THE VAMPIRE (1957) -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/18/15

 

THE VAMPIRE, aka "Mark of the Vampire" (1957) is a low-budget but nicely-done sci-fi/horror flick about a mild-mannered smalltown doctor (John Beal) who accidentally turns himself into a bloodthirsty maniac when his daughter gets his headache tablets mixed up with some highly addictive experimental pills concocted by a local scientist who died mysteriously.

The case is investigated by Beal's friend, detective Kenneth Tobey, but no one suspects kindly doctor Beal when people start to get murdered and drained of blood.

One of the film's strengths is the superb acting by Beal, Tobey, Dabbs Greer as another scientist sent to salvage the dead man's research, and lovely Coleen Gray as Beal's caring nurse. 



Scenes between Beal's doomed character, who is a widowed father, and his young daughter Lydia Reed are heartrending. 

Some of Dabbs Greer's dialogue, especially in relation to his eccentric assistant Henry (James Griffith), is hilarious.  I love the scenes between Beal and Greer--both are excellent actors whose natural style makes what they do look easy.

Screenwriter Pat Fielder also wrote the excellent RETURN OF DRACULA, which seems to be set in the same small town.  Both are directed by Paul Landres and scored by Gerald Fried (PATHS OF GLORY, "Star Trek: The Original Series"). 

When finally revealed to us about halfway through the film, Beal's grotesque makeup is cheap-looking but effective.  There's even a rudimentary transition scene (a la Lon Chaney's Wolf Man). 

The creature that Beal transforms into is one of the most vile and nightmarish characters in all of shock cinema. 

In one scene he returns to the scene of the crime after murdering an old woman in the street, and, while looking on from afar as people crowd around the body, can be seen grinning hideously at his grotesque handiwork. 

This is in stark contrast to the devoted father and trusted doctor that is Beal's character when not under the control of the horribly addictive drug that brings out his most bestial tendencies.  It is indeed one of the most tragic of all 50s sci-fi/horror flicks.

THE VAMPIRE scared me when I was a kid--the scene in which the maniac stalks a frantic Coleen Gray as she walks home at night is truly frightening--and it's still a lot of fun to watch.

THE VAMPIRE (1957) -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE FALL: SERIES 1 -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/17/13

 

Bleak, melancholy--borderline depressing, in fact--the Brit cop series THE FALL: SERIES 1 (2013)  has enough going for  it to supply hardy viewers with plenty of hard-edged adult drama and suspense.  Yet those holding out for some kind of closure at the end of series one's five episode run may find it ultimately unfulfilling.

Gillian Anderson ("The X-Files", BLEAK HOUSE) plays DS Stella Gibson,  who's been summoned by the Belfast police to head a departmental review into a stalled murder investigation.  When other, similar murders point to the work of  a serial killer, Gibson urges her superior and former lover Jim Burns (John Lynch) to put her in charge of the case.

Meanwhile, we follow the everyday life of Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan, "Once Upon a Time"), a devoted  husband and father who works as a grief counsellor.  He also happens to be the killer DS Gibson and her new task force are searching for.  When not helping care for his ultra-cute kids Olivia and Liam or guiding a young couple through the heartbreak of losing their son, he's stalking young professional  women as a prelude to murdering them in extremely ritualistic fashion.

While Dornan plays the character with a quiet, smoldering intensity,  Anderson's DS Gibson seems mostly sullen and cold.  This is partially accounted for by the fact that she has no life whatsoever outside of law enforcement, and treats the one sexual encounter that we see--after an abrupt come-on to handsome  young cop James Olson (Ben Peel) to whom she's just been introduced--with less warmth and intimacy than a handshake. 

When Olson is gunned down in connection with a related case, Burns' objection to Gibson's casual encounter with him becomes fodder for series creator and writer Allan Cubitt's desire to inject gender politics into the mix whenever possible.   The scripts often feed Gibson weak male characters to get the best of and sympathetic female colleagues to  bond with, although none of this is as effective or relevant as Helen Mirren's struggles against sexual discrimination in the classic series "Prime Suspect." 

It does, however, give Anderson the chance to play an imperfect heroine who isn't particularly likable and, in fact, comes off as rigid, humorless, and emotionally-repressed.  We learn practically nothing about her past and thus haven't a clue as to how she became this way.   One might even call her character underwritten,  giving Anderson the task of filling in the blanks with her own substantial presence, which she manages to do quite well.

As for Paul Spector, so much is made of his family and professional lives that we sometimes almost forget that he's the killer, except for the times in which his public and private personas threaten to collide.  Strangely, he's just about the only male character who seems to demonstrate consistently positive traits--faithful husband, devoted father, caring grief counsellor--and he's so matter-of-fact while going about his misdeeds that we get little sense of how truly evil and deranged he would have to be underneath his bland exterior.

A not-altogether-successful attempt is made, through crosscutting, to draw parallels between Spector and Gibson as we see them going about their lives.  Both are predators of a sort--she conquers her male prey through impersonal sex while he dominates and kills his victim.  He runs, she swims; she pores over her case notebook while he studies his trophy scrapbook; and so on.  In one curious scene,  a shot of a dead victim sprawled across a bed is juxtaposed with a similar view of Gibson in a matching reclining pose after sex.

The murder sequences,  of course, are repellent but not played to chill or thrill except when things go wrong and chaos ensues,  as in episode four's botched attack.  This bit of excitement comes none too soon, as it's around this point that the series starts to drag a bit despite some mildly shocking moments which, even so, might have been directed a bit more sharply.  Other subplots which don't seem all that relevant distract from the main drive of the story.

As Spector fights to keep himself together,  a punchy phone conversation with DS Gibson provides the series with some of its most scintillating moments.  However,  this is the closest we'll get to a climax in series one, as the final episode ends with a cliffhanger that promises to stretch things out even more next season.  I would've preferred a resolution,  but if the writers go in a different,  unexpected direction next time it should keep things interesting.

The 2-disc set from Acorn Media is in 16:9 widescreen with Dolby Digital sound and English subtitles.  The sole extra is a 12-minute behind-the-scenes featurette.

THE FALL: SERIES 1 is substantial, involving drama that's worth watching,  although somewhat of a disappointment compared to some of the better Brit cop shows I've watched.  In some ways it even comes off as a bit half-baked at times.  And while I'm keen to find out what happens next season,  I'm not exactly on pins and needles.

THE FALL: SERIES 1 -- DVD Review by Porfle

EDGE OF DARKNESS: THE COMPLETE SERIES -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/28/10

 

 

A resounding critical and popular success upon its BBC debut in 1985, the six-part serial EDGE OF DARKNESS is an intelligent thriller that will bore those looking for superficial sensation while offering more patient viewers a richly rewarding experience.

Yorkshire detective and widower Ronald Craven (Ben Peck) has just arrived home one rainy night with his political activist daughter Emma (Joanne Whalley, WILLOW) when a gunman steps out of the shadows with a shotgun and opens fire. Emma leaps in front of her father and is killed before the gunman escapes. Heartbroken, Craven journeys to London on a quest to track down what he and his boss believe to be one of his old enemies. But the deeper he digs, the more he begins to believe that his daughter was the prime target due to the efforts of her group, GAIA, to expose a nearby nuclear waste facility called Northmoor which has been illegally storing plutonium.

I honestly thought this was going to be one of those violent "father's revenge" stories and was pleasantly surprised to find how wrong I was at every turn. Rather than turning into an inhuman killing machine wiping out easy targets left and right (not that there's anything wrong with that), Craven's humanity comes increasingly to the fore as his daughter's cause begins to resonate with him and his main goal becomes a desire to finish what she started. This involves duplicating an ill-fated raid by her anti-nuclear group GAIA on Northmoor's subterranean storage facility and successfully recovering the plutonium, at the risk of his own life.

To this end, Craven begins to receive help from a couple of government insiders with similar interests, Pendleton (Charles Kay) and Harcourt (Ian McNeice, ACE VENTURE: WHEN NATURE CALLS), whose prissy characters supply some of the story's droll comic touches. His main ally, however, is CIA agent Darius Jedburgh (Joe Don Baker), a brash Texan who loves the cloak-and-dagger stuff almost as much as a good game of golf. Representing Washington's interests in the matter, Jedburgh accompanies Craven on the daring underground search for Northmoor's plutonium "hot cell" (still littered with the corpses of irradiated workers and GAIA members murdered by the plant's security) which takes up most of episode five and gives the series some of its most riveting moments.

Bob Peck, who played the steely-eyed game warden in JURASSIC PARK, is fascinating to watch because his performance as Ronald Craven is so subtle and intense. Rarely demonstrative in demeanor, there's always a lot going on in his deceptively placid face and wary eyes, making even the slightest emotional outburst all the more effective. His character is allowed much screen time after his daughter's death to actually deal with his grief in a believable way, and it's through that perspective that we view all subsequent events.

As a lead character, Craven's an intriguingly odd duck. While going through Emma's things after her death, he comes across her "personal vibrator" and wistfully kisses it. For him, questioning a suspect is a slow process which includes holding his hand in a loving manner and forming an almost affectionate bond that helps to facilitate a willing candor. His mental state is in question as well, particularly when he begins to see and converse with Emma on a regular basis. His growing fanaticism as the story unfolds--or "greening", one might say--makes him more and more unpredictable in his quest to bring down the rich, power-hungry despoilers of the earth responsible for Emma's death.

Troy Kennedy Martin's screenplay is filled with interesting characters, witty dialogue, and political intrigue, with occasional bursts of suspenseful action. Future "Bond" director Martin Campbell's direction is good--a bit claustrophobic at times, though likely intentionally so--and early signs of his later style are evident here. It's easy to see why, ten years later, Campbell would cast Joe Don Baker as CIA agent Jake Wade in GOLDENEYE. Baker gives perhaps the finest performance of his career as Darius Jedburgh--as often as I've seen him in various things over the years, I still had no idea he was capable of being this good.

Most impressive is a later scene in which he addresses a gathering of business and military bigwigs during a conference on nuclear energy, working himself into a blustering, bellowing frenzy with a block of plutonium in each hand and turning the event into a panic-stricken stampede. Baker also relishes delivering some of the film's headiest dialogue such as the following:

"You ever been to Dallas, Craven?"

"No, sir."

"It's where we shoot our presidents. The Jews got their Calvary, but we got Dealey Plaza!"

The rest of the cast is dotted with familiar faces and fine performances. I recognized Jack Watson and Allan Cuthbertson from British shows such as "The Avengers" and "Fawlty Towers", and Zoe Wanamaker, who plays Jedburgh's associate and Craven's fleeting love interest Clementine, has recently appeared in the "Harry Potter" films. Fans of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON will instantly recognize white-haired actor John Woodvine as Craven's boss. I was especially pleased to see Kenneth Nelson, so effective as the star of William Friedkin's classic BOYS IN THE BAND, as the evil corporate executive Grogan.

The two-disc DVD set from BBC Warner in in 4.3 full-screen with an English mono soundtrack and English subtitles. Extras include: a slightly-different alternate ending; a music-only track to highlight the fine score by Eric Clapton and Michael Kamen; a photo gallery; a lengthy featurette with cast and crew interviews; and some dry but informative British TV segments featuring interviews, reviews, and scenes from the BAFTA and Broadcasting Press Guild award shows where EDGE OF DARKNESS was a big winner.

Slow doesn't always mean boring, especially when a story has the substance this one has, and the deliberate pace with which EDGE OF DARKNESS unfolds is highly satisfying. I'll admit, I had trouble following some of the intricacies of the plot, but as Steward Lane of the Broadcasting Press Guild puts it in one of the DVD extras, "It was so marvelous 'cause you didn't really know what was going on most of the time...which made it most compulsive viewing." And although it didn't leave me with as strong a fadeout as I'd hoped, I was still thinking about those black flowers for quite awhile afterward.

EDGE OF DARKNESS: THE COMPLETE SERIES -- DVD Review by Porfle

WEREWOLF SHADOW and CURSE OF THE DEVIL -- Two Paul Naschy Wolf Man Reviews by Porfle

 

 

Originally posted on 6/26/08

 

 

I grew up seeing pictures of Paul Naschy's werewolf character in "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine and, since Universal's Wolf Man was my favorite monster, I always wondered what Naschy's Spanish version would be like. Now, with the special edition DVD releases of 1971's WEREWOLF SHADOW (aka "La Noche de Walpurgis") and 1973's CURSE OF THE DEVIL (aka "El Retorno de Walpurgis"), I finally get to see what all the howling was about.

WEREWOLF SHADOW opens with a scene reminiscent of the first minutes of FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, as two medical examiners summoned to check out the dead body of Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky character (the Spanish equivalent of Lon Chaney, Jr.'s "Larry Talbot") foolishly remove the silver bullets from his chest, bringing him back to hairy, fang-baring life. Flash forward a bit, and we join Elvira (Gaby Fuchs) and her painfully-cute cohort Genevieve (Barbara Capell) in the French wilderness searching for the lost tomb of legendary vampire woman Countess Wandesa Dárvula de Nadasdy. They run into Waldemar, who is living in isolation with his demented sister Elizabeth (Yelena Samarina), and he invites them to stay in his villa while he helps them with their search.

Needless to say, they eventually uncover the tomb and release the revived Countess (Paty Shepard), who turns Genevieve into a vampire and then sets her sights on Elvira. But a lovestruck Waldemar, armed with the same silver cross that first killed the vampire woman back in the old days, comes to the rescue, turning into the Wolf Man just in time for a climactic werewolf vs. vampire woman showdown.

Naschy's outlandish werewolf makeup and bug-eyed overacting make for a really fun monster, which is quite the opposite of his effectively restrained demeanor as Waldemar. Gaby Fuchs, on the other hand, is almost comically expressionless most of the time. As the vampire woman, Paty Shepard wears flowing black clothing and runs around in slow motion a lot. My favorite non-werewolf character, though, is Genevieve, simply because Barbara Capell is just so gosh-darn cute.

The film is marred by ultra-pedestrian direction, photography, and editing and a wildy-inappropriate musical score, and it creeps by at a snail's pace from beginning to end. Some scenes, such as the one in which Elvira's detective friend Marcel (Andrés Resino) questions the mayor of a nearby village, are almost lethally boring. Night scenes take place in broad daylight so it's often impossible to tell what time of day it's supposed to be.

But for all its faults, WEREWOLF SHADOW is still interesting to watch if you're a classic horror fan and you want to see where Spanish horror really began. Naschy's Wolf Man is a hoot, and there's an abundance of low-budget 70s-style gore and brief, gratuitous nudity--while watching it, I felt transported back to the old drive-in theater where I wasted many hours in my youth. Presented in 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen, the image quality is outstanding considering this is a low-budget exploitation flick from 1971--the print used looks almost flawless to me. Both the original Castilian and dubbed English soundtracks are available, with subtitles.

In addition to a large stills gallery, the disc includes the U.S. release version of the film, known as THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN. The print used here is somewhat battered in spots, which gives it more of that "grindhouse" feel. There aren't many differences between the two versions, although some of the nudity is gone, the opening and closing titles are altered, and that deadly scene with Marcel and the mayor has gone to cutting-floor hell where it belongs.

Moving on to better things, the 1973 follow-up CURSE OF THE DEVIL is a vast improvement. A prologue takes us back to the Middle Ages in which an earlier Daninsky slays the head of the Satan-worshipping Bathory clan and then executes the rest of them by hanging and burning. While being roasted alive at the stake, the widow Bathory puts a curse on Daninsky and his descendants, which will eventually include our hero, Waldemar. We join him in 19th-century Transylvania, where he lives in a castle with his loyal servants Bela and Malitza, who raised him.

After inadvertently shooting a werewolf while hunting, Waldemar finds himself the object of a gypsy curse. He's seduced into bed by a beautiful gypsy woman for his first-ever sexual experience, but she then chomps him in the chest with a wolf skull dripping with her own blood, which turns him into a werewolf. Fortunately, not everything that happens to poor Waldemar is such a total bummer--he meets a beautiful blonde babe named Kinga (Fabiola Falcón) who lives nearly with her parents and younger sister Maria, and they fall in love. But when the full moon comes, Waldemar goes bestial and starts terrorizing the countryside. And before it's all over, Kinga and her family may be his final victims.

Directed with a rough-hewn but imaginative style by Carlos Aured, CURSE OF THE DEVIL is briskly-paced and filled with exciting werewolf set-pieces, including some extremely cool transformation scenes that harken back to the old Universals. That studio's style is also represented by torch-wielding villagers and some character names (Bela, Malitza), plus some similarities to the script of the original THE WOLF MAN. Director Aured seems influenced by the 50s Hammer horrors as well, particularly CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF.

The rustic locations are excellent, and the performances this time are entirely adequate. There's some nudity here and there, as well as copious amounts of gore as the Wolf Man chalks up quite a body count during his many nocturnal outings (which are now actually filmed at night with much more creepy, shadowy atmosphere). Naschy's makeup is very different this time--it looks as though he's wearing an over-the-head mask--but he's still just as fearsome and feral as ever. Also in 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen, the print quality here is almost as good as in WEREWOLF SHADOW, albeit a little rougher early on, and I seemed to notice a distracting jerkiness in the actors' movements on several occasions. The English dubbed soundtrack is good, while the Castilian version seems to have a slight droning noise in the background throughout. There's no U.S. release version this time, but we do get the English and Castilian trailers (skip the U.S. one if you haven't seen the film yet--it gives away the ending).

Both DVDs also contain liner notes by "The Mark of Naschy" author Mirek Lipinski, with some cool photos and a wealth of information. The menus are well-designed, and the DVD box art has a delightfully retro look to it.

Now that I've finally seen Paul Naschy's Wolf Man in all his glory after all these years, I'm glad I did. WEREWOLF SHADOW and especially CURSE OF THE DEVIL are good old-fashioned monster movies that I'll be revisiting now and then for a long time to come. Like Chaney's Larry Talbot, Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky is the kind of werewolf that I love--no cartoony CGI, just an actual actor in cool monster makeup, giving an actual performance.

 

WEREWOLF SHADOW and CURSE OF THE DEVIL -- Two Paul Naschy Wolf Man Reviews by Porfle

CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/5/21

 

Currently rewatching: THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961), starring Oliver Reed (GLADIATOR, PARANOIAC, TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, THE BROOD) and several other faces familiar to fans of Hammer Films.

It is, indeed, one of the premiere Hammer productions, providing that lush, picturesque, and theatrical-yet-visceral quality that makes the company's early films so unique.

Production design is first rate from the start, as we follow a starving beggar (Richard Wordsworth, THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT, THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN) from the streets of an unfriendly village to the opulent wedding celebration of sadistic Marques Siniestro (Anthony Dawson, DR. NO, DIAL M FOR MURDER), who ridicules the poor wretch for the amusement of his guests before throwing him into his dungeon to be forgotten.

 

 
The beggar befriends the daughter of the dungeon keeper, a young mute girl, but grows increasingly insane during his years of captivity. One day the girl herself is imprisoned for refusing the sexual advances of the Marques, whereupon she is then molested by the crazed old beggar.

She escapes and survives in the woods until, now with child, she is taken in by well-to-do doctor Alfredo (Clifford Evans, "The Avengers: Dial a Deadly Number"/"Death's Door", KISS OF THE VAMPIRE) and his kindly servant Teresa (Hira Talfrey, THE OBLONG BOX, WITCHFINDER GENERAL).

The screenplay by Hammer mainstay Anthony Hinds, based on the novel "The Werewolf of Paris" by Guy Endore, takes its sweet time developing this backstory for our main character--Leon, the servant girl's child--who isn't even born until roughly half an hour into the film. It's this kind of meticulous storytelling which, when done well, allows the viewer to settle into a story that is as engrossing as a 19th-century novel.

 

 
Plagued with various curses borne out by superstition (not the least of which is being an illegitimate child born on Christmas Day), Leon grows up to be a turbulent soul who must be surrounded by tranquility and love lest he transform, by the light of the full moon, into a ravenous, bloodthirsty beast possessed by the spirit of a wolf.

While Alfredo and Teresa provide such love during his childhood (his mother having died in childbirth), the adult Leon strikes out on his own and soon encounters a harsh, hostile world that brings his murderous wolf spirit to the fore.

THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF came four years after the film that made Hammer the horror giant that it became, 1957's CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (HORROR OF DRACULA would follow a year later), while the soon-to-be legendary British studio was still in its prime. 

 

 

 

Terence Fisher, arguably Hammer's finest director, lends his impeccable visual artistry to a film which also benefits from the kind of colorful photography, production design, and costuming that made Hammer films some of the most visually lavish of the era.

In the lead role, a strikingly intense young Oliver Reed could not be a stronger and better choice, physically imposing and demanding of our attention with his every move and expression.

Reed is completely effective whether struggling to suppress his savage instincts, clinging desperately to the calming influence of his beautiful but forbidden love Cristina (Catherine Feller, THE BELLES OF ST. TRINIAN'S), who is promised to another, or, finally, transforming (thanks largely to Roy Ashton's brilliant makeup) into what may be the fiercest, most terrifying screen werewolf of all time.

We never see this fearsome beast during its initial murderous rampages, but those scenes are so well-handled as to be effective even while withholding the monster's actual visage. 

 

 

This is reserved for his final transformation while imprisoned in a jail cell, as Leon's terrified cellmate witnesses his gradual change into the raging beast that will kill him before escaping to wreak havoc upon the town's panicked citizenry.

Also appearing are Hammer regulars Michael Ripper and Charles Woodbridge, future James Bond regular Desmond "Q" Llewelyn in a bit part as one of Marques Siniestro's footmen, and Warren Mitchell ("The Avengers: The See-Through Man"/"Two's A Crowd") as the village wolf hunter. Benjamin Frankel, who composed the music for the John Huston classic NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, provides a robust score.

With its rich atmosphere and thrilling monster, THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF was one of my childhood favorites, and it's still a full-blooded horror experience today. Along with CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HORROR OF DRACULA, THE MUMMY, and a few others, it's one of Hammer's all-time best.

CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961) -- Movie Review by Porfle