|
Bloodsongs Issue 2
By D.K.D. Kadavar Shit, the Kadaverous one has been asked back to do another one of these meaningless diversions … oops columns. Whatta ya know, seems the editors of this fine periodical think my ravings have some use? Will wonders never cease? Enough of this crap and onto some video nasties: If, like myself, you have a penchant for ghost movies, it’s pretty hard to beat The Legend of Hell House. This 1973, made for TV, gem is well worth hunting out on the video shelf, or even searching out the late night listings in your TV program guide, as it has been known to occasionally be slotted into the after midnight slot on the tube. Based upon the novel, Hell House, by Richard Matheson -– and Mr. Matheson was also responsible for the screenplay in this film -– the story centres around what happens when four psychic investigators spend the week before Christmas in a haunted house. There’s even a touch of realism at the beginning when we are told that “Although the story of this film is fictitious, the events depicted involving psychic phenomena are not only very much within the bounds of possibility, but could well be true.” Anyway, the plot kicks off when one very rich and very old Mr. Deutsch (that’s pronounced “dootsh” not “douche”) offers our four spook hounds, or if you wanna be politically correct “psychic investigators”, £100,000 each to spend the week in the thoroughly haunted Bolasko Mansion and, if possible, to bring back some proof of life after death. Seems that Emeric Bolasko, the house’s owner who died in the 1930s was one really depraved loony -– practising some of the finer debaucheries like bestiality, necrophilia, cannibalism, murder, etc. -– and whose ghost (and/or ghosts of his many victims) now haunts the house. Amongst the investigators are Dr Barrett (played by Clive Revill), a physicist and expert in ESP, who has this “deghosting” machine-gizmo he wants to test; his wife and assistant Ann (played by Gayle Hunnicut); Ben Fischer (played by Roddy McDowell), who is a medium and the only one to survive the last time a group of investigators stayed in the house twenty years earlier; and Florence Tanner (played by Pamela Franklin), another medium who channels ghosts. They all arrive at the house, which is suitably enshrouded in fog and where large gothic structures loom out of the shadows. Once set up, their investigations begin by conducting a bunch of séances. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that some real ghostly shit is about to happen. To say too much more about the plot would be to give too much away, and I’d never do that. What I will say though, is that The Legend of Hell House delivers in all departments. The direction is tight and the performances strong throughout, especially those of McDowell as the tortured psychic and Franklin as the medium. Matheson’s script is tight and heavy on character; in fact, the haunted house is used as setting and provides all of the necessary conflict for some intriguing character study. The other thing that’s in abundance is atmosphere, and an ever present sense of dread which will keep you on the edge of your seat right to the end. This is horror that works on an emotional level rather than on shock or gross-out. For our next offering I thought I’d go for something completely different. Shot right here in Melbourne, Bloodlust should be readily available in most video outlets (unless you live in Queensland where I believe it has been banned), although you are just as likely to find it on the Art shelves as the Horror shelves. If you can’t find it ask at the counter. Just make sure there’s a lot of people behind you with copies of Fried Green Tomatoes, Dances With Wolves, etc., when you do it. When I find someone like this behind me in the queue I always like to ask in a very loud voice and with demented glee in my eyes: “Excuse me, I’m trying to find a film called Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers? No, how about Bloodsucking Freaks? No, well then, how about Corpsefucking Art?” It’s worth it just to see the expression on people’s faces. Released on “Fatal Visions –- The Cult Movie Label”, Bloodlust is one of those films that’s just so bad and tasteless you have to love it. Here we have three vampires, one a blonde with a butt from heaven, the other a redhead who has a thing for cutting off dicks with a flick-knife, and the other this dude that collects guns (believe it or not, each gun gets its own credit!) and who looks like a heavy metal guitar player. There’s a bunch of psychotic religious fundamentalists (aren’t they all!), headed by a hilarious Phil Motherwell in an over-the-top performance, who are out to rid the world of the “fiends from Hell”. Then there’s a bunch of revenge-seeking gangsters/drug dealers, from whom the vamps have stolen three million in cash. And if that aint enough, there’s also a couple of crazy cops, who for some reason speak in awfully done American accents (seems like half the cast speak in these bad imitations of American accents) who like to beat the crap out of people, eat lots of donuts and who, in comparison, just make those LA cops that beat up Larry King look like boy scouts. Then there’s the awful acting, corny dialogue, mindless and gratuitous sex and violence, in fact everything one would expect to see in such a trash-noir masterpiece. All I can say, is that if you have no taste, and like nothing better that to sit back and watch some mindless, violent trash … you will absolutely love Bloodlust. I did. Finally, I thought I’d serve up another completely different example of the video nasty. Written by Gary Scott Thompson and directed by Tony Maylem, Split Second is a science fiction film of the hardboiled variety. The year is 2008, and the setting is London, where a large part of the city has been flooded, after forty days of torrential rains (something to do with the Greenhouse Effect, Global Warming and all that shit), and a serial killer (who may or may not be an alien), who has a penchant for ripping out the hearts of his/its victims, is on the rampage. Into this enters b-grade action hero/villain par excellence, Rutger Hauer, who plays a semi-insane, coffee-drinking, chocaholic cop, who’s been on the killer’s trail since he/it killed his partner three years earlier. So, Hauer, who carries a lot of BFGs (that’s big fucking guns to the uninitiated) and one real bad attitude, goes after the killer … and it don’t take no genius to figure what happens from here, right? But what sets Split Second one step above other films of this type is the sheer presence of Hauer, who is always convincing throughout, and who easily dominates every frame he appears in. The feel is very claustrophobic, and the flooded London of 2008 is the perfect backdrop. The tension is gut-wrenching and is amazingly maintained right to the end, as the plot unrolls to the inevitable confrontation between Hauer and the killer. Well, that’s it for this issue. I’ll be back with some more of this crap next time round. |
_________________________________________________________ |
|
All material on this site is Copyright 2007 to Chris A. Masters
|
