Horror – The Magnificent 60s

Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) ***

Not a direct sequel to Brides of Blood (1968) but in today’s vernacular this would be taking place in a “Bloodverse”. Swap human sacrifice for erotic ritual, eliminate the man-eating trees and giant insects, throw in buckets of green blood and women who can’t pass a waterfall without diving in naked, a voyeur, add a touch of estrangement, remove any mention of radiation, and while there’s clearly a monster on the loose a strange doctor appears as much of a liability. To keep the exploitation audience onside, there’s more nudity, plus sex. To keep the arthouse fans happy there’s innovative camera use, a kind of shuddering disorienting effect as the camera jumps back and forward.

This time round our visiting scientist, pathologist Dr Bill Foster (John Ashley), is investigating a strange disease that’s broken out on the island. Accompanying him are non-scientists Sheila Willard (Angelique Pettyjohn) looking for her father (Tony Edmunds) and Carlos (Ronaldo Valdez) who’s planning to persuade his widowed mother (Tita Munoz) to leave. Dr Lorca, the local authority, welcomes the visitors.

None of the new arrivals have much luck. Sheila’s father is a hopeless alcoholic and doesn’t view with any interest reuniting with his daughter while Carlos’s mother refuses point blank to leave. Worse, his father, it transpires died in mysterious circumstances several years before. Dr Lorca is generally obstructive.

It takes a good few sightings of the monster, not a giant as such beings often are, but the size of a normal human with skin a funny color and extremely mottled, to keep things going. Generally speaking, said monster, as in the previous film, has a predilection for naked women, though their nudity doesn’t always seem linked to skinny-dipping under a waterfall.

Finally, the monster becomes more inquisitive and invades the house where the guests are staying. Sheila, who makes the mistake of wandering out into the jungle alone, is attacked by the monster but escapes.

*Blood sells – double the feature, double the blood*. *Check out my review of “Blood Demon.”*

Carlos discovers his father’s coffin is empty. Sheila and Bill hit it off, sufficiently enamored of each other that they make love in a cave. About the only contribution Bill makes, apart from being one-half of the love interest, is to track the monster to a cave where people are being kept prisoner.

The warder is Dr Lorca who has been carrying out experiments on the natives, one of his earliest victims being Carlos’ father Don Ramon who is the current monster. For no apparent reason, except he’s a monster, Don Ramon kills his wife and then because he’s not completely a monster but still has human feelings lets his son go free, instead turning his vengeance onto Dr Lorca and in the carnage that follows apparently killing himself.

But not so fast. As had already been demonstrated in the 1960s, success could breed instant further success, franchises now abounding, not just James Bond, Matt Helm, Harry Palmer and Derek Flint but The Magnificent Seven and The Pink Panther, so nobody was going to pass up the opportunity to make a few more bucks. The door is opened for a sequel when the final shot picks out the hand of the monster hiding in a lifeboat on the ship ferrying away the survivors.

This is more of a cliché than Brides of Blood and some scenes such as the erotic ritual and dalliance at waterfalls and in caves seemed intent on hooking an audience other than horror. Once again, it’s the female lead who steals the picture – though it’s not much of a fight. Angelique Pettyjohn (Heaven with a Gun, 1969) has not just the heaving bosom of her predecessor and her sassiness but a more solid emotional journey.

You’re not going to expect much genuine emotion in a horror picture of the period but in that respect Pettyjohn and, surprisingly, the monster come off best.

Again directed by Eddie Romero and Gerardo De Leon from a script this time round by Reuben Canoy (The Passionate Strangers, 1966).

Passable.

Black Sunday / Mask of Satan / Mask of the Demon (1960) ****

Impressively atmospheric. Cast in a cloud of fog and immersed in sound effects – bells, door swinging shut, echoing footsteps, screams, howls – and conspicuously devoid of the blood that was a Hammer hallmark. Effectively invents the Scream Queen but with a twist. With the likes of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price to accommodate, for the decade’s major purveyors of horror – Hammer, AIP and Tigon – women played a subsidiary role, mainly there to be helpless victims and scream. Here, as Hammer would later emulate, the female of the species took central stage and, therefore, screaming was at a minimum.

For that reason although Hammer sold Veronica Carlsen (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, 1968) and Caroline Munro (Dracula A.D. 1972, 1972) as Scream Queens, they were not in the same league as Barbara Steele, who added mystery to glamor, and who took center stage rather than operating on the periphery, driving the narrative rather than required to be constantly rescued. Hammer took the Black Sunday template, more or less filched the story, and translated it into its Karnstein trilogy (The Vampire Lovers, 1970, Lust for a Vampire, 1971, and Twins of Evil, 1972) that allowed women to run rampant, and swapped relatively tame cleavage for nudity and sex.

As a showcase for the horror talents of British actress Barbara Steele (Castle of Blood, 1964) – in a dual role as both predator and victim – and Italian director Mario Bava (The Whip and the Body, 1963) we are entering horror masterpiece territory. Bava brings more imagination to the table than Hammer. The steel needles of the mask affixed to witches is a fabulous invention. Victims are not drained of blood but surrender through a gentle kiss. The contents of paintings change. Rising from the dead is an explosive business rather than the traditional slow entrance.

Dr Kruvajan (Andrei Cecchi) , traveling through Moldavia with assistant Dr Gorobec (John Richardson), inadvertently triggers the resuscitation of the corpse of Princess Asa (Barbara Steele), a witch executed two centuries previously, but, crucially, avoiding being burnt to death when a sudden thunderstorm extinguished the pyre. She is able to revive, telepathically, her lover Javutich, also condemned as a witch, and together they prey on the descendants of those who put them to death, namely Prince Vadja, his daughter Katia (Barbara Steele) and son Constantin. A crucifix saves the prince first time round but soon he is slaughtered.

Kruvajan, smitten by the beauty of Asa, submits to her power and becomes her willing accomplice assisting Javutich in his killing spree. Gorobec, meanwhile, has fallen for Katia, and together with Konstantin is on hand to initially prevent the worst. But Asa has her eyes on Katia, planning to drain her of her blood and take over her body.

There are plenty close calls and the usual quota of violence, though the cleavage quotient is almost nil. That the movie climaxes in a terrific twist and an awesome visual demonstrates that Bava was a cut above the usual directors working in the genre. By the time Gorobec traces the missing Katia to the haunt of Ava, the damage has been done, although the audience doesn’t realize it. The now revived and stunningly beautiful Ava points out Katia as the witch who requires killing. And it’s only when Gorobec notices the crucifix on Katia’s neck that he realizes the bodies have been switched. Beneath her robes, Asa is a skeleton. Horror specialists spent a decade trying to top that image and it took the big-budget The Exorcist (1973) to come close.

Barbara Steele is mesmeric, exuding an exotic mysterious appeal that no other Scream Queen could match. Screenplay by Ennio De Concini (A Place for Lovers, 1969) and Mario Serandrei, better known as an editor, based on the story by Gogol.

The AIP redubbed and recut version released in the U.S. in 1961 differs significantly from the original. It was banned in Britain until 1968.

Brilliant opening, brilliant finish, all hail the two new stars of the genre

Brides of Blood (1968) ***

More than passable low-budget horror effort taking in atomic bomb mutation, human sacrifice, killer trees, giant moths and cockroaches and a fairly decent monster. Given the budget, the special effects are fine. The fact that it was shot in the Philippines gives the jungle scenes more validity. And while the main characters are submerged in exposition that still leaves room for a sassy flirtatious wife to snare all the best lines and for the guy whom we expect to be the villain of the piece to turn out to be the tragic one.

Scientist Dr Paul Henderson (Kent Taylor), wife Carla (Beverley Hills) and do-gooder Jim (John Ashley) arrive at the “wrong time” on a remote Pacific island which has reverted to primitivism. This is kind of place where sunset arrives too early and land crabs assume bizarre shape. Dr Henderson is here to assess the potential effect of radiation from A-bomb tests nearby. Jim is here to help build health centers, schoolhouses and to explain the benefits of irrigation. Carla is here to make fun of her older husband, flirt with any fit male and give in to advances.

They encounter a piano-playing rich American Powers (Mario Montenegro) who employs an overseer given to savagery. But despite his name, Powers isn’t the power in these parts. The local witch doctor is, and the island is already knee-deep in human sacrifice. Local girls have to do the equivalent of pick their names out of a hat to see who will be sacrificed next.

The new arrivals try to intervene but fail and their nerve is tested when trees with serpentine branches try to strangle them to death. Jim has enough time to fall for an islander, Alma (Eva Darren), which is just as well because, eventually, she needs an outsider to rescue her from the sacrificial cross. Carla has enough time to slip into Powers’ bedroom not realizing he’s in the process of mutation – his wife died in horrible circumstances after their yacht strayed too close to the atomic test grounds – and when she ventures outside runs into the monster making up for lack of sacrifice being laid out on a plate (I mean, a cross).

While Henderson and Farrel verge on cliché, and 1950s cliché at that, Henderson with his pencil-thin action-man Clark Gable moustache, and Farrell with ingenue written all over him, Carla is a different kettle of fish, blonde hair mounted in a beehive, bosom heaving at every opportunity, and she’s sassy enough to put her husband in his place and introduce inuendo at every opportunity, and inclined to indicate passion by stroking the bedpost, and looking as if she’s auditioning for a femme fatale role in film noir.

For exploitation purposes, it’s lucky that the monster prefers his victims naked.

All in all entertaining hokum. And it must have done well at the box office because it spawned another three. John Ashley (Young Dillinger, 1965) went on to have a bigger career as a producer. Kent Taylor (Law of the Lawless, 1964) was at the tail end rather than the beginning of his career. Miss Beverley Hills (she won a beauty competition of that name) changed her name to Powers without any more significant effect on her career.

Philippine ambassador’s son Eddie Romero (Black Mama White Mama, 1973) directed along with compatriot Gerardo de Leon (Women in Cages, 1971) from a script by Cesar Amigo (The Hunted, 1970).

Better than I expected. Quite fun, really. YouTube has a decent print.

Countess Dracula (1971) ****

You wouldn’t go looking to British studio Hammer for a subtle treatise on the perils of ageing. Nor might you expect a predator to be so cruelly, and consistently, punished. Nor, for that matter, for a mirror to provide revelation given that in the traditional vampire movie one of the signs you have a bloodsucker in your midst is that a mirror does not show their reflection.

The title is something of a misnomer: while there’s bloodletting aplenty there’s zero actual bloodsucking. Hammer had taken a sideways shift into female empowerment and more obvious sexuality and gender twist with the introduction of the female vampire – beginning with The Vampire Lovers (1970), sequel Lust for a Vampire (1971) and, completing the trilogy, Twins of Evil (1972). For that matter it also pre-empted, in perverse fashion, the body swap genre of Freaky Friday (1976 etc.).

These days this would be termed the expansion of a “horrorverse” or a “Hammerverse” as the studio developed its IP since it had not abandoned the traditional Christopher Lee version, doubling down in 1970 with Taste the Blood of Dracula and The Scars of Dracula and following up with Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972).

While Countess Dracula doesn’t fall into the vampiric category, neither does it so obviously exploit the sexuality and rampant nudity of the female vampire trinity. But there are other shocks in store. Be prepared for emotional punch, not something normally associated with Hammer.

The ageing beauty had been a 1960s trope as Hollywood had come to terms with finding starring roles for 1940s/1950s stars past their box office best but names – Lana Turner and Vivien Leigh among others- with still some marquee lure. And this follows a similar trajectory, older woman falling in love with younger man.

Set in Hungary in the seventeenth century, widowed Countess Elisabeth Bathory (Ingrid Pitt) discovers by accident that a touch of virgin blood rejuvenates her skin and tempts her into stealing the suitor Toth (Sandor Eles) of her 19-year-old daughter Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down). But that means kidnapping Ilona and keeping her imprisoned so Bathory can impersonate her, finding a ready supply of virgins to murder and exsanguinate, enlisting in her scheme lover Capt Dobi (Nigel Green) and maid Julie (Patience Collier).

The ruse appears to work well – at first. Believing Bathory is actually her daughter, Toth is easily seduced. But there’s a downside which is quickly apparent. What spell blood casts, it doesn’t last long. And there’s a sting in the tail. Having acted as a rejuvenating agent, when the virgin blood has run its course transformation goes the other way and turns her into an old crone.

So now, Bathory and her team enter serial killer territory, the disappearances and deaths arousing suspicion among the locals and historian Fabio (Maurice Denham), and her daughter threatening at any minute to escape her captor and turn up at the castle. And Bathory cannot give up the fantasy, not least because when the blood runs out, she’ll be unrecognizable as an old crone.

You can see where this is headed, so that’s not much of a surprise. What is astonishing is how well director Peter Sasdy (Taste the Blood of Dracula) handles the emotion. You might think the special effects do all the work that’s required, but that’s not the case. It’s Bathory’s eyes not her crumpled skin that make these scenes so powerful and in between, apart from the initial transformation, Bathory shifts uneasily between exultation that she is living the fantasy and terror that it will come to a sudden end.

Ingrid Pitt (The Vampire Lovers, 1970) has the role of her career, superbly playing a woman bewitched by her fantasy and the prospect of literally turning back the years. None of the ageing actresses that I previously mentioned manage to so well to portray that specific female agony of a beauty losing her looks. Sandor Eles (The Kremlin Letter, 1970) looks the part and Nigel Green (Fraulein Doktor, 1968), while shiftier than usual, also has to scale more emotional heights than normal, in not just having to countenance his lover going off with another man but helping her to do so. Lesley-Anne Down (The First Great Train Robbery, 1978) makes a splash.

More than ably directed by Sasdy, from a screenplay by Jeremy Paul in his debut based on the book by Valentine Penrose.

I’m not sure how well this went down with vampire aficionados and suspect there was audience disappointment, but there is more than enough depth to make up.

Witchfinder General / The Conqueror Worm (1968) ****

For 250 years Europe and America was in the grip of a man-made plague. Ever since Pope Innocent VIII declared war on supposed witches in 1584, tens of thousands were arrested, tortured and hung or burned to death. Although Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible is considered the last word on the subject, in fact it treats very lightly the physical degradation visited upon victims and the corruption that was at the heart of the disaster. And sure, cinema has poked its nose into the area of possession, most recently with the supposed final act of the The Conjuring series, and while items like The Immaculate (2024) and The Handmaid’s Tale series focus on female subjugation, none of these exposes the full horror of witchcraft accusation.

The British censor bristled at the violence depicted in this film, and the picture was censored to a degree, while movie critics howled at the film’s “sadism.” Yet though the film is a raw depiction of the terrors inflicted on the innocent – male and female – by a corrupt male hierarchy, it scarcely touches the surface of the tsunami of wanton killing and terror.

So this serves as a welcome reminder of that awful age. While romantic leads Richard (Ian Ogilvy) and Sarah (Hilary Dwyer) are insipid, Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price), the self-appointed Witchfinder General, and his gang of thugs led by John Stearne (Robert Russell) are not, and the enormous delight they take in torturing the innocent is what drives the picture. Set in an England in 1645 riven by civil war, where the forces of law and order are in disarray, Hopkins takes delight in profiting from the lack of opposition to his reign of terror.

While Vincent Price (The Oblong Box, 1969) manages to resist the temptation to be overblown and his subdued performance carries ominous weight, it’s the unusual approach of director Matthew Reeves (The Sorcerers, 1967) that makes this a standout. He’s not making a horror picture, but a historical one. Not just are their nods to a specific time period, he bypasses the Gothic, the movie taking place mostly in daylight rather than nighttime, and his visual composition stands comparison with the best of the 1960s roadshows rather than standard Hammer or AIP offerings.

Hopkins delegates the actual torture to his underlings, retaining for himself the more subtle pleasure of blackmailing women into providing him with sex and walking off with a fat purse from local dignitaries for his troubles.

When he descends on any town or village, there will be a price to pay in human ruin. He picks on the village of Brandstone in Sussex and begins to torture local priest John Lowes (Rupert Davies), driving him to exhaustion by endlessly racing him up and down a room before his accomplices can get down to the serious business of plunging long needles into his naked body. Virtually all the weapons in the witch hunter’s armory are of the Catch 22 category. Nothing you do will present as innocent and then you are headed for the gallows or lowered alive into a bonfire.

Luckily for Lowes, his niece Sarah is sweet on Roundhead officer Richard, applauded for his courage in battle, and he attempts to come to her rescue. Unfortunately for her, he is called back to duty before he can save anybody and it’s only by sacrificing herself to Hopkins that Sarah believes she can save her uncle. That turns out to be the worst of the calumnies Hopkins visits upon the innocent, as once he has had his fun he just condemns the old man anyway, and the daughter to boot. And although audiences might wince at the torture it was only fraction of the pain inflicted on the victims who might well end up confessing to witchcraft just to get the agony over with. In my hometown of Paisley, seven witches were executed a few years after Salem on the accusations of an 11-year-old girl – The Renfrewshire Witch Trials has just been published on Amazon should you be interested – which shows the absolute contrivance of the authorities in ruthlessly hunting out victims on the slightest pretense.

It’s a shame that neither Ian Ogilvy (The Sorcerers) nor Hilary Dwyer (The Oblong Box) are equipped to show the depths of despair of their characters, but in some sense this is not their story, except as examples of victims, and the tale really belongs to the venal butchers who took advantage of a climate of fear. These days, it shows up almost as a quasi-documentary and that’s to its benefit.

Written by the director and Tom Baker (The Sorcerers) based on the bestseller by Ronald Bassett. For its U.S. release, AIP snuck in a poem by Edgar Allan Poe which explains the U.S. title The Conqueror Worm.

Interest in this movie is unfairly attributed to the cult status it acquired after the premature death of the director – this was the last of his three films – but in fact it sits easily in the well-wrought historical movies of the period, handsomely mounted and unflinching.

Return to Silent Hill (2026) *

Matt Damon’s contention than in the brand-new cinematic world dominated by Netflix you have to repeat the plot four or five times would have come in exceedingly handy here where storyline and characters are so diffuse a wisp of smoke contains more substance. I saw this on a double-bill with Mercy (2026) so now can claim to have watched the direst double-bill of my movie-watching life, a pair of movies that are so bad they have not the slightest chance of redemption via falling into the So-Bad-It’s-Good category.

I am certainly cautious by now whenever I see a director proclaimed as “visionary” especially as about the only original element of this picture is the title, which has discarded the normal sequel numbered designation (ie. Silent Hill 2 or Silent Hill II depending on your pomposity) in favor of “Return to” which hasn’t been used for decades since Return to Oz (1985) and Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), neither of them raising expectation that using the “Return to” notion would augur well.

I should perhaps point out that this sequel claims not to be an actual sequel but a “Hillverse” option, taking place in the world of the original Silent Hill (2006) and its sequel Silent Hill: Revelation (2012). And the new movie owes a great deal to the video games developed by Konami, which turns out not be a person but a company. Bear in mind that the game was described as a “survival scenario” wherein the hero has to survive all sorts of monsters without, I would guess, being armed with the kind of weaponry that makes survival a tad easier for video game characters.

So, onto the mess. I’ll try and unravel it for you but mostly the plot is incomprehensible. Alcoholic mentally-ill artist James Sunderland (Jeremy Irvine) is separated from his wife Mary whom he met in a town called Silent Hill. Years later after receiving a letter from Mary he returns to the town to discover it’s covered in fog and ash. (The ash, I did note, was about the only decent visual in the picture).

The town is empty, inhabited only by strange skeletal armless creatures and moths of all shapes and sizes including gigantic. These moths, I should add, are pretty dumb. Shut the door on them and they stay out, apparently incapable of crawling through the myriad tiny spaces in any building which are invisible to the human eye but which (as we all know) seem to pose to no barrier to insects.

*I returned to Silent Hill and all I got was annoyed.*

James turns detective and discovers his wife was part of a cult and recalls that the couple split after she was forced by her father to take part in a ritual. Then it turns out his wife is actually dead and it’s all in his mind that she’s still alive.

This is all just a nightmare, and not just for James, I should add, but for the audience. Flinging all sorts of monsters and strange visuals at an audience isn’t going to keep them entranced. Anybody who can remotely be able to run down a long burning passage indicates to an audience that this can’t possibly be real, especially as the flames are not accompanied by smoke.

So our mentally ill hero has not just revived his wife but made up the various other female characters that appear including a giant moth version of Mary. Luckily, the nightmare triggers further memory and James remembers that, in fact, he killed his wife in some kind of mercy killing because she was so ill after being drugged by the cult. Luckily, too, moth Mary appears so James can apologize for killing her. So it all ends well. He’s not a murderer or mercy killer after all.

There’s a Sliding Doors twist at the end which is as barmy as the rest of the movie.

Director Christophe Gans (Beauty and the Beast, 2014) is mostly to blame.

I know we’ve a long way to go into the 2026 cinematic year, but, goodness, what an awful way to start it off, two prime duds, one of which has been given the full marketing treatment, though admittedly Return to Silent Hill kind of sneaked out.

Just plain awful.

The Reptile (1966) ***

If there is such a thing, qualifies as the thinking person’s Hammer horror picture. More atmospheric than usual, creepy rather than shocking, and with greater emphasis on psychology and loss than you’d expect to find in a Hammer film. No recognizable stars either so something of a risk for the studio. The low-budget probably accounts for the fact it was made to play the supporting feature of a horror bill.

That’s what makes it so interesting. It’s crammed full of character actors getting to play interesting people and it puts the main good guy on the bench as we approach the climax appointing the female lead as substitute in the most perilous segment of the investigation into strange goings-on in the old (but not dark) house.

CGI would have made this instantly more potent and while the special effects are acceptable for the time period, the characterization and the dilemmas posed relieve the picture of having to rely on shocks for impact.

Even these days studios would find it hard to greenlight a movie where the focus is on a parent shielding a serial killer. But that’s effectively what’s happening here.

Dr Franklyn (Noel Willman), the big house resident, is trying to keep safe his cursed daughter Anna (Jacqueline Pearce) who has been knocking off villagers at a heck of a rate. Anyone she attacks foams at the mouth and turns a nasty colour so the villagers are more likely to blame a disease or some kind of ghostly apparition, though obvious suspects like werewolves or vampires don’t come into consideration and a lurking Malay servant (Marne Maitland) doesn’t set alarm bells ringing.

Newly-weds Harry Spalding (Ray Barrett) and wife Valerie (Jennifer Daniel) have inherited the cottage next door to the big house from his brother, the latest victim of the phantom killer. As was standard for Victorian villages, strangers are treated with suspicion, and it’s left to local landlord (Michael Ripper) and local lunatic Peter (John Laurie) to scare the wits out of the new arrivals with tales of multiple deaths.

Franklyn appears a congenial enough gent though he’s apt to be sharp with his daughter, taking serious offence at her playing the sitar. Harry takes on the burden of sniffing around until he’s put out of action by the phantom. Since he’s not dead and therefore not instantly buried, there’s time to check out his body and that’s when marks are discovered in his neck. Normally, that would point to the presence of a vampire, but I guess since vampires weren’t popularized until much later in the century, there’s no reason to go down that route of investigation.

Instead of sitting around like a homebody as Victorian wives were meant to do, Valerie takes over the investigation and it’s she who discovers that the doctor’s cursed daughter periodically turns into a snake. Not only is Franklyn averse to handing his daughter over to the authorities, he’s made her a cosy nest in the warm cellar. Still, he’s wracked by guilt. Audiences these days would be more aware that his snippiness to his daughter covers up the burden of his love. Proof more that he’s coming apart.

The billing gives it away. While the narrative ostensibly revolves around Harry and his wife caught in a web, it’s actually a bold decision to put the emotional onus on Franklyn. It’s a great study, especially for a horror film, of parental anguish. Anna, clearly aware of the discrepancies in her character, also shows unexpected depths.

Australian Ray Barrett was a television stalwart, taking time out from The Troubleshooters (1965-1971) and as the voice of the leading puppet in Stingray (1964-1965). Jennifer Daniel had been terrorized by Noel Willman in Kiss of the Vampire (1963). Jacqueline Pearce (The Plague of the Zombies, 1966) adds good touches.

Director John Gilling (Plague of the Zombies) doesn’t fall into the shocker trap which posits the picture, written by John Elder (Dracula, Prince of Darkness, 1966), as one of the more interesting in the Hammer portfolio.

Worth a look.

Carrie (1976) *****

Could have easily gone so badly wrong. You got Mean Girls vs Teen Romance. Demented Mother of Elmer Gantry vs Demented Daughter of Psycho. Why did nobody ever think before that slow-mo that used to be the preserve of lovers gambolling in fields and cowboys being bloodily gunned down could be as easily employed to watch naked girls in the shower. Throw in split-screen and a couple of other technical devices. And the shock ending which triggered a new cycle.

There’s a heck of lot of face-slapping that wouldn’t pass muster today and not exclusively male either, hard-ass teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) setting about venal pupil Chris (Nancy Allen), Chris giving as good as she gets from boyfriend Billy (John Travolta). And if you were a rising star like John Travolta you might think twice about the effect on your career of battering a pig to death with a sledgehammer. Try those capers now and you’d run into the woke police.

But it’s surprisingly feminist. Women twist their men round their little finger, the headmaster does the bidding of Miss Collins, All-American Boy Tommy (William Katt), decked out in a super perm, accedes to the barmy request of his girlfriend Sue (Amy Irving), attempting to assuage her guilt over her role in bullying Carrie (Sissy Spacek), to give up her place at the Senior Prom to the nerd, and Chris has no problem getting Billy to go along with her scheme for humiliating vengeance.

In another movie, Carrie, an eternal victim, would have been the Final Girl but such is her wrath nobody’s left standing to qualify for that position. Nobody escapes, innocent and guilty alike, put to the sword. There’s sex in all its disguises, ranging from a virgin’s first tender kiss to a blowjob to sin to rampant voyeurism.

That it works so well is in part due to the malevolence of all concerned, the above mentioned whacking, the mother locking the child in a closet, the gleeful girls tormenting Carrie, and Carrie spiteful in her blood-soaked vengeance. The telekinesis on which the tale depends is cleverly introduced, a few minor incidents hinting at this unnatural power, Carrie herself doing the research rather than consulting a specialist and weighting the picture down with turgid exposition.

The neat running time – barely topping 90 minutes – eliminates any slack. And director Brian De Palma (The Untouchables, 1987) has sufficient command of the tension and occasional moments of bravura that it’s touched on the ironic climax before you realize quite where it’s going. Atmospheric score by Pino Donaggio (Don’t Look Now, 1973) guides us along, the haunting melody that wouldn’t be out of place as a love theme lets us know there’s more to the shower scene than we might expect while the sharp chords accompanying the slaughter reminiscent of Psycho (1960).

Announced to the world Stephen King as writer of immensely cinematic books, and made De Palma a commercial name. Sissy Space (Prime Cut, 1972) and Piper Laurie (The Hustler, 1961) were nominated for Oscars and the movie served as launch pad for several of the cast, most notably John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever, 1977), including Nancy Allen (Dressed to Kill, 1980), William Katt (Big Wednesday, 1978) and Amy Irving (Micky + Maude, 1984). Written by Lawrence D. Cohen (Ghost Story, 1981).

Still a terrific watch.

Frankenstein (2025) **** – Seen at the Cinema

I came at this with a bucketload of reservations. First was the length. I grew up with versions of this tale that were around a good hour shorter. Ninety minutes seemed to be the ideal length not a stonking 150 minutes. Secondly, I’m not a huge fan of director Guillermo del Toro and excepting Pacific Rim (2013) – an outrider in his portfolio – and The Shape of Water (2017) felt his reach was not matched by his grasp. He was the kind of director whose work I was supposed to like and invariably responded less well than I had expected. And third of course was, even with the trend for reimaginations and remakes and in the hands of a “visionary director” (a vastly over-used term), I had seen this story so often before I wondered what else he could bring to it.

So I was very pleasantly surprised to find an emotionally satisfying thoroughly enjoyable work that did not outstay its welcome. Moreover, it doesn’t rely on the tropes of outraged villagers carrying torches and as far as I can gather without me going back to the sacred text whatever changes have been made to the original appear logical and true. Both the creator and the monster at various points will touch your heart.

One of the aspects I most enjoyed was the creation. The detail involved was in keeping with heist movies where robbers work out their plan in minute detail or war films where the audience is filled in on the strategy and tactics involved in battles as though they were adults who could understand the importance of long scenes of dialog rather than treating them as children who preferred to go straight into the action regardless of whether they understood what was going on or not.

Here, we begin in the Arctic where an exploration vessel trapped in ice comes upon a very ill Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) who is being pursued by the monster (Jacob Elordi) of his creation.

Then we’re in flashback mode. Victor is son of a famous but tyrannical surgeon (Charles Dance) whose adored mother dies in childbirth giving birth to a more favored brother William (Felix Kammerer).

Then we shift to a medical disciplinary court where Victor is on trial for his experiments in reanimating corpses, for playing God in a society where the Supreme Being was still considered in charge of everything on Earth. But no matter how clever the corpse appears, capable of apparently playing catch, the case goes against him and his dreams, and career, would be in tatters except for the intervention of wealthy arms dealer Harlander (Christoph Waltz), uncle of Elizabeth (Mia Goth) the fiancée of William.

She’s intellectually advanced for a woman of the era, studying insects, and more than a match for Victor and for a while it looks like we’re in for an awkward love triangle. Meanwhile, Victor is harvesting bits and pieces of fresh corpses from battlefields and stitching them together in a way that maintains the body’s unique nervous system while Harlander happily stumps up the enormous cost.

The experiment, which takes place in a remote castle and costs the life of Harlander, is a success but given the monster’s size (Jacob Elordi) Victor keeps him in chains in the castle’s vast cellar. But he soon becomes exasperated by the creature’s lack of intellect, speech limited to repeating his creator’s name (and his own as it turns out).

When Elizabeth discovers the creature, she falls in love with it and turns against the scientist and keeps the gift of a leaf the creature has given her pressed inside the pages of a book. Since the creature is fit for no more than a circus exhibit rather than acclaimed as an experiment, and needing someone to blame for Harlander’s death, Victor fits up the monster, blaming him for setting fire to the castle.

Victor escapes, takes refuge in a cottage where he is educated by a blind man, and discovers his own emotions. Hounded out of there, he sets out to find Victor who is attending his brother’s wedding. The monster’s plea for a female companion is derided by Victor and in a melodramatic moment he accidentally shoots Elizabeth. The monster carries the dying woman out of the wedding pieta style.

So the hunt is on. Victor flees to the frozen north and eventually when the monster engineers a confrontation, he is able to attempt reconciliation with his creator.

The question asked – who is the monster? The creator or the result of his tampering with nature?

The acting is top notch, Jacob Elordi (Saltburn, 2023) should have walked off with the acting plaudits except that Oscar Isaac (Dune, Part One, 2021) elicits our sympathy and then our horror and Mia Goth (Maxxine, 2024) excels in a role where she is not called upon, as so often before, to overact. As far as Christoph Waltz (No Time to Die, 2021) and Charles Dance (The First Omen, 2024) are concerned their roles are minor variations of characters both have played before.

Praise is very much due to writer-director Del Toro for not losing my interest for a minute.

Since this is a Netflix production I could have saved myself a few bucks and waited till it appeared on the small screen. But unlike other big budget works by “visionary” directors, this will work very well on the smaller screen because, despite some arresting visuals, it’s essentially a chamber piece involving a handful of characters.

The highest praise I can give any director of an epic is the ability to not lose my interest for a single minute. So all praise Del Toro.

The Strangers Chapter 2 (2025) *

Or The Running, Whimpering and Screaming Film. The laziest horror picture I have seen in a long time and possible even worse than Orgy of the Dead (1965) which at least did not take itself seriously. When the wild boar appeared you were just praying for it to finish off hapless heroine Maya (Madelaine Petsch) with one bite and I was convinced the look in her eyes signalled dread that she would have to return for another sequel. Someone has ideas way above their station imagining this tripe could seriously work as a trilogy.

It’s pretty obvious that director Renny Harlin is far more interested in exploring the backstory of the killers – axe-wielding male decked out in scarecrow mask, crossbow-armed females with doll faces – and making the lamentable error of thinking the audience cared, especially when the origin tale amounts to nothing more than sibling jealousy. This picture stops abruptly, as if he didn’t want to give too much away.

Survivor Maya – boyfriend slaughtered in the previous episode after they inadvertently rented a house in the wrong neck of the woods – wakes up in a hospital, inexplicably deserted. That is simply a device so she can begin her marathon of running, whimpering and screaming while being chased along long corridors or trying to prevent herself being heard while hiding in cupboards, lift shafts and sharing a drawer with a corpse in the morgue.

There’s nothing worse than a dumb heroine – Maya manages to toss away (for narrative purposes you understand) any weapon – gun, knife – that comes her way. Or a dumb bad guy for that matter – he opens a stack of drawers in the morgue but draws the line at opening hers. And soon she’s running barefoot in the rain (which never seems, thank goodness, to soak her flimsy top, so the only sensible directorial decision is to steer clear of blatant leering).

Naturally, she’s suspicious of everyone and runs away from people who can help her, though help is only fleeting because the axe- and crossbow-marauders are on a spree. The wild boar might well, hints a flashback, have been reared by the killers in their childhood, but there’s nothing cute about it now.

This could almost be dialog-free because all Maya does is scream. A couple of cops put in an appearance so the director can hint at a shady past but, unlike the paramedic, they are spared slaughter. I couldn’t quite make out the significance of the ending but I know it was significant because the camera lingered on it. Presumably, Renny Harlin (The Strangers: Chapter 1) thought he was ending on a cliff-hanger because it ended so abruptly.

I felt sorry for Madelaine Petsch (Jane, 2022) because unless she was planning to become the next Scream Queen or auditioning for a marathon she has nothing to do except whimper, run and scream. This was light years from her production debut (Jane) and as many steps backwards.

Please, no more!

**This was the second part of my Monday triple bill that began promisingly with The Lost Bus (see yesterday’s blog). Although this was a dud I had high hopes for the final movie of the day – the highly-acclaimed One Battle after Another which I’m reviewing tomorrow.