I was expecting all of the films listed in 'Nightworld' to contain some kind of monster or other, for example the umbrella creature in Not of This Earth. But no, this one only relates to the book by its title. No stupid low-budget monsters. Shame.
Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelly in his first film role) is a banker who has a rather nasty nightmare in which he kills a fellow in an octagonal mirrored room. Soon after he begins to suspect that it wasn't really a dream and maybe he actually killed the man. (He even says, "I'm a banker, not a murderer," at one point. Well, okay, that's a lie. He doesn't.) His brother-in-law Cliff (Paul Kelly) is a cop and decides to look into his case.
Based on a story by Cornell Woolrich called "Nightmare", Fear in the Night is a film noir thriller with the obligatory narration and moody shadowy atmosphere. The plot was probably quite original at the time but now it all seems pretty obvious what's happening from early on in the proceedings. Even so, I couldn't help but be gripped when the two blokes and their lady friends took shelter from a storm in a house, only for it to turn out to be the one from Vince's dream. There was a certain sense of inevitability about it all and I hoped that the rest of the film would be set in the nightmare house. It isn't though and a fair bit of atmosphere is lost from that point on. Especially when we learn the secret of the nightmare.
Again in 1947 the secret was only too plausible and scary. Yet now, it's common knowledge that the reason for his sleep walking murder spree just doesn't happen. It's a bit like a film's finale requiring the audience to believe that the world is flat. It wouldn't work in these enlightened times. So to enjoy the latter stages, a certain amount of "going with it" needs to be done.
Dr McCoy is great. One of the classic TV characters ever. Yet here DeForest Kelly looks a little wet behind the ear. His acting isn't entirely convincing and his narration seems forced rather than being a natural flow of thoughts emanating from his head. Fortunately the narration stops fairly early on and the more experienced Paul Kelly takes a more prominent role as the gruff no-nonsense cop.
On a positive note there are some quality screen cracking animations, similar in style to the one at the finale of City of the Living Dead. If that's not a selling point, I don't know what is.
Not the greatest of films then, seen in today's light but it is entirely suitable for a late Friday night. Switch off your brain for a while and it's not too bad.
4/10
evlkeith
If you like this you could also try:
Hollow Triumph, Somewhere in the Night.
I haven't done very well trying to watch all of the films mentioned in F. Paul Wilson's 'Nightworld' but I'm going to try and rectify that in the coming months. So here we go with Roger Corman's Not of This Earth.
An alien agent from the planet Davana (sounds like a seventies variety act) comes down to Earth and cases the joint. He's after blood you see - aren't they always - and he uses his wily alien ways to kill unfortunates, nick their blood and performs his dastardly experiments. He enlists the help of a petty thief Jeremy and a nurse called Nadine (the saucy old devil). In fact, he pays the nurse to live in his house to "take care of him".
I decided in true 'Nightworld' fashion to watch this at night and I'm glad that I did, much of the atmosphere would probably have been lost in a bright sunlit room. The film was made on an obviously shoestring budget but it still manages to impart a sense of dread. To turn Paul Birch into an alien, all the special effects fellows did was slap some white contacts into his eyes. Which you don't see for the majority of the film due to his Peters and Lee glasses. He is made even more alien by his Jedi mind tricks where he talks directly into people's minds. Again this is cheaply done by a bit of dubbing in post production. All simple things but, along with his performance it's pretty convincing stuff.
The music helps with the whole atmosphere thing. It is fairly typical of fifties sci-fi B-movies but it does the job very nicely. It all feels distinctly creepy and made me think that I was watching something that actually happened in 1956 and this was just a Crimewatch style reconstruction.
The story plods along in a standard kind of way. It's obvious where it's going from early on and I can't say that there's anything that memorable. Unless you count a doctor being attacked by an umbrella creature as memorable. Mmm, maybe. But the story does its job.
As you may have guessed the special effects are poor, especially on the umbrella creature, but this also extends to the sets. One sliding door that features prominently doesn't so much slide as judder along a bit as it's pushed by some behind the scenes chain-smoking technician. It all adds to the charm, I suppose.
There was a remake of this made in 1988 as a result of a wager. Someone bet the director that he couldn't make it on the same budget (allowing for inflation) and in the same time frame as the original. This sounds quite interesting you may think, until you hear that the director was Jim Wynorski. Oh dear. On the positive side it starred ex adult specialist film starlet Traci Lords. Okay, it still sounds really bad.
Not of This Earth makes a change from the usual alien invasion stories we get nowadays. It's a lot simpler and a lot quieter experience. Yet it's surprisingly chilling at times. A good late Friday night film.
4/10
evlkeith
This is the first instalment in an infrequent season that could well take a few years to complete, in fact it may never be finished depending on the availability of the films. So what's it all about? F. Paul Wilson wrote three books in the eighties that were seemingly unconnected: The Keep (made into a disappointing film by Michael Mann), The Tomb and The Touch. He then wrote a further three novels that brought everything together: Reborn, Reprisal and finally Nightworld. These six books form The Adversary Cycle and they're probably the books that I have read the most.
What's all this got to do with films then? In Nightworld the local television stations run horror/science fiction marathons that fit with the theme of the book. These films are listed at various points throughout. Being a list pervert I just couldn't resist trying to watch all of them, and that's what I'm going to try and do. I've included the full list of 56 films on Letterboxd for your delectation.
And that brings us to the first film on the list: Night of Bloody Horror. For the late sixties this probably was a night of bloody horror but now it's more of an evening of slight grazing. Okay, it's not that tame but the violence won't have the same impact as when it was originally released. There is a quality comedy killing near the start when a lovely lady goes to confession only to be told that her "penance is death!" Eye trauma follows. An axe is used at one point too - always a treat - so this can be seen as a precursor to the slasher films.
When I was watching The Ark of the Sun God recently I was cynically wondering when Raiders of the Lost Ark was released, and yep, it was a couple of years earlier. Here I was thinking that night of Bloody Horror must have been filmed in 1961 or 1962, just after Psycho. Mais non! This was released in 1969. Way too late for a cheap homage. Suffice to say that if you've seen Hitchcock's classic then you'd see the unexpected twist in Night of Bloody Horror coming, even if it set off from the other side of the world.
Despite some fairly amateurish acting it's enjoyable enough. Wesley (Gerald McRaney - Simon and Simon) plays a troubled young lad who has witnessed something rather disturbing in his childhood. Flashbacks occur in a similar fashion to the ones in Deep Red (1975) accompanied by a tinkly creepy childish tune. Wesley is regularly afflicted by some serious headaches. So serious they are visualised by some some swirly patterns that are overlaid on to his grimacing visage. The police start to suspect Wesley of some minor misdemeanours due to the fact that his girlfriends keep turning up dead. He doesn't help his case by generally being violent and having some slightly worrying dreams. In one he is met by an attractive reporter who hops into bed with him for some slap and tickle. As they caress and rummage, Wesley looks down and the attractive brunette has changed... to his mum. Not good. Oedipus and Freud would stroke their chins in ponderment.
Just as Psycho is an example of a western giallo, so too is this, even down to the leather murdering gloves. It has some style: freeze frames are used to good effect and the camera goes completely bonkers in a nightclub scene, flicking between negative and positive versions of the film. Added to that is the way the camera operator constantly zooms in and out in time to the music. It all made me feel a little bit on the murdery side.
Ultimately, it's not a Dario Argento giallo or a quality Hitchcock thriller. But what you do get is a slice of sixties murder and mayhem all filmed in Violent Vision that may or may not have influenced Mr Argento. Best for people who've never seen Psycho though.
3/10
evlkeith
If you like this you could also try:
Psycho, Peeping Tom.
