Bloody Hell! It's British Horror Week! - Madhouse (Jim Clark, 1974)

More Amicus on the menu today folks, and like Asylum, this is something I discovered recently for the first time, though unlike that movie, I'd never even heard of this one! I know another Madhouse, but that one's Italian and from '81, where as for this film, we're heading back forty years to 1974...

Bloody Hell! It's British Horror Week! - Asylum (Roy Ward Baker, 1972)

So my plans to have a belated Halloween blogathon went right out of the window but no matter, there's always next year! On the watching films front I've been busy as ever though and for the next week/possibly till the end of the month, I'm gonna be talking about an area which has been shamefully neglected by me up until recently... homegrown horror!

While there are certainly many British horror films I love, some of which have been firm favourites for years, for some reason I still haven't checked out as many of the classics of the British horror canon as I no doubt should have. This recent kick I've been on started somewhat accidentally with the film I'll be looking at today, but when I discovered that Hammer are celebrating their 80th anniversary this month, I decided to start immersing myself in as much Anglo-horror as possible.

I'll be getting to Hammer in due course over the next week (including a write up of a moviethon I had to celebrate said birthday) but the first few films are courtesy of Amicus...

What's Goin' On? or Where on Earth is Simon Wright?

Howdy strangers!

As is no doubt self-evident from the lack of posts since July(!), I've been slacking in epic fashion during the summer months. No reason really, apart from the overriding compulsion to watch movie after movie after movie (and then not write about it!).

I'll be tied up with commitments relating to the real world this month and over Halloween, so this year's Hootenanny will be a much more subdued affair than the last two... plus, I'm gonna let this spill over into November so I can enjoy some belated Halloween viewing and blogging shenanigans.

Coming soon in that regard, I'll be talking about an impromptu theme weekend I've just had, featuring the likes of Vincent Price, Cameron Mitchell and a posthumous contribution from Lucio Fulci. I'll say no more for now though...

Also in the none too distant, I'll be returning to my 1984 retrospective with an extended piece that'll hopefully make up for the fact I've been neglecting my birth year blog wise as of late. To celebrate my 30th birthday at the beginning of this month I watched 30 films from '84 over 8 days and I plan to write it up and give y'all a whistle stop tour of where I went on my filmic travels.

And last but not least, I want to mention a print project I was involved in which should hopefully be of interest to readers of this blog...

Richard Schmidt of Doomed Moviethon, Cinema Somnambulist and Hello! This is the Doomed Show was kind enough to ask me to contribute to the second issue of his Euro-horror/giallo 'zine Fang of Joy and of course I jumped at the chance. 

You can still get hold of issue one (from Goblinhaus) which is also well worth a look but this second is a serious step up in terms of the amount of content it has and also production value. Kudos are especially due here to Richard's wife LeEtta (check out more of her artwork here and she also has a piece in the 'zine) who designed the amazing cover, which should speak directly to the hearts of any horror fans out there.

Featuring some great pieces from the likes of Jeffrey Canino, Jose Cruz, Brad and Elizabeth Hogue, Scott MacDonald, ship's captain Richard and many more fine folks, this is a must read for fans of Euro horror and the giallo. 

I won't give it all away but it includes two interviews with noted horror filmmakers, insightful essays on Scooby-Doo Gialli and the Spawn of Romero, reviews aplenty and a checklist of essential gialli. 

I had several ideas fighting it out for what I wanted to cover but in the end I went for a giallo double bill... and more specifically I chose a pair of films one could show someone as Giallo 101, as it were... the sublimely entertaining, twisted slasher/giallo hybrid Pieces and the proto-slaser-esque Sergio Martino classic Torso. It occurs to me now that another good giallo crash course would be Case of the Bloody Iris (which is Martino-esque) and Umberto Lenzi's Eyeball (which has a connection to Torso in the form of John Richardson)... might have to do that one day as a companion piece to my contribution to this wonderful 'zine. 

Thanks again to Richard for asking me to contribute, it really is an honour to be between the same pages as so many excellent writers/enthusiastic horror fans. 

Here's a link for anyone interested in ordering themselves a copy or three.

And Jeffrey made an awesome trailer for his Scooby-Doo Gialli essay which you can check out here.

Giallo July - Late Night Double Feature: Hatchet for the Honeymoon (Mario Bava, 1970) & Opera AKA Terror at the Opera (Dario Argento, 1987)

 

As per usual, I've spent far more time watching movies than writing about them recently, hence the highly sporadic output during this sorry excuse for a theme month. All that aside, I figured I'd try and get one more post in before the month comes to a close.... and seeing as I had something of an impromptu giallo double bill last night, I figured I'd share some brief thoughts I gleaned from re-watching the films...

First up, an atypical example of the genre and one that was pretty much pre-convention (it being contemporary to Argento's Bird with the Crystal Plumage, which itself cemented most of the tropes that would later become cliches)... Hatchet for the Honeymoon...

Giallo July - Five for Friday: Five American Gialli

As I said in the previous post, the Italians aren't the only ones to have made films one could arguably label as gialli. It's well known what a seminal influence this European sub-genre had on American horror cinema and specifically the slasher but for the most part these later films divert from their elder relations enough to be considered their own separate thing. Unsurprisingly though, there are times when these two worlds have overlapped, bringing things, as we'll see, essentially full circle

Before we begin though a quick controversy alert(!)... depending on your definitions, you may or may not consider some or all of these gialli at all... and if you don't, please feel free to hit me up with your two cents in the comments

For your consideration then, here are five "American gialli"....

The Spiral Staircase (Robert Siodmak, 1945)

An appropriate film to start with for a couple of reasons... Firstly, it's very much a Transatlantic affair, having a German born director but being American made. But more importantly, there seems to be a direct line of decent from these old dark house thrillers to Italian gialli. For one thing, we know Argento is a fan as he's openly said so... and even if he hadn't, a murder scene from Tenebre, which is staged in a strikingly similar fashion to one from Siodmak's film, would make it pretty damn obvious.

Giallo July: A Dragonfly for Each Corpse (León Klimovsky, 1974)

As giallo aficionados will well know, Italy wasn't the only country to produce films that can be seen as belonging to the sub-genre.... and without getting into the can of worms that whole area presents (though we may return to it before the month is through), I'll simply say for now that after the Italians, the Spaniards were among the most prolific in terms of producing gialli. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Spanish horror legend Paul Naschy ended up appearing in a few in his time... and out of the three I've seen, the film we're looking at today is perhaps not the best... but if pressed, I'd say it's probably my current favourite.

Giallo July/1984 Turns 30! Murder-Rock: Dancing Death AKA Murderock (Lucio Fulci)

Released in Italian cinemas on 30th April 1984, Murder Rock is perhaps the least well known of Lucio Fulci's gialli and certainly the most maligned. Sure, anyone going in expecting something like Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Don't Torture a Duckling, the infamous New York Ripper (the film of most similar vintage to this) or even the relatively restrained and slightly similar Seven Notes in Black (AKA The Psychic) will probably be left somewhat dissatisfied... but taken on its own merits, this is a stylishly shot, engaging and enjoyable giallo with plenty of points of interest for fans of both the director and, more generally speaking, of this most decadent and deranged of sub-genres... 

Before we continue, a quick note of thanks is due to someone who will (to protect the innocent) remain known as "The Black Gloved Patron"... without your continued generosity and edification, much of this month would have been impossible... you know who you are! And worry not, your secret identity is safe with me! Now on to the film...

How much you enjoy this movie, without even getting into the plot yet, will probably be determined within the first five minutes of watching... Basically, if you have a taste for mid-80's cheese and music video-esque dance numbers, then you're gonna get a kick out of this, regardless of whether you're a giallo aficionado or not... If you lack the palate for that sort of thing though then this movie might be a bit of a harder sell... it's hard to say, everyone's mileage varying and all... but hopefully you'll get a better idea whether this is for you or not as we proceed...

At New York's prestigious Arts for Living Center (which will obviously be in dire need of a name change very soon), a group of dancers are working up a serious sweat trying to perfect a routine in order to impress the higher ups. Overseeing their progress is Candice Norman, played by the first of many familiar faces from Fulci's filmography we'll encounter during the course of the film, Olga Karlatos of Zombie... worry not though, anyone out there averse to images of eyeball related trauma... her peepers are safe this time... but the lady herself... well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? 

Following the rehearsal, one of the dancers is killed in the changing rooms by a black gloved assassin with a hat-pin (of all things)... and as it transpires that the dancers were being potentially head hunted by some big wigs promising fame and fortune and, more crucially, the victim was seen as the most likely candidate, suspicion falls immediately on the other dancers. Overseeing the police investigation is Lieutenant Borges, played by the next of our Fulci repeat offenders, Cosimo Cinieri of New York Ripper and the also underrated Manhattan Baby. I enjoy this guy's performances in all three of these Fulci flicks but probably this one the most... his character seems to almost defy you to either like him or dislike him... it's hard to explain... but at any rate he makes for a wonderfully curmudgeonly copper and has most of the film's best lines. And speaking of The New York Ripper, I find it curious that both it and Murder Rock partner their detectives with academics called Davis... though this time he's a professor as opposed to a doctor and is played by Giuseppe Mannajuolo rather than Paolo Malco. 

 

As the bodycount increases, so do the list of suspects, especially after Candice has a crazy-ass nightmare where a beardless Ray Lovelock (who will hereafter be referred to as Ray Loverock) tries to stab her with a hat-pin of mindbogglingly indeterminate size. Soon after this she sees the same man on a billboard and it isn't long after that that she's somehow snuck into his hotel room, avoided an altercation with a drunken Loverock but left her handbag there while fleeing and then, despite this slight trauma, still meets up for drinks with this dubious character later on anyway...

I think we can probably leave it there as far as the plot goes. This is nothing earth shattering narratively (and arguably somewhat familiar territory to Fulci fans) but it kept my interest for the duration.... though a lot what kept me engaged is probably more related to my enjoyment of the aforementioned 80's cheese and what the assembled cast and crew brought to the film than anything else...

Which brings us neatly to the other talents from in front of and behind the camera... As far as the former goes, we have quite a few appearances from people who worked within the Italian horror/giallo genre, such as Claudio Cassinelli of What Have They Done to Your Daughters?, Cristian Borromeo of Tenebre and Robert Gligorov of Stagefright... and two more (uncredited) Fulci repeat offenders in the forms of Al Cliver (who is sporting some very studious looking spectacles this time around) and Silvia Collatina of The House by the Cemetery, who plays a creepy, wheel-chair-bound, insect obsessed kid who goes all Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window at one point in the film. And speaking of Hitchcock, there's an obligatory (and all too brief) directorial cameo for fans of Fulci's acting to enjoy.

Regarding behind the scenes, the film was written by Fulci and three others, all of whom had worked with the director before and on many other Italian genre films... and as I said before, there's some delightful dialogue to be savoured. And as far as I can tell, the plot itself is fairly tight... though I'm not someone to trust as far as story goes, my attention usually being focused on other elements of the film. Editor Vincenzo Tomassi returns to work with Fulci again and does a spot on job, especially in splicing together those wonderful music video montages. Regular Fulci cinematographer Sergio Salvati is curiously absent but Giuseppe Pinori does excellent work in his place, excelling especially in the murder set-pieces, dance numbers and the climactic unveiling of the killer.

And last but not least, a few words about the music: Keith Emerson provides the music and lyrics to another New York set giallo (the other being Argento's Inferno, which I know many may not regard as one but that's a debate for another time...) and helps immeasurably with keeping up the 80's kitsch quota. Most of the music from this movie is currently stuck in my head but perhaps no track more so than this little number... I apologise in advance... it's ridiculously catchy.

While admittedly nowhere near as gory as his other films of the period, Murder Rock is still an above par entry as far as Fulci's filmography and gialli of this era go. The cast are consistently compelling, there's plenty of production value to be savoured and overall I found it a lot of fun... so for anyone sold on Fulci and/or the giallo I'd say give it a shot... just don't expect it to be typical of the director or the genre and you'll fare just fine... and for those unversed in either I'd say just lap up the period charm and enjoy!