1967s 'Torture Garden' was the second of the Amicusportmanteau movies and, to these eyes at least, the worst of the seven. Starring, at the insistence of the American money men, Burgess Meredith and Jack Palance, and consisting of several stories by 'Psycho' author, Robert Bloch (who also adapted them), it's a hammy and bloodless affair.
With a framing device based around a carnival sideshow where, for a price, 'Dr Diablo' (Meredith) provides an extra scary experience for a group of punters allowing them a look through the shears of 'Atropos' (one of the Fates) at "things that can be". The "things" they see involve a homicidal psychic cat, a jealous piano, movie robots and Edgar Allan Poe and, with the exception of the last one, they are all as daft as they sound.
Meredith is in full 'Penguin' mode here hamming it up terribly, and I've never been an admirer of Palance, although he is at least playing somewhat against type here. Peter Cushing is relegated to a supporting role in the Poe segment and there are several Brit stalwarts like Michael Ripper and Maurice Denham striving valiantly too rescue the thing but the stories are weak and, whilst I've always liked how Amicus strove to present their stories with a more contemporary and even transatlantic setting in contrast to Hammer's gothic trappings this one feels both too American and not American enough. As always with these anthologies though the stories are quick and director Freddie Francis always had a masterful eye but this is one of the those movies that is worth watching more for it's place in history than for it's merits.
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There is, perhaps, little new information here for horror devotees but as an introduction and an overview to the genre it's hard to beat and Gatiss is always an engaging host.
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Regular Wyrd Britain readers may have noticed that I have a soft spot for the late 60s and early 70 horrors where the gothic was melded with the modern and dusted with a sprinkling of (usually poorly understood) groovy, countercultural cool. So, it'll probably come as no surprise when I tell you that I'm a fan of Christopher Lee's final two Dracula movies that were made and released in the early 70s, 'Dracula A.D. 1972' and 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' (presented below with it's awful US title) despite their well deserved reputations.
Written by 'Doctor Who' ('Inferno', 'The Mind of Evil'), 'Ace of Wands' and future 'Sapphire and Steel' writer Don Houghton, who'd also written the previous movie and who would subsequently write the following one,'The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires', the film incorporates distinct spy-fi elements - giant computers, tiny tape recorders and weaponised plagues - mixed with ostentatious occult dialogue - "Evil rules, y'know - it really does! .. Nothing is too vile; nothing is
too dreadful - too awful; you need to know the terror, the horror,
Lorrimer; to feel the threat of disgust - the beauty of obscenity!" - in an attempt to revitalise the series, it didn't work.
Dracula, for me at least, works best on a human level as a man who's just looking for love and lunch and so this version of him as the enigmatic head of a genocidal global cabal seems odd and Lee made a much more likely world dominating villain as Scaramanga in the following years' 'The Man with the Golden Gun' and had made his disatisfaction with the movie known long before release. Peter Cushing, reprising the role of Lorrimer Van Helsing, is, as always, perfect and it's always a treat to see him and Lee together even in the scene where one of them is doing a terrible Bela Lugosi impersonation but the stand-out scene is with Freddie Jones who, in his brief appearence as Dr. Julian Keeley, delivers the lines quoted above to a Cushing who's slowly realising the depth of his friends madness.
You have to admire Hammer and Houghton's ambition but the film just doesn't have the necessary spark to do what they wanted it to and has the feel of an ambitious but overlong TV pilot along the lines of 'Baffled!' or 'Spectre'. Shorn of his gothic trapping the Count looks a little silly and much of the plot feels entirely pointless but there's an overabundance of energy with the likes of Joanna Lumley, Michael Coles, Richard Vernon and William Franklyn fighting bikers, snipers and biters whilst fashioning improvised stakes and crosses before the movie ends with the single most novel (note I didn't say good) take on a Dracula staking ever filmed, death by prickly thorns (and fence). But as I said at the start, I kind of love it. For me what it is far outweighs what it isn't and what it is is fun, not at all horrifing or terrifying or even suspenseful and it is, in so many ways, just bad but I still love it.
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"This cannot be the Rhondda Valley. I've never seen anythng like it."
As a result of the disasterous first test of their Iron Mole drilling machine Dr Abner Perry (Peter Cushing) and David Innes (Doug McClure) find themselves lost in the subterranean world of Pellucidar. A land of rubbery dinosaurs ruled over by the lady eating, telepathic pterodactyl-like Mahars. Luckily though the nicer locals - including Princess Dia (Caroline Munro), Ghak the Hairy One (Godfrey James) and Ra (Cy Grant) - speak English and so David sets about uniting the tribes to defeat the Mahars.
"They're so excitable. Like all foreigners."
Based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, scripwriter Milton Subotsky and director Kevin Connor go all out for silly fun with this technicolour adventure romp. The cast spend much of the film running around a fiery set made entirely out of health and safety nightmares while battling beaky dinosaurs and their piggy henchmen to a soundtrack from ex-Manfred Mann woodwind player Mike Vickers. Cushing - a year away from playing a Moff in his slippers and scolding the Green Cross Code Man - looks especially frail here but is channelling his Dr and playing his part entirely for laughs, gets all the best lines and has great chemistry with McClure who seems to be thoroughly enjoying Cushing's performance.
“You cannot mesmerize me. I’m British!"
Even on it's original release 'At the Earth's Core' was ridiculed for it's effects (and pretty much everything else) and it must be admitted it is spectacularly cheap looking and primitive even for the time it was made but personally I'll take wobbly sets, rubber monsters and a bow-legged Peter Cushing over slick effect every time and I bloody love this film.
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1964 and with not a toga in sight Hammer plucked The Gorgon from Greek myth and handed her to veteran director Terence Fisher who had a penchant for the classic monsters - 'Dracula', 'The Curse of Frankenstein', 'The Mummy', 'The Curse of the Werewolf'. In Fisher's vision the creature, named 'Megaera' (actually the name of one of the Erinyes or Furies), has long haunted the woods and ruined castle of the German town of Vandorf and has been responsible - most recently - for seven deaths over the previous five years that are being hidden behind scapegoats and excuses from the world at large. It takes the father (Michael Goodliffe) and brother (Richard Pasco) of one of those scapegoats along with a handy Professor of Folklore (Christopher Lee) to finally bring the town's curse to an end.
With a stately pace and some great set design and music Fisher's movie - one of his personal favourites - is classic gothic Hammer and with a cast that alongside Lee includes Hammer legends Peter Cushing & Barbara Shelley along with Patrick Troughton (two years away from being cast as The Doctor) and Jack Watson you know you're in for a treat.
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One of the very few films made by Tyburn Film Productions,`The Legend of the Werewolf ' is a fun and occasionally funny romp very much in the tradition of the classic Hammer films but made at a time (1975) when such films were already seeming pretty old hat alongside US contemporaries such as 'The Exorcist' and 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as well as UK movies like 'Death Line'.
Found running wild in the French woods as a child Etoile had been raised by wolves before being adopted by a circus family and displayed as the 'Wolf Boy'. As an adult Etoile (David Rintoul - who I think many parents among you will recognise as the voice of 3 Peppa Pig characters including 'Dr Brown Bear') runs away to the city and finds work in a zoo alongside the keeper (Ron Moody). There he falls in love with a prostitute (Lynn Dalby) but develops an irritating habit of growning hair, fangs and claws and snacking on her clientelle.
Directed by Hammer (and Amicus) veteran Freddie Francis from a script by Anthony Hinds (son of Hammer's founder William Hinds) who also wrote 'The Curse if the Werewolf' for, well, I'm sure you can see the pattern for yourself by now, starring Peter Cushing and with a cameo from Michael Ripper the links to the venerable studio were numerous and overt and the end result is an enjoyable last gasp of the classic British horror.
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In this version Freud obsessed psychiatrist Dr Charles Marlowe (Christopher Lee) invents a potion that "destroys the super-ego" rendering people either utterly docile, or competely amoral. It's not long - following two human tests and an animal one that makes this very much not a film for cat lovers - before Marlowe is testing it on himself whereupon he transforms into a grinning, psycopathic, hedonist named Edward Blake.
'I, Monster' has long had a poor reputation mostly due to it's studio bound and slightly talky script and Amicus were never at their best when parroting Hammer's gothic pretentions but with a strong central performance aided by typically solid support from a much underused Peter Cushing and some fairly bog standard support from the reliably terrible Mike Raven it's a solid enough adaptation that's perhaps slightly over-reverential of the source material making it drag a bit as he stretches the story out to fill the run time.
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The seventh episode of Hammer Studio's and ITC's 1980 television series 'Hammer House of Horror' sees a newly released convict with the action movie name of Chuck Spillers (Brian Cox) taking a job with the man who had visited him in prison, Martin Blueck (Peter Cushing). The job entails helping him look after the wild big cats in his basement zoo that he's using in his experiments to create a prison with no bars. Unfortunately, temptation soon proves too much for Spillers and Blueck's true nature and plans are revealed.
Cushing, in his last role for Hammer, is, of course, as brilliant as ever and plays both aspects of Blueck's nature - the facade of banality that conceals the psychopathy underneath - to perfection whilst Cox is perfectly cast opposite him as the incorrigible and fairly hapless jailbird and as an actor of note in his own right able to hold his own aganst the Hammer legend in full flight. Being more of a psychological thriller than the outright horror that either the venerable studio or the lead actor is famed for it's great fun to see, even at this late stage, their take on something different and as such it's always been one of my favourite episodes from the series.
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Professor Emmanuel Hildern (Peter Cushing) returns from an expedition to New Guinea with the skeleton of a mythological evil giant that he soon discovers can be revived through contact with water. Having being denied further funding by his asylum running half-brother Dr James Hildern (Christopher Lee) he begins to rush his experiments to use the skeleton to immunise the world from evil injecting his serum firstly into his lab monkey and, soon after, into his daughter Penelope (Lorna Heilbron). Needless to say things soon start to deteriorate for all involved as several storylines begin to converge leading to a grim but pleasingly ambivalent ending.
Here, director Freddie Francis has perhaps made a movie with slightly too many loose ends for them all to be successfully and fully explored in the time given but in the tradition of a number of other Tigon movies ('The Blood on Satan's Claw' & 'Witchfinder General') it's ambitions are to be celebrated and with Francis' cinematographer's eye it looks lovely.
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Brash, materialistic American writer Kenneth Magee (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) accepts a bet from his publisher Sam Allyson (Richard Todd) that he can write a gothic classic of the calibre of Wuthering Heights in 24 hours given the right atmosphere. Relocating to a supposedly deserted manor house in Wales named, 'Bllyddpaetwr Manor where, in its gloomy corridors, he meets the eccentric Grisbane family and learns their terrible secret.
Made seemingly with the sole purpose of finally getting four horror icons Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and John Carradine onto the big screen together which is an absolute pleasure to see with each playing very much to type - Price in particular letting rip with his customary OTT style - with each making a memorable entrance from the shadows but unfortunately there is little else to recommend here.
Director Pete Walker ('The Flesh and Blood Show') and screenwriter Michael Armstrong's 'comedy' horror is a wasted opportunity all round with a paper thin plot and unfunny jokes cobbled together within an adaptation of the novel / play / movies Seven Keys to Baldpate.
Arnaz and Julie Peasgood (as Allyson's secretary Mary) have neither the chops nor the presence to carry the film and the presence of the four greats cannot make up for some very poor acting and the woeful script that inflicts on us an ending that will make you want to kick your TV screen in. It is, though, the one time that we got to see Cushing, Price, Lee, and Carradine together on screen and for that reason and pretty much only that reason it's worth at least a watch.
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In many ways both 'Night of the Big Heat' and 'Island of Terror' can be seen as a bit of a job lot as they share very similar concepts - strange creatures terrorising a remote island - a director - Hammer legend Terence Fisher ('Dracula' (UK / US), 'The Curse of Frankenstein' (UK / US)) - a composer - Malcolm Lockyer - a cinematographer - Reginald Wyer (a regular Terence Fisher collaborator as well as working on 'Night of the Eagle' (UK / US)) - and principal cast - Peter Cushing.
In this instance the strange creatures - named 'Silicates' - are created in a lab on the island where they are trying to cure cancer. The Silicates are greenish blob things with Triffids like stingers that feed on the the bones of their victims. Impervious to axes, petrol bombs and dynamite it's up to the trio of doctors - Cushing, Edward Judd ('First Men in the Moon' (UK / US), 'The Day the Earth Caught Fire' (UK / US)) & Eddie Byrne - along with scream queen Carole Gray ('Devils of Darkness') to find a way to end their threat and save the islanders.
It's a fun movie that I've always thought has the feel of early 70s Doctor Who about it and with it's perils of science storyline it's certainly coming from the same place that would later give us Doomwatch. There are some pacing issues but Fisher takes us on a real tour of the island with numerous outdoor locations and a plethora of studio sets. His slow reveal of the monsters is as effective as the creatures aren't and the finale as the panicked villagers are held seige in the village hall is very well done.
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Written by 'Psycho' author Robert Bloch the movie revolves around a Scotland Yard Detective's rather lacklustre investigation of the disappearance of the latest tenant, a famous horror movie actor, and the stories he's told of the fates of the previous occupants.
We have shadows of Bloch's most famous creation here with two tales of madness and two of the supernatural. The stories are of variable quality with the third story featuring Christopher Lee being the standout but each has its charms as Peter Cushing elevates the second simply by his presence and Jon Pertwee and Ingrid Pitt's joyously hammy performances in the fourth are a sheer delight
In contrast to its title the movie is a remarkably bloodless affair - not a single drop - and seems designed to play to a slightly different audience to its brother portmanteaus. It's great fun though. It knows it's silly but tries to play it as straight as possible right up to the point where it just can't hold it in anymore and sticks some rubbish fangs onto The Doctor.
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Five passengers board a train from London to (the fictional town of) Bradley. They all settle into the same compartment where they're joined by an old man by the name of 'Dr Schreck' who proceeds to use a tarot deck, his "house of horrors", to tell their fortunes. Spoiler - they're all doomed!
The most striking thing about the movie is the casting; Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are quite understandable (not to mention pretty much compulsory) as are the host of reliable familiar faces littering each segment such as Michael Gough and Bernard Lee but the other four men in the compartment make for a strange bunch. Neil McCallum was a jobbing actor with nothing of note on his resume before this (or after to be honest), Alan Freeman was a popular BBC radio DJ presenting the long running 'Pick of the Pops' show who had no prior acting experience, Roy Castle was a comedic light entertainer making the shift into movies and who later that same year would again share a bill with Peter Cushing in 'Dr. Who and the Daleks' (UK / US) (also made by Amicus) and, perhaps strangest of all, future Hollywood royalty Donald Sutherland who having studied in the UK had appeared in a movie with Christopher Lee the previous year, the Italian horror 'Castle of the Living Dead ' (UK / US), and would make a movie for Hammer, 'Fanatic', that same year and then episodes of 'The Avengers' and 'The Saint' before Hollywood beckoned.
The five stories revolve around several established horror tropes - a werewolf, a killer plant, voodoo, vengeful body parts and vampires - to varying degrees of success and seriousness. I have a real soft spot for this movie and for me it's Lee versus the disembodied hand that is the standout segment although perhaps the most memorable is Roy Castle's jazz voodoo story - also featuring Kenny Lynch, the Tubby Hayes Quartet and a great tune - but the general goofiness of Castle's performance and some casual racism have always grated on me slightly. McCallum's werewolf tale is the most Hammeresque of the five tales with it's big old house, ancient curses and hidden crypts whereas Freeman versus the foliage and Sutherland's sanguinary spouse most closely ressemble the Amicus template of movies to come although neither is particularly memorable.
It's far from being the best of the Amicus portmanteaus - I'll let you debate which is - but to my mind it's definitely the most fun. For the most part it's tongue is firmly planted in it's cheek and even when it's being serious director Francis seemingly can't help injecting a hint of silliness - Michael Gough taunting Lee with paper cut-out chimps. Like I said earlier I have a enduring soft spot for this movie, it's one of several that I turn to when I need a smile putting on my face as it never fails. Very few of it's constituent parts - one, maybe - would be able to hold their heads high in more rarified company but all together here they complement each other wonderfully.
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