sure this is the film that inspired Bigelow’s film. But this one gets a bit more philosophical with its implications. The characters on this movie have found a way to record human experiences, and once you put the magic helmet on, you can re-experience the whole thing. But what happens when the government wants to get a hold of it? And what happens when you record someones death? Can we see what happens after death?

So as you can see, when compared to these other movies, Surrogates treats its themes in a simple, child like matter. As if spoon feeding the audience, but with fast food instead of a nutritious meal.

I did like certain aspects of the film though. I mean, I liked the premise; I just didn’t like how they chose to execute it. I did enjoy the whole thing with everyone being a robot. I mean, lets face it. Sometimes when you go out into the world and see “the masses” humanity going about their business, you can’t help but think that we are all programmed in our own way. I actually love this theme of humans relying too much on technology; again, I just didn’t enjoy how they pulled it off on this particular film. But some of the visuals were cool, like these moment when Bruce Willis gets on a train and everyone on it is obviously a surrogate with their blank eyes and their plastic looking skin. I liked the idea behind the weapon that disables the surrogates. Unfortunately, this movie needed to think bigger, needed to explore its themes in a more elaborate way. Even this films action sequences are lackluster! There’s this chase sequence that involves a helicopter crashing into the ground. A great idea, if only the helicopter didn’t look so CGI!

Oh well, I’ve gone on long enough about how bad this movie is. It’s been quite a while since Id seen such a terrible movie. I mean, I guess every generation has its fare share of bad science fiction films. I remember when I was a kid (this was during the 80s) we got movies like Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) or Ice Pirates (1984). They might not have been great films, but at least those teenage oriented sci-fi films were fun to watch. Watching a film like Surrogates is just painful.

Rating: 1 ½ out of 5

Twice Told Tales (1963)

Title: Twice Told Tales (1963)

Director: Sidney Salkow

Stars: Vincent Price, Sebastian Cabot, Beverly Garland

Review:

American International Pictures made many anthology movies in the 60s, some of which I have reviewed on this blog already. They were phenomenal successes during those days because they captured that feeling you got from reading one of those old EC comics that were so popular during the 50s and 60s. But this anthology film thing wasn’t an idea exclusive to the folks at American International. United Artist decided they would take a stab at this whole anthology thing business, since it was making so much money at the box office. But they couldn’t do movies based on Poe, because Roger Corman was already doing that. So they decided to go with Nathaniel Hawthorne and adapt some of his stories for the silver screen. How was United Artist’s attempt at making a Roger Corman style anthology flick?

As is expected in an anthology film, it is divided into various tales. On this particular film we have three different stories. I will be reviewing each story separately, since I guess it is a more appropriate manner of reviewing an anthology film.

The first of the stories is entitled Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment and it’s about a man named Sebastian who is celebrating his 79th birthday. So he invites his old friend Alex (Vincent Price) to reminisce about the good old days when they were strapping young lads. At one point Sebastian begins to talk about his fiancé, the one who died the day before they were to be married. You see, Sebastian is a man who never remarried, because the love he had for his fiancé was so strong. His love for her is so strong, that he has her buried in a mausoleum right next to his house! On this particularly stormy night, a lightning bolt has just struck the mausoleum! The door is opened! Could something be amiss? They both decide to visit the old crypt and find Sebastian’s fiancé’s body is completely untouched by the ravages of time! She has not decomposed a bit! Together, Sebastian and Alex are about to discover the mysteries to eternal life! Or are they?

Out of the three stories in this film, this is the one that better captures that feeling from Corman’s Poe films. It takes place in an old mansion next to the sea, there’s a fierce lightning storm outside, and the mansion is filled with old paintings of people who are long gone. There’s an old crypt, a corpse and a morbid tale ensues. Out of the three, I definitely think this is the best one. Too bad the first one is the best one; because that only means that the film goes a bit downhill after this one is through. They kind of like made this first story the spookiest, the coolest, so they can grab you and give you a quick jolt of spooky satisfaction before forcing upon you the two other lackluster stories. But Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment is a fun ride, actually, I think this story might have been the one that inspired Robert Zemecki’s to make Death Becomes Her (1988). The similarities between Death Becomes Her and this little story are astounding! An Elixir of life! A love triangle! Lover’s coming back to life! The Elixir has its downside! I think you will agree with me once you see it.

The second story is entitled Rapaccini’s Daughter and it’s about this old man named Giacomo Rapaccini (Vincent Price). He is a fervent Christian who doesn’t want his daughter to fall into “sin”, so what does he do? He creates a special potion that turns her skin deadly to human touch! In this way, no one will dare touch her and in this way Rapaccini ensures that his daughter doesn’t fall into the shameful sin of fornication or whatever. This becomes a problem for Rapaccini’s Daughter because she cannot kiss or hug anyone! It becomes an even bigger problem when this young guy constantly tries to win her affections, and she falls for him. Will she ever get to be with her loved one? Will her afflicted state ever change or will she remain untouched by human hands for ever?

This story is the least horror oriented of the three. It has some sci-fi elements though. The whole thing with Rapaccini coming up with this concoction that renders his daughters skin untouchable. Things get kind of funny because whenever the girl touches anything, it turns purple and dies! The special potion comes from this weird purple plant that Rapaccini has in his garden, and if anyone touches the plant, they turn purple and die as well! There’s this funny scene where a gerbil turns purple. This story plays out more like Romeo and Juliet than Tales from the Crypt.

Finally, we have House of the Seven Gables, which isn’t actually based on a short story but on a novel of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s. Story is about a family that lives in a haunted house. You see, many years ago, this home use to belong to the Moll family, but they lost the house in a bad deal to the Pyncheon family. Now, the ghost wants revenge!

The film was translated on to comic book form by DELL comics

This story is a ghost story, but it’s delivered in such a cheesy fashion. I really didn’t like this story either. But basically, these two families are fighting over this ancient house, and the rightful owner, who is dead, is pissed off about it. The story does try to end things in a big way by having a scene where the house is literally ripping itself apart and blood is coming out of the walls, the cracks and the ceiling. And a huge earthquake rips the whole house apart. I guess they must have gone through a lot to get that done back in those days, but its still doesn’t save the story from being so-so. On top of that, the ending is so cheesy! A flying skeleton hand flies out and tries to kill Vincent Price! What a rip off! Is this your big finale? A cheap looking skeleton hand? I was so disappointed by this, and was even more surprised to see that this big let down of a sequence actually appears on the films poster. Argh!

In conclusion, this was United Artist’s attempt to do what American International Films was doing so well, but sadly, they failed miserably. I’m sorry to say that Twice Told Tales was a huge let down. I guess that just proves that it’s who’s behind the cameras that matters. And neither Roger Corman nor Mario Bava where involved here. Twice Told Tales was just a badly made imitation of something that AIP was doing right. What did United Artist and director Sidney Salkow think, that just because they borrowed Vincent Price that would automatically make everything alright? Guess what? It didn’t. This isn’t a horrible film, theres some fun to be had here, thanks to Vincent Price. But with the exception of the first story, this one is a step down from what Corman was offering us with his Poe Cycle of films.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Black Sunday (1962)

Title: Black Sunday (a.k.a. The Mask of Satan) (1960)

Director: Mario Bava

Stars: Barbara Steele

Review:

Black Sunday was Mario Bava’s official directorial debut. He’d worked as a director in a couple of films before he made Black Sunday, but they were never His films. He started working on these pre-Black Sunday films as a cinematographer, but most of the time he ended up directing the films himself because the original director would abandon the project for whatever reason. He ended up half directing four films this way, among them the vampire movie I Vampiri (1956). Bava did such great work on these that he was given the chance to direct his first official film. It ended up being the gothic masterpiece Black Sunday. So, how did Bava do on his first film as a full fledged director?

The story for Black Sunday is centered on an evil witch/vampire named Asa. She and her brother Javutich are 100% Satan worshippers. They love the guy and are more then willing to bring you into their own Satan worshipping club. Problem is that the catholic inquisitors aren’t okay with that so they capture Asa and her brother Javutich and prepare to burn them at the stake! But before they do this, they hammer a mask on to their faces that has spikes inside of it! Then they bury her and her brother in a special tomb so that they can’t ever escape. Fast forward 200 years later, and two curious passers by stumble upon both graves while traveling through the woods. Will the evil witch and her brother be released from their slumber? Will Asa and Javutich execute their long awaited revenge?

First off, I have to say that this film has one of the most awesome opening sequences on any movie, EVER! Seriously, if any more horror coolness could be jam packed into those first fifteen minutes; my DVD player would have burst into satanic flames! I loved that whole sequence where they are about to burn Asa and Javutich alive! It’s all about the spooky looking woods, the dialog coming from the evil witch and the equally evil looking catholic inquisitors! I mean, these guys are supposed to work for the church right? But they look so evil dressed in these black robes with hoods over their faces! The good thing about this opening sequence is that it immediately lets you know what kind of film you are up for! If you cant take these first fifteen, you are in the wrong movie my friend!

Its fairly obvious that Mario Bava was trying to do his own version of Dracula, because this film feels very much like Universals Dracula. Switch Barbara Steele with Lugosi and you’ll see they are pretty much the same movie story wise. Not style wise because Bava’s film is so much richer in that sense then anything Universal ever cooked up, with the possible exception of Bride of Frankenstein, Universal best monster movie in my opinion. There are of course a couple of things that make Black Sunday different from any Universal or Hammer film. Number one, when you watch a film like Black Sunday it doesn’t feel as silly as the old Universal Studios Monster sometimes did. No matter how many times I watch those old Universal Monster movies, I can’t help to notice how silly they can be, specially when it came to its more watered down sequels like Daughter of Dracula. Its like they werent even trying to be scary. Bava’s Black Sunday does have its fair amount of cheesiness (that giant vampire bat was the only thing that tainted the movie for me) but it has this serious tone to it, its not softening the horror elements like Universal Monster movies did. Bava’s Black Sunday is trying to scare you, it deliberately amps up the horror element as far as they could take it. Well, at least for the 1950-60s. This movie must have been so shocking to audiences back in those days! One look at the first 15 minutes of Black Sunday and you know this film isn’t playing around. When that mask gets hammered onto Asa’s face, you know this film isn’t playing games. Another scene that I found absolutely terrifying was Javutich’s resurrection! Awesome in deed! Kind of makes you wish they made movies like this again.

Something I greatly admire about these old school Mario Bava horror films is the genuine artistry involved in them. I have seen my fare share of Hammer Films and I couldn’t help but notice how some of the sets are obviously sets. I mean, you can tell they are made out of wood. This is not something that either Black Sunday or Black Sabbath suffer from. The sets look so solid, so realistic. If you see a fireplace Black Sunday it won’t be just any old fireplace, you can bet your ass it’s going to have some cool looking stone gargoyles engraved around it or something. The cobble stones look like cobble stones, the dungeons look like they are really made of ancient stone. I mean, I loved that about this movie. There’s a real effort to make these sets look freaking awesome. Your eyes will just eat it up if you appreciate this sort of thing in a movie. It makes the illusion that much more real to me. Art direction in Black Sunday was top notch.

I really admired how much of the story Bava can tell without any dialog whatsoever. He showed complete control over his story telling abilities, and this was his first official film! I was amazed at all these sequences that were moving along without a single line of dialog being spoken. Yet the intensity, the suspense and the horror of the moment were left intact, or at times even augmented by the use of sound effects and the music. My hats down to Bava for doing this so well. Conjuring up these frightful images and moments and marrying sight and sound so well made this one of the best horror films I have ever seen. This of course speaks volumes of Bava’s inherit ability to tell stories. They guy can really weave an interesting yarn that’s for sure. There are some moments on this film where you could just taste the fear and the suspense. The supernatural is made so real in this movie! There is one scene where one of the main characters is following a ghost, but he doesn’t know it’s a ghost…until he reaches the ending of the tunnel. Wow, what a spooky scene!

I cant go without saying something about Barbara Steele’s awesome performance as with Asa. Steele didn’t have this goody little two shoes look to her, she had a mean look to her and was perfect for playing villains in films. Its all in that look, that stare! I have to salute her here because she plays two diametrically opposing roles. One is the evil with/vampire Asa, and the other is the good natured descendant of Asa. She has a strange kind of beauty to her and well, was perfectly cast in this movie. According to Bava she wasn’t easy to work with, but he stuck with her because she really does look the part.

This film has been so influential on lots of modern day directors. While watching it, one can immediately see where Sleepy Hollow came from. When you see Sleepy Hollow’s horse carriage sequences in the woods; the scenes where Ichabod Crane’s witch mother is placed in the Iron Maiden by her religious zealot father one thing becomes abundantly clear: Tim Burton definitely saw Black Sunday quite a few times before making Sleepy Hollow. Its no surprise Burton has been quoted as saying that Black Sunday is his favorite horror film. Can’t say I blame him. If there’s one bad thing I can say about the movie is that at one point it suddenly becomes a love story, and it looses its horror vibe. But this interim doesn’t last very long. We get right back on the horror band wagon and things move along excellently. Another thing I found a bit off is that at times, specially during the films last frames, it felt like some scenes needed to have a musical score in them but didn’t. Something was missing in there, specially during some fighting sequences. These are really the only reasons why I didnt give this movie a perfect score.

Black Sunday was a huge success when it was released in Italy and in the United States. This film was such a huge hit in the United States that it became American International Picure’s biggest money maker ever! Even though they had edited about three minutes of gore and dialog! The version I saw was unedited, it had all the gooey blood and satanic dialog that Bava originally intended it to have, so of course I was having a blast while watching it. Any horror fan that hasn’t seen this film yet should make it a top priority. To me both Black Sabbath and Black Sunday are the best representations of what a good Italian Horror film is, and I have seen a lot of Italian horror films! This is a master at work here; don’t miss it!

Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5

Spanish release poster. The title translates to "The Mask of the Demon"

Tales of Terror (1962)

Title: Tales of Terror (1962)

Director: Roger Corman

Stars: Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone

Review:

So this is one of those anthology movies that include three stories in one film. The anthology film was a type of film that became extremely popular during the sixties and seventies due to the ever growing popularity of EC comics line of horror comic books like Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt. During those days, British film company Amicus was making anthology films left and right, films like The House that Dripped Blood (1970) and Dr. Terrors House of Horror (1964) were very successful back in those days. Roger Corman’s American International Pictures was not far behind making these types of films, they did quite a few of them. Corman went through what is commonly referred to as his “Poe Cycle” which was that time when he did a bunch of films based on Edgar Allan Poe stories. Most of them didn’t really stick to Poe’ s writings and only used the premises presented in Poe’s stories as a catapult to do his own thing. The films from Corman's Poe Cycle all starred Vincent Price.

On Tales of Terror, the three stories start out with a narration done by Vincent Price himself. Price talks to the sound and image of a human heart beating. Price (in that spooky horror movie voice of his) asks the question: “Have you ever wondered what happens after death?” And so the first story begins, the first one is called “Morella” and it’s about a man who gets visited by his young daughter Lenora. Her father (Vincent Price) hates Lenora because she killed his wife during birth. She refuses to leave even though he emphatically scorns her. Soon Lenora discovers that her father is so obsessed with his dead wife that he has kept her rotting corpse inside of his room! Is there some deeper darker secret to be revealed? You bet your ass there is!

What I loved about this first story is how spooky it is. Roger Corman had a knack for directing these spooky horror films. I love The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) for the same reason: it’s just so damn spooky! It’s a horror movies horror movie. Lots of spider webs, and old mansion at the edge of the sea, corpses, ghosts, dark hallways, the wind blowing, fog, all these elements that make an old school horror movie fun to watch. And this one has all these elements in abundance. This is a good one to watch if you’re in the mood for that sort of old school horror film. It’s the kind of film you’d love to watch on a Halloween night, and this first story is really the one that captures that Halloween like atmosphere the most. This story has some excellent make up effects for its time, and I was surprised to see they even used some visual effects. And very effectively I might add! My only real complaint with this story is that in certain scenes, Corman chose to use stock footage for the exterior of the mansion, he used scenes from Fall of the House of Usher, but really, its no big deal, cause these shots are so effective anyways, and they fit perfectly into the story. This story does fit in the same universe as The Fall of the House of Usher since both stories are extremely similar. But that’s really a minor thing that you probably wont even notice, this story is excellent. Specially when it comes to its more supernatural elements!

The second story is entitled The Black Cat. This one starts Peter Lorre, who worked together with price on various films after this one. Peter Lorre is a drunkard. All he thinks about is drinking drinking drinking! One day, when he runs out of money for drinking, he decides to walk into a wine tasting event, where all these wine connoisseurs are about to present an Expert in wines played by Price himself. Lorre sees this as an opportunity to get a couple of free drinks so he challenges Vincent Price's wine knowledge! Needles to say, they both get extremely drunk that night! Vincent Price ends up taking Lorre to his house, because he is too drunk to walk by himself. When they finally arrive at Lorre’s house, Price and Lorre’s wife decide to kick start a relationship between them, which of course infuriates Peter Lorre and leads him to take drastic measures for revenge.

The film was adapted into comicbook form by DELL comics

Thing about this story is that it’s not Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat every step of the way, it also has elements from another Poe story called The Cask of Amontillado. It basically takes elements from both of these stories, which is something that Corman did a lot in his Poe Cycle. He would take elements from various Poe stories and made one movie. The Black Cat is told in a very morbid yet funny tone, very black humor type of stuff. Peter Lorre says the funniest puns all through out his evil doings. When Price and Lorre get drunk as skunks, its gold! Specially when it comes to Price's face expressions! Lorre and Price ended up working together again on a couple of films like The Raven (1963) and The Comedy of Terrors (1964). This was the story I liked the least, just because its not as spooky as the other two, and because of its slow pace. Sometimes, this story seemed to stretch things so much it got on my nerves. Sometimes you wish the scene would get to the point already! Its not a bad story, and you will laugh at times, but the pacing killed it for me. Also, the other two stories are so different in tone, that when this one comes in with its dash of comedy, it kind of like doesnt fit in. But its still highly watchable.

The last of the three stories is based on Poe’s The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar and it’s about a dying old man named Valdemar. He has a decease that has him under a lot of pain, so he asks a hypnotist to put him under some kind of trance so that he won’t feel so much pain. The problem comes when Valdemar is hypnotized…and he dies while under hypnosis! So he remains stuck between the world of the living and the world of the dead! What horrors hill he tell us from beyond the grave?

Again, yet another spooky tale. The simple fact that its about a guy stuck in a hypnotic state between the land of the living and the land of the dead, and that he can speak to us from “the other side” is an awesome premise! I got to say, Poe was a genius for coming up with that one! Some might find it cheesy that Valdemar’s spirit talks to us from beyond the grave and that Price’s lips are not moving. All we hear is his voice, like an echo or some sort of ghost talking from the other side. Cheesy or Eeerie? I lean towards eerie myself. Also, it’s cool as hell to see Price as some kind of zombie. Again, this movie surprised me with its make up effects toward the ending of the tale.

The interesting thing about this movie is that it was later remade by George Romero and Dario Argento, that film was called Two Evil Eyes (1999). In it, Romero directed The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar in his very own style and with his very own twists. It starred Adrianne Barbeau as the wife of Valdemar who is after his wealthy inheritance. This movie puts more of an emphasis on the zombie aspect of the story as is expected since Romero was behind the camera. Argento’s version of The Black Cat stars Harvey Keitel as the cat hating photographer of the dead. This story focuses more on the importance of cats in witch folklore. Argento’s version of The Black Cat is a bit more shocking and gory then Peter Lore and Vincent Price comedic version. The only bad thing I can say about Tales of Terror is that some of the more jaded movie watchers might find these movies to be slow in pace. Me? I think they are fun, I love that old school horror atmosphere. As they say, they dont make them like this anymore. Still, for a fun old fashion horror film, with loads of atmosphere and a touch of comedy you can’t go wrong with Tales of Terror.

Rating: 4 out of 5