L'Atalante

Year:  1934

Director:  Jean Vigo

Screenplay:  Jean Vigo and Albert Riéra, based on an original scenario by Jean Guinée

Starring:  Michel Simon, Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté

Running Time:  89 minutes

Genre:  Drama

After a whirlwind romance, country girl Juliette (Parlo) marries Jean (Dasté), captain of the barge L'Atalante.  However, the cramped conditions in the barge, as well as the crew consisting of the earthy Père Jules (Simon) and the cabin boy (Louis Lefebvre), and Jules' numerous pet cats soon puts a strain on the marriage.  After an encounter with a charming peddler (Gilles Margaritis), Juliette makes an impulsive trip to Paris, and ends up lost and penniless in a strange city.  Distraught by her departure, Jean begins to fall apart, and it's up to Père Jules to put matters to rights.

French writer/director Jean Vigo died of tuberculosis at the age of 29, having completed three short films and one feature, and yet is regarded as one of the greats of French cinema.  L'Atalante is often regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.  The film mixes social realism with poetic romanticism.  Michel Simon makes an indelible impression as the bawdy, earthy, fiercely loyal Père Jules, and Dita Parlo is great as the romantic, vulnerable, headstrong Juliette.  Jean Dasté is good as the romantic but fiercely jealous captain of the barge, but he is overshadowed by the performances of Simon and Parlo.  L'Atalante followed Vigo's controversial short film about schoolboy rebellion, Zero for Conduct (1933), which was banned by the French government until 1945 and went on to influence such films as François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) and Lindsay Anderson's If.... (1968).  L'Atalante too ran into stormy waters as the distributor cut the film to 65 minutes and retitled it The Passing Barge to make it more commercial.  Vigo, who did shortly after the film's release, was too ill to fight them.  However the film has now been restored to its original length, and it is somehow gratifying that Vigo's legacy has grown with time.  You can tell that L'Atalante is a young person's film, filled as it is with endless invention, mixing documentary-style footage with heavily stylised, almost surreal sequences, a playful sense of humour and invention, and scenes of grimy reality, lightened by poetic beauty and romance, in a way that only film can.  One scene in particular which dissolves between Jean on the barge and Juliette in Paris as they each lie alone in their respective beds, mirroring each other's movements as they toss and turn, unable to sleep, is one of the most powerful scenes of romantic yearning in cinema.

 Dita Parlo and Jean Dasté on board the L'Atalante

Ghost World

Year:  2001

Director:  Terry Zwigoff

Screenplay:  Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

Starring:  Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi, Brad Renfro, Illeana Douglas

Running Time:  112 minutes

Genre:  Dark comedy, drama

In the bland suburbs of an unnamed American city, cynical teenage outcasts Enid (Birch) and Rebecca (Johansson) have just left high school.  However, a summer of wandering the streets, hanging out at kitschy diners and shops and tormenting people with their sarcastic quips and pranks is threatened by the fact that Enid has to take a remedial art class in order to graduate high school.  As the two slowly drift apart, Enid strikes up a friendship with eccentric, lonely middle-aged record collector, Seymour (Buscemi).

Ghost World started out as a slice-of-life comic series in writer-artist Daniel Clowes' Eightball between 1993 and 1997, before being published as a graphic novel in 1997.  Director Terry Zwigoff had previously made his name with the documentary Crumb, about controversial underground "comix" artist Robert Crumb.  Zwigoff shot the film in a deliberately flat, bland way, with very few extras in the streets, and the characters entered in the frame, to mimic the panels of the comic.  It also shows the alienation of the characters.  The streets are eerily quiet and empty all the time, and helps give the film it's odd, slightly surreal feel.  Thora Birch, who at the time was coming off the success of American Beauty (1999), gives a great performance as Enid, a character who is at the same time sympathetic, awkward, cool, sometimes cruel, disloyal and confused, and who wrecks havoc in the lives of her friends albeit unintentionally.  Steve Buscemi gives a very strong performance as the lonely record collector Seymour, who loves old ragtime music and collects odd old artefacts, and is mostly quiet and shy but still given to occasional fits of anger, and who the girls first encounter when he falls victim to one of their cruel pranks, but who Enid ends up developing. strong connection with.  Seymour could very easily have been very creepy character, but the way that he is written and the way Buscemi plays him, with a kind of naive sweetness, makes him a surprisingly likeable and sympathetic character.  The film marks the breakthrough role for Scarlett Johansson, who had previously gained some attention for her supporting roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and the Coen Brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001).  She gives a very good performance as Rebecca, Enid's friend, who is just as cynical and sarcastic as her friend, but is the more popular half of the duo, and unlike Enid has solid plans for the future.  The film is billed as a comedy, and some scenes are very funny, but it is a surprisingly dark film, and it all ends on a strange, ambiguous note. Although some aspects of it have dated in the past twenty years, it is still a strange and bracing look at what it means to be lonely and trapped in the bland modern world.

Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch in Ghost World

tick, tick... BOOM!

 Year:  2021

Director:  Lin-Manuel Miranda

Screenplay:  Steven Levenson, based on the stage musical tick, tick... BOOM! by Jonathan Larson

Starring:  Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Vanessa Hudgens, Robin de Jesús, Joshua Henry, Judith Light

Running Time:  121 minutes

Genre:  Musical, drama

New York City, January 1990:  Jonathan Larson (Garfield) works in a popular Manhattan diner but his true passion is musical theatre.  For the past eight years he has been working on his passion project, a dystopian science-fiction musical called Superbia.  In a few days time he has the opportunity to put on a workshop product of Superbia, which he hopes will attract the attention of producers and investors as well as proving his talent to friends and family.  Jonathan also feels intense pressure to become successful before he turns 30, which is just over a week away, and so he feels that this production is his last chance to "make it".  He also has to deal with personal tragedies, severe financial troubles, and the fact that he still has to write one of the key songs for his musical, and he has no ideas at all. Meanwhile the clock keeps ticking away.

This is a biographical film telling the early career of playwright and composer Jonathan Larson, who is best known for writing the hit musical Rent, which ran for 12 years on Broadway.  The film is based on a semi-autobiographical "rock monologue" Larson wrote in 1990.  The title refers to an incessant ticking sound that Larson says he hears in his head, referring to his feeling that time is running out.  The film cuts between Andrew Garfield, as Larson, performing the monologue in front of an audience, with a full band, and the musical drama which makes up the bulk of the film.  It's a hugely enjoyable film about the sacrifices, pressures, hopes and joys of making art.  Andrew Garfield gives a great performance in the central role, and also shows that he is a very good singer.  Alexandra Shipp is good as Susan, Larson's long-suffering girlfriend, and Robin de Jesús gives a fantastic performance as Michael, Larson's best friend who gave up his own acting dreams for a career in advertising.  The film acknowledges the AIDS crisis, which claims several of Larson's friends, and that casts a strong shadow over Larson's various problems.  The film marks the directorial debut of actor, writer, singer, songwriter, producer Lin-Manual Miranda, and it is a very accomplished debut, with a huge sense of style and visually spectacular.  The songs are very good.  This is one of the best films that I have seen about writing and the creative process.

Andrew Garfield in tick, tick... BOOM!

"The Invention of Sound" by Chuck Palahniuk

 Year of Publication:  2020

Length:  228 pages

Genre:  Horror, satire

Foster Gates has spent seventeen years trawling the very darkest corners of the internet searching for his missing daughter, and revenge on those who took her.  His quest leads him to Hollywood foley artist Mitzi Ives.  Mitzi specialises in providing screams for horror and action films.  She is the best in the business because her screams are so real, in fact they are harvested from people who are brutally murdered just for their death screams.  Mitzi realises that she has inadvertently come across the perfect scream, one so powerful that it could have potentially deadly consequences.

Since his 1996 debut novel Fight Club, which was made into the classic 1999 film, Chuck Palahniuk has explored the darkest excesses of our modern world in shocking and savage funny novels, comics, journalism and adult colouring books.  The Invention of Sound may not be Palahniuk's best book, but it is a well-written, disturbing and bleakly funny novel, which takes as it's basis one of the most ubiquitous but frequently overlooked aspects of filmmaking, the foley, which is basically creating ordinary sound effects for film and television.  The novel moves between Foster Gates' dark quest for his daughter, the story of possible serial killer Mitzi Ives, and the experiences of former horror star Blush Gentry, who is kidnapped during a Comic Con.  It's written in a fragmented, staccato prose, and is always readable, although it may be too bleak for some readers.  Palahniuk over-eggs the pudding somewhat, piling twist upon twist, particularly at the end, with the introduction of a shadowy conspiracy.

   

I've Heard the Mermaids Singing

Year:  1987

Director:  Patricia Rozema

Screenplay:  Patricia Rozema

Starring:  Sheila McCarthy, Paule Baillargeon, Ann-Marie MacDonald

Running Time:  83 minutes

Genre:  Comedy, drama

Toronto:  Quirky dreamer Polly (McCarthy) is an aspiring photographer who works as a temp.  Her latest job involves being a secretary for art gallery owner Gabrielle (Baillargeon).  As their professional relationship develops into something like a friendship, Polly becomes increasingly fascinated by her.  However, when she meets Gabrielle's younger lover, Mary(MacDonald), she learns a surprising secret.

This very low-budget Canadian indie film is almost the epitome of quirky, indie comedy-dramas.  It's rough around the edges, and at times it's too whimsical for it's own good, but it does have enough charm and invention to sustain it, and make it something quite special.  The film moves from the "real" world (in colour) to black-and-white fantasy sequences depicting Polly's inner world.  It has it's own kind of grammar and style, for example, Gabrielle's own painting, which are supposed to be extremely beautiful, are never shown, being depicted instead as illuminated square panels, and the transition to Polly's dream worlds are depicted by fading out to red, instead of the traditional fade to black.  The performances are strong, with Polly in particular being an intriguing character, artistic and charming, but also impulsive, socially awkward, clumsy and with a habit of taking anything anyone says to her literally, she could be seen as a forerunner of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope of the '90s and 2000s.  The film does enter darker territory as it progresses, but it maintains it's charm.  It doesn't always work, it was originally conceived as an hour long TV film, before writer-director Patricia Rozema decided to lengthen it to feature length, and it does feel stretched in places.  However it's certainly worth checking out.    

Sheila McCarthy in I've Heard the Mermaids Singing

X

Year:  2022

Director:  Ti West

Screenplay:  Ti West

Starring:  Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, Scott Mescudi

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Texas, 1979:  A group of aspiring filmmakers: actors Maxine Minx (Goth), Bobby Lynne (Snow) and Jackson Hole (Mescudi), producer Wayne Gilroy (Henderson), director RJ Nichols (Campbell) and boom operator Lorraine (Ortega), head to a remote farm where they plan to shoot a pornographic film called The Farmer's Daughter.  They rent a house on the property from the elderly couple who own the farm, but when the couple find out what kind of film they are making, the filmmakers find themselves fighting to survive.

Writer, producer and director Ti West made his name with horror films such as House of the Devil (2009), The Innkeepers (2011) and The Sacrament (2014) and this is his first film since 2016's In a Valley of Violence.  X starts slowly, building up it's characters and their various relationships, but when the gruesome horror starts it doesn't let up.  It works as a homage to the old slasher films of the 1970s such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Eaten Alive (1976), as well as Psycho (1960).  The '70s ambience works well. maintained by the soundtrack of classic rock songs.  While the film is pretty much tongue in cheek for the most part, it does have something to say about the miseries of getting older and the idea that "youth is wasted on the young".  It's strongly hinted that the couple's attacks are motivated by jealousy at these good-looking young people doing all the things that they would do, if only they could.  Pearl, one half of the elderly couple fixates on Maxine, telling her "I'm what you will become!" Incidentally Pearl is also played by Mia Goth, under very heavy makeup.  It's very well made, with strong performances.  It's worth noting that the film may be too sleazy and gory for some viewers, although the violence is too over the top to be really disturbing.  For fans of the old school slasher films, however, it is a real treat.  It follows the traditional route of these kinds of movies, but throws out enough modern twists on the formula to make it feel fresh and surprising.  It's almost certain to become a mainstay of late-night horror shows in the future.

Mia Goth in X
   

Titane

Year:  2021

Director:  Julia Ducournau

Screenplay:  Julia Ducournau

Starring:  Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier, Laïs Salameh

Running Time:  108 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Alexia (Rousselle) is a dancer who has a titanium plate in her skull, following a car accident when she was a child.  Disturbingly obsessed by cars, she is also responsible for a series of murders.  After a particularly brutal killing spree, Alexia finds herself on the run, and hides out by disguising herself and posing as the missing son of fire captain Vincent (Lindon), whose son went missing ten years earlier aged seven.  Alexia's attempts to keep her disguise are further complicated by her advancing pregnancy, and a series of increasingly disturbing and bizarre symptoms.

French writer-director Julia Ducournau made something of a splash with her debut film, the cannibal horror film Raw (2016), and in this, her second film, really comes into her own as one of the most original and striking directors in modern horror.  This surreal and disturbing slice of body horror tips a hat to directors such as David Cronenberg (Videodrome (1983) and Crash (1996)) and Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1987) and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1991), but it really is it's own thing.  In her debut film role, journalist and model Agathe Rousselle gives a startling, and mostly dialogue free  performance as the serial killer with a car fetish, alternately terrifying and vulnerable.  Vincent Lindon is also impressive as the sometimes sympathetic and sometimes threatening fire captain who believes Alexia to be his missing son.  This is a tough film to watch at times, it's graphic and some scenes are genuinely shocking, but it is powerful and there are some beautiful as well as bizarre and nightmarish images that you might not be able to shake from your mind, however much you may want to.  There is some humanity and heart to the film and the characters, however terrible their actions, are treated with a degree of compassion, and the whole experience is emotional as well as shocking and disturbing.  

Agathe Rousselle in Titane

The Batman

Year:  2022

Director:  Matt Reeves

Screenplay:  Matt Reeves and Peter Craig, based on characters from DC Comics

Starring:  Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell

Running Time:  176 minutes

Genre:  Action, superhero, crime, thriller

On Halloween night, the mayor of Gotham City is brutally murdered by a masked individual calling himself The Riddler (Dano), who leaves a series of cryptic clues aimed at masked vigilante, the Batman (Pattinson), the secret identity of reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne, who has been fighting crime in Gotham for two years.  As Batman investigates, he realises that The Riddler is just getting started, as more and more of the great and good in Gotham turn up murdered.  With the help of nightclub waitress Selina Kyle (Kravitz), who has her own secret, the Batman uncovers a vast criminal conspiracy, which hits uncomfortably close to home.  

It's tempting to roll the eyes at the thought of yet another Batman film, or indeed yet another superhero film as the last ten years has seen a seemingly endless stream of them.  The tendency, particularly of the Batman films, has been to get increasingly dark and gritty, which to be fair is in keeping with the character's origins in the pages of Detective Comics in 1939, but a long way from the colourful, campy Batman TV series with Adam West and Burt Ward which defined the character for decades, at least until the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film.  Despite Batman Forever (1995) and Batman and Robin (1997) the character seems to get darker and grittier with each new iteration, and this is possibly the bleakest yet.  Devoid of light (literally for the most part, the film takes place almost entirely at night in gloomy, cavernous rooms, and strobe-lit nightclubs), humour and mostly any sense of hope, this is Batman for the 2020s.   It is less of a superhero action film, although there are some very good action scenes, including a spectacular car chase, it's more of a gritty crime thriller, closer to films such as Se7en (1995).  Batman is more of a detective here, trying to crack the case by solving the clues and interviewing witnesses and suspects.  Robert Pattinson is good as Batman, and his Bruce Wayne is a very different take on the character.  Instead of the traditional billionaire playboy, his Bruce is a recluse lurking around the Batcave, always in black, listening to Nirvana and writing his thoughts in a journal. and seems to be more than. little bit disturbed, closer to characters such as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) or Rorschach in the comic series Watchmen (1986-87), who incidentally was inspired by Batman.  Andy Serkis plays Alfred, Bruce's one connection to a normal life.  Zoë Kravitz is very good as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, who helps Batman for her own purposes and whose moral ambiguity challenges Batman's black-and-white worldview.  Paul Dano is chilling as the Riddler, turning the character from a gimmicky prankster to a genuinely frightening killer.  Jeffrey Wright is good as Commissioner Gordon, Batman's friend on the police force, and one of the few honest cops in a corrupt city.  Colin Farrell is almost completely unrecognisable under layers of makeup as mobster and club owner the Penguin.  While the Batmobile does make an appearance in the film, and very impressive it is too, Batman uses less gadgets than usual in these films, mostly allowing his targets to hear his heavy footfalls as he looms from the shadows  This is an impressive and complex film which spins out an intriguing mystery and remains gripping throughout what could politely be described as a generous run time.  While this may be too dark and sombre for many people's tastes it feels right for the character, and I liked the fact that it was a smaller scale than most recent superhero films, and I also liked the portrayal of Batman as a crime-solving detective.

Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz) and Batman (Robert Pattinson) in The Batman

The Power of the Dog

Year:  2021

Director:  Jane Campion

Screenplay:  Jane Campion, based on the book The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

Starring:  Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Genevieve Lemon, Keith Carradine, Frances Conroy

Running Time:  126 minutes

Genre: Western

1920s Montana:  George Burbank (Plemons) and his brother Phil (Cumberbatch) co-own a successful cattle ranch.  During a cattle drive the brothers meet widow and inn owner Rose (Dunst).  George immediately falls for her, but the volatile, bullying Phil immediately dislikes her, believing that she is just after their money.  Phil particularly dislikes Rose's teenage son, Peter (Smit-McPhee), who he sees as soft and weak.  George and Rose quickly get married and she moves into the ranch while Peter is away studying medicine.  When Peter returns for the holidays he finds that Rose is descending into alcoholism, and soon his and Phil's mutual dislike changes not a much more complex relationship.

Based on a 1967 novel by Thomas Savage, The Power of the Dog is a complex, bleak, psychological drama in a Western setting.  Filmed in director Jane Campion's native New Zealand, the film features beautiful landscapes and almost impressionistic imagery of seas of dusty cattle.  In fact it is kind of a pity that, since it is a Netflix film, it will mostly only be available to watch on television, because it really cries out for a big cinema screen.  Benedict Cumberbatch is impressive as the verbally abusive Phil, who constantly gives the impression that he is just about to burst into violence.  Kirsten Dunst gives a great performance as the troubled, struggling Rose, with Jesse Plemons as the husband who deeply cares about her but doesn't know how to help her, and really can't unless they move off the ranch and away from Phil.  Kodi Smit-McPhee is very good as Peter, Rose's intelligent, artistic, sensitive son, who can't fit in with the macho world of the ranch, and is constantly taunted by all the cowboys and ranch hands.  Thomasin McKenzie (from JoJo Rabbit (2019) and Last Night in Soho (2021)) has a small role as the ranch's cheery maid, Lola.  The film depicts a dark, alienating world, where danger is a constant fact of life, and there is always threat in the air.  Phil belongs fully to that world, but Rose and Peter belong to towns and cities, they are part of a more urbane world, and George has a foot in both worlds.  He is a rancher and something of a cowboy, but he is also kindly, gentle and reasonable, and he wants to become a "gentleman rancher" and the state governor, along with his and Phil's wealthy parents.  There is a strong, intelligent script by Jane Campion who directs beautifully, with memorable imagery and very strong performances.  This is a great film.

  

Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons in The Power of the Dog

Privilege

 Year:  1967

Director:  Peter Watkins

Screenplay:  Norman Bogner, from a story by John Speight

Starring:  Peter Jones, Jean Shrimpton, Mark London, Jeremy Child

Running Time:  103 minutes

Genre:  Comedy, drama, science-fiction, satire, 

Britain, the near future:  The country is ruled by an authoritarian coalition Government.  The biggest celebrity in the world is pop singer Steven Shorter (Jones), whose ruthless management have made a deal with the government to use Steven as a tool to keep the people in line.  When Steven meets sympathetic artist Vanessa (Shrimpton) he begins to see the need to rebel.

Director Peter Watkins made his name with the 1964 TV movie Culloden which depicted the 1746 Battle of Culloden in the style of modern TV news reportage, and the controversial 1966 TV film The War Game, about nuclear war, which was deemed so disturbing that the BBC refused to broadcast it.  Like Watkins' previous works Privilege is made as a pseudo-documentary following futuristic pop singer Steven Shorter.  Played by Manfred Mann lead singer Paul Jones, Steven is a shrunken, quiet, haunted figure, notably lacking in charisma, who is surrounded by people who pretend to care about him, but really just want to exploit him.  Jean Shrimpton's Vanessa, ironically the only one, initially, who couldn't care less about Steven Shorter, avoids the oily, slick media and political types to become the only one who really does care about him.  This is a horribly dated film, which screams late sixties in almost every frame, but it is funny (particularly a scene involving the filming of an advert to promote apples and the director calls: "I want you all to think like apples, act like apples, be apples!"), and frightening in it's depiction of government control of mass media to hypnotise and control the people.  It is certainly ripe for a remake.

Arthur Pentelow and Paul Jones in Privilege

 

Accattone

Year:  1961

Director:  Pier Paolo Pasolini

Screenplay:  Pier Paolo Pasolini with additional dialogue by Sergio Citti

Starring:  Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Silvana Corsini

Running Time:  117 minutes

Genre:  Drama

 

In a seedy section of Rome, Vittorio (Citti), nicknamed "Accattone" (Italian for "beggar" or "scrounger"), happily lives as a pimp, off the earnings of sex worker Maddalena (Corsini).  Until Maddalena is arrested and Accattone finds himself having to find an alternate source of income, and possibly finding himself having to do something like working, which he has no intention of doing.

This was the film debut of acclaimed filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini.  However Pasolini was already a major, if controversial, figure in Italian cultural and intellectual life as a poet, author, essayist, critic and public intellectual, and Accattone does tie in with Pasolini's previous writing, which often dealt with the urban poor.  Accattone is largely seen as the last of the great Italian neorealist films, although Paolini himself rejected the neorealist label.  Neorealism was a subgenre that sprung up in Italy in the years immediately following the Second World War.  During the war a lot of film studios were used as munitions factories and were bombed, and many filmmakers and actors were drafted into the military and many didn't return.  Lacking facilities and actors, filmmakers made a virtue out of a necessity and began filming almost documentary style on the streets, with non-professional actors as performers.  Accattone was filmed on the streets, with a largely non-professional cast, and it does have a feeling of scenes snatched from real life.  Despite the plot and characters, and unlike most other neorealist films, the film has stylised, almost religious, overtones, with it's Bach soundtrack and frequent religious imagery.  The performances range from being very good to unimpressive.  Franco Citti in his film debut manages to be both repulsive and charismatic as the deeply unpleasant but magnetic Accattone.  Citti would go on to appear in several Pasolini films and went on to greater fame with his appearances in the three Godfather films.  His brother, Sergio Citti, became a screenwriter and director, and contributed to the script of Accattone.  While Pasolini made better films, this is a hugely impressive debut.  

              Franco Citti is Accattone

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Year:  1959

Director:  Terence Fisher

Screenplay:  Peter Bryan, based on the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Starring:  Peter Cushing, André Morell, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi, David Oxley

Running Time:  87 minutes

Genre:  Mystery, thriller

According to legend, since the 1700s when notorious squire Hugo Baskerville (Oxley) met a gruesome end, the Baskerville family of Dartmoor have been cursed by a ghastly Hell Hound.  When Sir Charles Baskerville dies under mysterious circumstances, his best friend Dr. Richard Mortimer (Francis de Wolff) consults the famous detective Sherlock Holmes (Cushing) and Dr. Watson (Morell).  To make matters more urgent, the last surviving Baskerville, Sir Henry (Lee), intends to return to the ancestral seat of Baskerville Hall on Dartmoor.  Legend or no legend, Holmes is convinced that Sir Henry's life is in serious danger.

First serialised in the Strand magazine from 1901 to 1902, The Hound of the Baskervilles is probably the single best known of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's evergreen Sherlock Holmes stories, and with it's plot revolving around old family curses and iconic imagery of the huge, ghostly Hound on the mist shrouded moors a perfect choice for Britain's Hammer Films, and their signature "Hammer Horror" style.  The film sticks more or less to the plot of the original story, and the narrative moves along at a brisk pace.  Peter Cushing, who was a fan of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, makes for an energetic Holmes with a nice line in acidic retorts.  André Morell anchors the film with his charismatic, heroic Watson.  Christopher Lee is good as ever as the stern, sceptical Sir Henry Baskerville, except the scenes where he is being threatened never really seem that convincing, one of Lee's glares would be enough to send even the most fearsome Hound of Hell scampering back to it's kennel.  Marla Landi plays the mysterious Spanish born daughter of a local farmer who falls for Sir Henry's grim charms.  The film has plenty of gothic atmosphere, with plenty of mist shrouded ruins and strange lights.  The hound never really looks as fearsome as it should, however.  It's an enjoyable slice of vintage mystery with some impressive performances, and also one of the more faithful Holmes adaptations.

 Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in The Hound of the Baskervilles

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

Year:  1965

Director:  Freddie Francis

Screenplay:  Milton Subotsky

Starring:  Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Max Adrian, Alan Freeman, Ann Bell, Peter Madden, Donald Sutherland, Roy Castle, Michael Gough

Running Time:  98 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Six strangers meet in a train carriage.  One of them, Dr. Schreck (Cushing), whose name, we're told, means "terror" in German, offers to tell the others' fortunes with his tarot deck (which he calls his "house of horrors").  His five companions are each told their grim fates in a series of stories involving werewolves, killer vines, voodoo curses, vengeful disembodied hands and vampires.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Hammer Films held British horror cinema in it's cold, undead grasp.  However one of their main competitors was Amicus Films, which had a similar look to the Hammer Films and often used the same actors (Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were both regulars in Amicus films as well as their better known Hammer films).  However Amicus usually had a contemporary setting, as opposed to Hammer's usual period settings, and they really found their niche with a series of anthology, or "portmanteau", films.  Instead of having a single narrative running throughout the film, these consisted of four or five separate short stories usually connected by a framing story.  Dr. Terror's House of Horrors was the first of these (and was followed by Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Asylum (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973) and From Beyond the Grave (1974)).  These films, by their very nature, were usually something of a mixed bag, but if you weren't enjoying one story, you didn't have to wait too long for something else to come along.  As with all of these films, the title promises far more scares and gore than it delivers, it really is very mild particularly by modern standards.  The special effects are really basic, with the killer plant being someone shaking a vine off-screen, the disembodied hand is a rubber glove fitted with a pump and then there is the rubber bat bobbing along on a wire.  The cast is very eclectic with veterans such as Christopher Lee as an obnoxious art critic, Peter Cushing as the creepy fortune teller and Michael Gough, alongside Roy Castle who would later become beloved to decades of British children as the host of Record Breakers (1972-1994), jazz singer Kenny Lynch, future Hollywood star Donald Sutherland in an early role, and a rare acting role from DJ Alan "Fluff" Freeman ("Not 'arf, pop-pickers!") doing battle with killer weeds.  Everyone plays the material as best they can, providing impressive gravitas.  The stories are enjoyable, with some welcome humour.  The story with the vengeful hand is probably the best of the bunch, the worst being the voodoo story which has not aged well (even though it does feature a weird little in-joke where Roy Castle is terrified by a lurid poster for Dr. Terror's House of Horrors).  It all ends with a surprisingly eerie conclusion.  

       

Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Alan Freeman, Neil McCallum and Roy Castle in Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

Deep Red

Year:  1975

Director:  Dario Argento, 

Screenplay:  Dario Argento and Bernardino Zapponi

Starring:  David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril, Clara Calamai

Running Time: 126 minutes 

Genre:  Horror, thriller

One night Marcus Daly (Hemmings), a jazz pianist living in Turin, witnesses the gruesome murder of his upstairs neighbour, psychic medium Helga Ulmann (Méril).  Daly rushes to help, but is too late, however he sees the raincoat clad killer escape into the night.  Haunted by the idea that he saw something important which he cannot quite remember, Daly teams up with ambitious journalist Gianna Brezzi (Nicolodi) to hunt the killer, but the killer is hunting them.

This stylish murder-mystery is one of the classic giallo films.  Giallo was a sub-genre of horror and mystery films that came out of Italy in the 1960s and became hugely popular during the '70s.  Often seen as the fore-runner to later "slasher" films, these films were usually very stylish and showcased elaborate, stylised murders and violence, but were more focussed on the mystery and detection elements than piling up the bodycount.  The term giallo (Italian for "yellow") came from a hugely popular series of cheap paperback mystery novels which were published with distinctive yellow covers.  Deep Red features elaborate, over the top and extremely gory set pieces and a constantly moving camera, but it also has an intriguing and complex mystery plot.  As with most Argento films the dazzling, excessive visuals cover the fact that a lot of it doesn't really make any sense.  However it doesn't really matter, because as labyrinthine and bizarre as the film is, it is full of unforgettable elements, with bizarre sequences and characters, such as the mechanical killer doll (which surely must have been an influence on the Saw films) and the pulsing soundtrack from prog-rock band Goblin.  David Hemmings is charismatic in the lead role, but the film is stolen by Daria Nicolodi as the energetic and funny journalist.  Nicolodi would go on to appear in five more Argento films, and the two were married for a time.  This is definitely one of Argento's best films, and possibly the best example of the giallo genre.  Argento turned the film into a stage musical in 2007, and adopted the film's Italian title "Profondo Rosso" as the name for his horror memorabilia shop and museum in Rome.  

 David Hemmings in Deep Red