The Nanny

As you might expect from a film that is about the death of a child and the devastating impact it has on a family, 'The Nanny' is a rather somber affair, by far the most restrained of the psychological thrillers that Hammer used to supplement their various horror franchises. There are very few twists and turns, just a slow piecing together of the true circumstances of what may or may not have been a tragic accident.

Bette Davis stars here as Nanny, ably supported by extraordinary eyebrows. The only child in the house hates and fears her, but that's irrelevant as her real duties are to stop the Mother of the family unraveling completely, which she does by treating her like a  baby, obsessively brushing her hair and feeding her steak and kidney pie from a spoon (yes, Social Services, I am aware that does not necessarily constitute responsible child care). Davis' performance is mannered and slightly grotesque, without ever being ridiculous. As things begin to unravel, Ms Davis resists the chance to go full psycho-biddy, as if her character is already at the extent of her strangeness. 

The lovely Pamela Franklin pops up as a lonely teenage neighbour who pretends to have loads of boyfriends but mainly sits in smoking and watching westerns on the telly, and is by far the most sympathetic character in a film filled with emotionally damaged and psychologically distant people. 

It's all a bit depressing, really, but it's well made and directed and doesn't rely on cheap shocks to tell its ultimately rather sad story. I fancy some steak and kidney pie now. I'll have a bath later. 

Dracula, Prince of Deadness

It's a convention of vampire films that Dracula starts dead, and ends up dead. In Hammer productions he is usually ended by a member of the Van Helsing family, but his nemesis can also be a callow youth or a monk who likes to warm his arse on an open fire. In 'Taste The Blood Of Dracula' he just gets giddy from being in a church and falls off a ledge. Fact is, Dracula is very much a bully. He's cock of the walk when biting young, vulnerable girls, but he crumbles when faced with any real opposition. Literally. That said, he'll be back. He always comes back.  

RIP, Sir Christopher, you pompous old marvel. See you again soon.

A Horrifying Excursion

‘Paranoiac’ is one of those stylish, squiffy supporting feature thrillers that Hammer quietly excelled at in the sixties although, sports cars and Hush Puppies modernism aside, it could just as easily have formed part of their better known Gothic cycle. It’s about a haunted house, after all, and is as morbid as hell - choc-a-bloc with murder and madness and desiccated corpses and organ playing in the dark. Oh, and darts.

It’s also about the 25 year old Oliver Reed, excellent here as the febrile Simon, a bag of neuroses in a bruiser’s body– an overgrown, over-wrought child who drinks too much, drives too fast and has a dirty, nasty, nutty secret which has driven him around the bend. He’s in good company, though, as more or less everyone in the story is absolutely barking mad – except for the hero, who is a fraud and a criminal. It’s a wonderful advertisement for country living, and a nice summary of upper class values that still rings true today.

The story, which twists and turns before skidding through a hedge and hurtling off a cliff, is competently and cleanly directed in crisp black and white by Freddie Francis, perhaps the most interesting of all Hammer helmsmen. The dénouement is a thick, fat slice of Grand Guignol, and is absolutely delicious. I must have seen this film a dozen times. I never tire of it.

Paranoiac

Unholy Relics

I’ve just had a very interesting weekend presenting some seminal Hammer films at the National Media Museum in Bradford. The highlight was getting to see some of the Museum’s archive, in particular material donated by Hammer (and others) make-up and effects genii Phil Leakey and Roy Ashton.

As well as a wealth of photos and sketches revealing all sorts of behind the scenes secrets, there was a small but priceless collection of three dimensional artefacts. For me, these relics were the equivalent of slivers of the True Cross or Moon rocks.

Old fangs.

Make up development shots from 'The Evil Of Frankenstein'.

From the Peter Cushing file of defunct newspaper 'The Herald'.

Gorgon Bites (top) and Vampire Bites (bottom).

'Now ventilated to let wounds breathe'

Vampire bites / scabs.

Noses and an ear.

Peter Cushing / Grimsdyke cast from Amicus' 'Tales From The Crypt'.

Finally, the Holy Grail of Hammer memorabilia, a set of fangs worn by Christopher Lee in 'Dracula' (above). By depressing his tongue, Lee could pump fake blood into the fangs and let it drip down the sides of his mouth. It's wonderful to know that these priceless objects are being preserved, and it was a real privilege to see them.  

He's Here To Freak You Out...Of This World!

Colchester, Essex, 1983 AD. I am at a party and have become quite heavily involved with a pretty young lady. The new romance comes to an abrupt end, however, when I check my watch and realise that ‘Dracula, A.D. 1972’ is about to start on Anglia telly. It’s a film I haven’t yet seen, but KNOW will be great, so I rather abruptly make my excuses and leave, leaving my paramour both tearful and furious. Thus, the pattern of a life is set.

‘Dracula, A.D. 1972’ is a supremely silly film. At times, it’s educationally sub-normal. But I love it. I love the middle aged kids and the groovy places they hang out where the sixties still cling to the décor like pot smoke to a pair of garish curtains, and I love, love, love the fact that Count Dracula is going to bite them all and turn their groovy scene to shit.

I love the fact that it takes Van Helsing ten minutes and a pad and pencil to work out that Johnny Alucard’s surname is Dracula spelled backwards. I love that you can now kill a vampire with a power shower, or a bush. I love Peter Cushing’s concession to hip, a moderately daring neckerchief. I love the music, even 'The Stoneground', but especially the electronic séance track by White Noise, from 'An Electric Storm', one of my favourite albums ever. I like the vacuity of the male characters, and the fecundity of the female cast, perhaps the foxiest, bustiest bunch of Hammer starlets in history (Stephanie Beacham is outstanding in this respect). Most of all, I love that Hammer are getting a bit desperate and trying something new and, for the most part, getting it wrong – and I love that it doesn’t matter because the dividing line between brilliantly awful and awfully brilliant doesn't exist in this context.    

‘Dracula, A.D. 1972’ is ninety minutes of everything I love and cherish and admire and am obsessed with about British horror films, and I can categorically say that leaving the party and the girl and rushing home to watch it all those years ago had an enormous effect on me, an impact that has reverberated every day since, and, for better or worse, has directly led to this blog and all the stuff attached to it. And it was worth it. It was all worth it.   

Dracula, A.D. 1972

Coming Soon...

Sex, Death & British Horror

Further to my recent Sheffield based film shenanigans, I will be at the National Media Museum in Bradford on Saturday 15^th and Sunday 16^th of February to introduce a weekend of Gothic along with Dr Helena Ifill and Dr Matt Cheeseman from the University of Sheffield.  More details here.

Apart from the obvious joy of seeing three incredible Hammer films on the big screen, there will also be the rare opportunity to take a look at some of the Museum’s archive of British horror artifacts and memorabilia, including a wealth of production sketches, stills, plaster casts and a set of blood pumping plastic fangs worn by Christopher Lee in ‘Dracula’. 

Look out for me, I’ll be the one receiving medical treatment for over-excitement.

Oh, and 'Island of Terror' will return on the 2813th February.

Notes On The Gothic

001 I used to go out with a Goth. She drank Pernod, and only wore purple and black. Her hair was extraordinary, crimped and crenelated and blow dried upside down. The funny thing was how funny she was. I had expected that Goths would be miserable, but, for her, it was exciting, like riding the Ghost Train, or watching a Hammer film or reading a scary book late at night and having to put the big light on: morbid, perhaps, but not maudlin. But Goth girlfriends are not really what we’re talking about.

002 The original Goths were a Germanic tribe who sacked Rome. We’re not talking about that, either. We’re also not discussing architecture, although that has an integral role to play. Our Gothic is a literary style which became a cultural sensation and then a way of life. This Gothic is a heady combination of horror and romance, a kiss before dying. It flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, where love was inextricably linked to death and to loss – a place where life was constantly threatened by a myriad of illnesses and conditions that medical science couldn’t yet cope with, where every person who survived beyond birth was automatically entered into the lottery of surviving to adulthood.

003 The signifiers of Gothic are many, and some have become clichés, a short hand for fear: a desolate or deserted place, an innocent heroine, a tyrant or a monster, a hero; candles and cobwebs, cellars and hidden passages, lives in peril, surrender, succumbing, evil to be overcome. Think of the pale, frail things of Gothic literature – lives spent in shadow and solitude, in big gloomy houses and partially ruined castles; hard, doomed lives, with love or death as their only solace and, sometimes, a love beyond death.

004 There is not always a supernatural element, but there is always a sense of the unnatural: you don’t need a ghost to be haunted; you don’t need a vampire to get your neck bitten.

005 I always meant to write something about the 1,225 episodes of extraordinary US goth soap ‘Dark Shadows’, but then Jonny Depp and Tim Burton came along and ruined it all. Those two need shooting. Or at least stunning. Perhaps they’ll then make a film that has a spark of something in it that isn’t all flip, facile, ironic hipster bullshit.

006 Gothic is easy to parody, indeed, it parodies itself. It has a sense of humour, it needs one, in case it becomes overwhelmingly grim. Gothic is popular, so it renews itself from generation to generation – it’s always the new black. It fulfils the primal instinct to reach out into the darkness, never knowing quite what your fingertips will touch first.

007 The Gothic Season starts at The Showroom Cinema, Sheffield, in November. ‘Hammer Bites’ starts on the 1st of December with a screening of ‘The Curse Of Frankenstein’. ‘Dracula’ and ‘The Mummy’ follow on the 8th and 15th. I will be presenting the films, with Gothic expert Andrew Smith on hand to stop me banging on about my ex-girlfriends. On the 15th of December, there will be records played in the bar, and I will be debuting my soon to become world famous horror themed disco set. Beware, I have a record called ‘Sexy Dracula’ to play.

Dreaded Man-Beast Of Tibet

Regular readers will know that we love Nigel Kneale on The Island. ‘The Abominable Snowman’ is not one of his best known works, but it is an excellent example of Kneale’s brilliance, his compassion and, most of all, his unerring ability to turn a stock dramatic situation completely on its head.

Originally made as ‘The Creature’ for TV with Stanley Baker, Hammer eagerly snapped up the story as a counterpoint to their hugely successful ‘Quatermass’ adaptations. It stars Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker as two men both in search of the Yeti, but with completely different motives: Cushing, of course, wants to make contact out of personal and professional curiosity, to study the creature from a scientific point of view and further man’s understanding of the world he lives in; Tucker wants money and glory, and doesn’t care how many big footed snow monsters he has to kill to get it.

The climax of the film, in which a concussed Cushing ‘meets’ the Yeti in their home environment, has a sense of subtle satisfaction for the fair minded. The creatures remain in the shadows, half-glimpsed, retaining their mystery. Most importantly, they clearly think that mankind is pretty abominable and they are simply biding their time waiting for us to blow each other up once and for all. It’s a wonderfully gentle ending to an intelligent and well-made film.

I also like the music, which rips off Ralph Vaughan-Williams marvellous score for ‘Scott Of The Antarctic’ extremely well, something RVW did himself for his seventh symphony.

Nigel Kneale, Hammer, Stanley Baker, Peter Cushing and Ralph Vaughan Williams all in one post? I spoil you, I really do.

The Abominable Snowman

Shock-Thriller Entertainment

‘Hysteria’ is one of Hammer’s psychological thriller films, and quite good it is too. It revolves around a man (visiting American star Robert Webber) who has lost his memory* after a car crash. After several weeks of recovery, and still not really knowing what happened, he is discharged from hospital and installed in a modernist penthouse apartment by a mystery benefactor. The apartment is great, all sculptures and plate glass and cockatoos in the hallway, but the rest of the apartment block is deserted and, at night, he can hear screaming. Is he going mad on his own, or is someone trying to help him? And who is the mysterious, beautiful, apparently dead woman whose picture was amongst his few personal effects? And who feeds the cockatoos, because he never does?

Stylish and occasionally quite dark in content, ‘Hysteria’ gets bogged down in implausibility long before the end but manages to slog on under the super-competent direction of Freddie Francis. Webber is okay (although apparently a pain to work with) and Leila Goldoni is very attractive, but the real star is dear old Maurice Denham, who plays a wily, slightly seedy private detective. The best moment in the film is when Webber tries to bully the older and much slighter Denham, who butts Webber in the gut, then effortlessly avoids his return blow before casually knocking the wind out of his sails with a swift punch to the solar plexus. It’s not much, but it feels like a triumph for the British underdog and that’s always nice to see, isn’t it? Well done, Maurice, well done.

* I wonder just how many books and films revolve around memory loss, and how that compares with actual cases? I suppose somebody might write in with the answer. I'd Goggle it myself, but my finger is tired from typing all this. 

Hysteria