I have been reading The American West in Film: Critical Approaches to the Western, written by Jon Tuska and published in 1985. Tuska is concerned with seeing how the images of the West presented in Western writing and in Hollywood films (specifically) are true to history.
Unsurprisingly Tuska finds that the films are rarely accurate, with this reflecting a lack of research and/or the deliberate obfuscation of truths about ‘how the West was won,’ namely through violence, treachery, and genocide.
Then, in his conclusion, Tuska mentions the snuff film, which he views as actually existing, but apparently without bothering to undertake any research or fact checking.
An ironic instance of ‘printing the legend’...
Saturday, 17 August 2013
Sunday, 4 August 2013
Abuso di potere / Shadows Unseen
Watching Abuso di potere – i.e. literally Abuse of Power, but released under the more enigmatic Shadows Unseen – in the same week as Berlusconi was jailed gives the 1972 film a certain continuing relevance.
The more things change the more they stay the same...
On a more personal level, it was also interesting to compare with my viewing of a few days ago, Colpo rovente, it being another police film exploring the same theme, high-reaching corruption, but a contrasting narrative structure.
For whereas Colpo rovente begins with a death at the hands of persons unknown, here we begin with a death where the identities of at least some of those involved, if not their exact roles, are presented.
Investigative journalist Gagliari goes to a club; talks briefly with Simona (Marilu Tolo); visits money lender Rosenthal (Corrado Gaipa), from whom he recovers a distinctive ring; indicates that he is leaving on business for a few days; departs with hooker Rosaria, and is then set upon, beaten and shot dead by a group of men.
After some discussion amongst the police and political leaders, the decision is made to bring Inspector Luca Micheli (Frederick Stafford) in to conduct the investigation. Micheli has been persona non grata since he used the same illegal methods as many of his colleagues, but happened to do so on the wrong suspect/perpetrator – i.e. someone with connections. He’s also, predictably, the type whose dedication to the job has cost him his family.
Aided more or less only by his loyal sidekick, Micheli begins his investigations. An anonymous tip-off leads them to Delogo, a known mafioso with an impressive record on beating the charges against him. After a beating Delogo confesses to the crime, but Micheli’s intuition tells him what we would already know, even if we had walked in to the film five minutes late; after all, we’re only one-third of the way into the running time.
Getting the forename of the woman seen with Gagliari, Micheli pulls in a low-level drug dealer (Pasolini regular Ninetto Davoli) and extracts here whereabouts, this time more with the threat of violence. Visiting Rosaria’s apartment, the investigators find her dead, the victim of adulterated heroin. And so it goes until it becomes increasingly evident what we already more or less knew.
The only matters that remain in doubt are whether Micheli will agree to forget what he discovers and become one of the conspirators, or whether he will continue to fight against them and, if so, with what type of outcome.
Extreme cynicism was rife in the police film internationally in the early 1970s, as a basic schism between the ideals of law and order became increasingly apparent. To give a few examples:
Callahan in Dirty Harry knew that Scorpio was the killer stalking San Francisco, but could not prove this and found his methods led to Scorpio’s being released by too-liberal judges.
Then Magnum Force saw Callahan going up against a self-appointed execution squad of fellow cops who were going too far – a plot point that seems more about box-office than consistent characterisation, at least from a cursory recollection. Certainly I remember preferring Steno’s La polizia ringrazzia, with its decidedly more downbeat treatment of a similar theme.
Or in the UK there is the first film outing of The Sweeney, in which Regan reluctantly investigates the death of a call-girl at the behest of a small-time villain, then realises he has uncovered a big-time conspiracy when said villain also dies and he is suspended from the force on trumped up charges. While the X-certificate given the film allowed for more sex, violence and bad language than the TV series from which it came, its televisual origins were also apparent. There was an obvious need for Regan to ultimately triumph. His regular boss, whose presence would have complicated the conspiracy narrative, was also a conspicuous – or is that structural? – absence.
In each case a further tension is the divide between providing genre entertainment and socio-political critique – and further, what form that critique should take. Here the entertainment aspect is foregrounded in a brief interlude between Micheli and Simona, albeit one tempered by a clear sense that this is a matter of business and not love, and a Remy Julienne-staged car chase. There’s also a shoot-out, and a couple of punch-ups where the blows have that exaggerated, conventional car-door-slamming sound.
The critique is, as might be expected, more muddled.
But then that could be said to be a reflection of a perceived situation where no-one had the answers?
But that could then be said to be a reflection of a perceived situation where no-one had the answers?
The final shot of the film, noted by an IMDB reviewer, is curious in this regard. On one layer, it appears to be a freeze-frame. Clearly, however, it is in fact an optical printing, since on the other layer, there is the motion of a swinging telephone receiver. The two images, previously united, have become fragmented.
On the subject of fragments, parts of Riz Ortolani’s score are reminiscent of cues for Cannibal Holocaust – the discordant strings, but minus the synthesiser bleeps – and Don’t Torture a Duckling – the powerful percussion, but minus Ornella Vanonni’s vocals, that accompany Maciara's death scene.
The more things change the more they stay the same...
On a more personal level, it was also interesting to compare with my viewing of a few days ago, Colpo rovente, it being another police film exploring the same theme, high-reaching corruption, but a contrasting narrative structure.
For whereas Colpo rovente begins with a death at the hands of persons unknown, here we begin with a death where the identities of at least some of those involved, if not their exact roles, are presented.
Investigative journalist Gagliari goes to a club; talks briefly with Simona (Marilu Tolo); visits money lender Rosenthal (Corrado Gaipa), from whom he recovers a distinctive ring; indicates that he is leaving on business for a few days; departs with hooker Rosaria, and is then set upon, beaten and shot dead by a group of men.
After some discussion amongst the police and political leaders, the decision is made to bring Inspector Luca Micheli (Frederick Stafford) in to conduct the investigation. Micheli has been persona non grata since he used the same illegal methods as many of his colleagues, but happened to do so on the wrong suspect/perpetrator – i.e. someone with connections. He’s also, predictably, the type whose dedication to the job has cost him his family.
Aided more or less only by his loyal sidekick, Micheli begins his investigations. An anonymous tip-off leads them to Delogo, a known mafioso with an impressive record on beating the charges against him. After a beating Delogo confesses to the crime, but Micheli’s intuition tells him what we would already know, even if we had walked in to the film five minutes late; after all, we’re only one-third of the way into the running time.
Getting the forename of the woman seen with Gagliari, Micheli pulls in a low-level drug dealer (Pasolini regular Ninetto Davoli) and extracts here whereabouts, this time more with the threat of violence. Visiting Rosaria’s apartment, the investigators find her dead, the victim of adulterated heroin. And so it goes until it becomes increasingly evident what we already more or less knew.
The only matters that remain in doubt are whether Micheli will agree to forget what he discovers and become one of the conspirators, or whether he will continue to fight against them and, if so, with what type of outcome.
Extreme cynicism was rife in the police film internationally in the early 1970s, as a basic schism between the ideals of law and order became increasingly apparent. To give a few examples:
Callahan in Dirty Harry knew that Scorpio was the killer stalking San Francisco, but could not prove this and found his methods led to Scorpio’s being released by too-liberal judges.
Then Magnum Force saw Callahan going up against a self-appointed execution squad of fellow cops who were going too far – a plot point that seems more about box-office than consistent characterisation, at least from a cursory recollection. Certainly I remember preferring Steno’s La polizia ringrazzia, with its decidedly more downbeat treatment of a similar theme.
Or in the UK there is the first film outing of The Sweeney, in which Regan reluctantly investigates the death of a call-girl at the behest of a small-time villain, then realises he has uncovered a big-time conspiracy when said villain also dies and he is suspended from the force on trumped up charges. While the X-certificate given the film allowed for more sex, violence and bad language than the TV series from which it came, its televisual origins were also apparent. There was an obvious need for Regan to ultimately triumph. His regular boss, whose presence would have complicated the conspiracy narrative, was also a conspicuous – or is that structural? – absence.
In each case a further tension is the divide between providing genre entertainment and socio-political critique – and further, what form that critique should take. Here the entertainment aspect is foregrounded in a brief interlude between Micheli and Simona, albeit one tempered by a clear sense that this is a matter of business and not love, and a Remy Julienne-staged car chase. There’s also a shoot-out, and a couple of punch-ups where the blows have that exaggerated, conventional car-door-slamming sound.
The critique is, as might be expected, more muddled.
But then that could be said to be a reflection of a perceived situation where no-one had the answers?
But that could then be said to be a reflection of a perceived situation where no-one had the answers?
The final shot of the film, noted by an IMDB reviewer, is curious in this regard. On one layer, it appears to be a freeze-frame. Clearly, however, it is in fact an optical printing, since on the other layer, there is the motion of a swinging telephone receiver. The two images, previously united, have become fragmented.
On the subject of fragments, parts of Riz Ortolani’s score are reminiscent of cues for Cannibal Holocaust – the discordant strings, but minus the synthesiser bleeps – and Don’t Torture a Duckling – the powerful percussion, but minus Ornella Vanonni’s vocals, that accompany Maciara's death scene.
Saturday, 3 August 2013
Colpo Rovente / Red Hot Shot
When businessman Mac Brown is assassinated on a busy New York street,
there is only one man to head the investigation: Frank Berin. For the
previous year Berin had conducted extensive inquiries into Berin’s
business dealings, but had been unable to find incontrovertible evidence
of any criminal activity or conspiracy. Unfortunately for Berin,
Brown’s daughter Monica has put up a $250,000 reward for information on
her father’s killer(s). Worse still, the killers always seem to be one
step ahead of him...
Colpo Rovente is stylishly directed by co-writer Piero Zuffi, with some particularly good use of mirror shots and of (then) high-technology to heighten the sense of modernist paranoia.
The film also benefits from smart deployment of New York and other US locations, along with clever opportunism in some found moments of spectacle, with Berin’s visiting Acapulco to follow up a lead inevitably occurring during the Day of the Dead celebrations.
The production design, in what Tim Lucas has characterised as the Continental Op style, nicely captures the contrasting milieus of their inhabitants – the psychedelic hippie happenings; the criminal boardroom; the laboratory replete with vials of brightly coloured liquids; the Greenwich Village gay bar. Pierro Piccioni’s bold, brash crime-jazz score propels the action along, as does the sharp editing by the incomparable Franco Arcalli.
In sum, even though the source of the fan-subbed AVI is cropped, with some familiar names in the credits being somewhat chopped-off, the film still looks good enough to convince that a digital restoration of the original materials would be justified. The main downside is that the narrative can be difficult to follow at times, perhaps most notably when Berin goes undercover and infiltrates a Hells Angels-type biker gang; aficionados of filone cinema will recognise Ugo Fangareggi among their number. There is a justification for this confusion, however, with the denouement also encouraging the viewer to retrospectively re-evaluate a couple of scenes and some key exchanges within them. It is the first of these, incidentally, that seems to provide further explanation for the Red Hot Shot title.
[NB: Spoilers follow after the pictures]
A blade in the dark...
Black gloves and a gun...
There's a very good reason for the framing of this shot.
The press reports...
The media reacts...
The photofit #1
The photofit #2
Barbara Bouchet in her fancy penthouse
More a crime drama than a giallo perhaps, the film might be viewed as an alternate configuration of Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion. There we know that the titular investigator, the right-wing police chief, is also the his mistress’s killer. By being so obvious about it his culpability, however, he effectively conceals it. Here we don’t know that Berin set events in motion by assassinating Brown. When we learn this we might reconsider the identity parade and photo-fit session, where Berin uses himself as one of the reference points for the portrait of the murderer. Likewise, his brutality against a Bud Spencer lookalike festooned with bad tattoos, comes to make more sense.
Against this, though, we can also see that Berin has been responsible for the deaths of some innocents – if, that is, the world depicted is one where any innocents still exist, as certainly suggested the film’s conflation of business and crime, along with the closing scene of hippies over which are projected images from the film itself and culled from the news. This would also tie in with the importance of drugs to the narrative, even if the effects of LSD and heroin sometimes seem conflated.
All-told, gripping, stylish and provocative. And the always-welcome Barbara Bouchet. And, for those with less mainstream tastes, an appearance by experimental film-maker and all-round renaissance man Carmelo Bene as her reviled husband.
Colpo Rovente is stylishly directed by co-writer Piero Zuffi, with some particularly good use of mirror shots and of (then) high-technology to heighten the sense of modernist paranoia.
The film also benefits from smart deployment of New York and other US locations, along with clever opportunism in some found moments of spectacle, with Berin’s visiting Acapulco to follow up a lead inevitably occurring during the Day of the Dead celebrations.
The production design, in what Tim Lucas has characterised as the Continental Op style, nicely captures the contrasting milieus of their inhabitants – the psychedelic hippie happenings; the criminal boardroom; the laboratory replete with vials of brightly coloured liquids; the Greenwich Village gay bar. Pierro Piccioni’s bold, brash crime-jazz score propels the action along, as does the sharp editing by the incomparable Franco Arcalli.
In sum, even though the source of the fan-subbed AVI is cropped, with some familiar names in the credits being somewhat chopped-off, the film still looks good enough to convince that a digital restoration of the original materials would be justified. The main downside is that the narrative can be difficult to follow at times, perhaps most notably when Berin goes undercover and infiltrates a Hells Angels-type biker gang; aficionados of filone cinema will recognise Ugo Fangareggi among their number. There is a justification for this confusion, however, with the denouement also encouraging the viewer to retrospectively re-evaluate a couple of scenes and some key exchanges within them. It is the first of these, incidentally, that seems to provide further explanation for the Red Hot Shot title.
[NB: Spoilers follow after the pictures]
A blade in the dark...
Black gloves and a gun...
There's a very good reason for the framing of this shot.
The press reports...
The media reacts...
The photofit #1
The photofit #2
Barbara Bouchet in her fancy penthouse
More a crime drama than a giallo perhaps, the film might be viewed as an alternate configuration of Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion. There we know that the titular investigator, the right-wing police chief, is also the his mistress’s killer. By being so obvious about it his culpability, however, he effectively conceals it. Here we don’t know that Berin set events in motion by assassinating Brown. When we learn this we might reconsider the identity parade and photo-fit session, where Berin uses himself as one of the reference points for the portrait of the murderer. Likewise, his brutality against a Bud Spencer lookalike festooned with bad tattoos, comes to make more sense.
Against this, though, we can also see that Berin has been responsible for the deaths of some innocents – if, that is, the world depicted is one where any innocents still exist, as certainly suggested the film’s conflation of business and crime, along with the closing scene of hippies over which are projected images from the film itself and culled from the news. This would also tie in with the importance of drugs to the narrative, even if the effects of LSD and heroin sometimes seem conflated.
All-told, gripping, stylish and provocative. And the always-welcome Barbara Bouchet. And, for those with less mainstream tastes, an appearance by experimental film-maker and all-round renaissance man Carmelo Bene as her reviled husband.
Friday, 26 July 2013
The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein
No sooner has Frankenstein (Dennis Price) re-animated his monster than he and his assistant Morpho (director Jesus Franco) are killed. The man behind the murders, Cagliostro (Howard Vernon), wants the monster so that he can mate it with a human female and create a master race. Cagliostro has already conducted his own experiments in creating life which have resulted in a bizarre half-woman, half-bird, blind, vampiric creature, Melisa (Anne Libert). Cagliostro is not going to have things go entirely his way, however, since Dr Seward (Alberto Dalbés) and Inspector Tanner (Daniel White) are investigating the case, as is Frankenstein’s daughter Vera (Beatriz Savón).
When discussing El Topo Alejandro Jodorowsky was fond of remarking that what audiences would get out out of the film was dependent upon what they would put into it. If the spectator was limited then the film was limited.
This is a useful notion to bear in mind when watching a Jesus Franco film. This is because they are replete with inter-textual associations, whether it is the re-use of character names, the casting of what amounts to a stock company of performers, allusions to other films or to art in general. As such a Franco film is often an exercise in hermeneutics, a search for the code that will break the hermetic seal to permit entry into the Francoverse.
Name-wise, we have Morpho, Tanner and Orloff. Cast-wise, beside those already mentioned above, there are Britt Nichols, Luis Barboo and Daniel White – the last often Franco’s composers of choice, and who also provides the music here.
Allusion-wise the film comes across as one of Franco’s tributes to 1930s and 1940s horrors, notably The Mask of Fu Manchu, via the sadistic torture devices in Cagliostro’s dungeon; The Bride of Frankenstein, via Cagliostro himself, as a Dr Pretorius type; and any of the X meets Y permutations and combinations along House of Frankenstein lines.
At the same time, however, the film also has a more contemporary sensibility through the Bava-style red and blue lighting of Cagliostro’s dungeon; a Lady Frankenstein character (and here not forgetting that Rosalba Neri had earlier worked with Franco on Lucky the Inscrutable and 99 Women) and the prescient ideas of mating the monster, as would be mooted in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, and of using it to create a master race, as would be foregrounded in Flesh For Frankenstein.
The idea of mating the monster arguably gives an added element to one of Franco’s obsessions, namely the female pudenda shot. For some of those here seem reminiscent of Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde. (One can also conceive of Melisa having stepped out of a Max Ernst painting.)
The version of the film watched was an AVI sourced from the UK Go Video release; it was also released along with companion piece Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein by Tartan on DVD. The longer cut includes an early appearance by Lina Romay.
When discussing El Topo Alejandro Jodorowsky was fond of remarking that what audiences would get out out of the film was dependent upon what they would put into it. If the spectator was limited then the film was limited.
This is a useful notion to bear in mind when watching a Jesus Franco film. This is because they are replete with inter-textual associations, whether it is the re-use of character names, the casting of what amounts to a stock company of performers, allusions to other films or to art in general. As such a Franco film is often an exercise in hermeneutics, a search for the code that will break the hermetic seal to permit entry into the Francoverse.
Name-wise, we have Morpho, Tanner and Orloff. Cast-wise, beside those already mentioned above, there are Britt Nichols, Luis Barboo and Daniel White – the last often Franco’s composers of choice, and who also provides the music here.
Allusion-wise the film comes across as one of Franco’s tributes to 1930s and 1940s horrors, notably The Mask of Fu Manchu, via the sadistic torture devices in Cagliostro’s dungeon; The Bride of Frankenstein, via Cagliostro himself, as a Dr Pretorius type; and any of the X meets Y permutations and combinations along House of Frankenstein lines.
At the same time, however, the film also has a more contemporary sensibility through the Bava-style red and blue lighting of Cagliostro’s dungeon; a Lady Frankenstein character (and here not forgetting that Rosalba Neri had earlier worked with Franco on Lucky the Inscrutable and 99 Women) and the prescient ideas of mating the monster, as would be mooted in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, and of using it to create a master race, as would be foregrounded in Flesh For Frankenstein.
The idea of mating the monster arguably gives an added element to one of Franco’s obsessions, namely the female pudenda shot. For some of those here seem reminiscent of Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde. (One can also conceive of Melisa having stepped out of a Max Ernst painting.)
The version of the film watched was an AVI sourced from the UK Go Video release; it was also released along with companion piece Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein by Tartan on DVD. The longer cut includes an early appearance by Lina Romay.
Friday, 19 July 2013
GBH / Grevious Bodily Harm
Club own Murray is in trouble. Gangster Keller wants a cut of his profits in return for protection, said protection being from Keller’s thugs. Murray, however, is not one to back down and so recruits his old doorman and troubleshooter Donovan, who is just about to be released from prison after serving a six month sentence, a sentence that stemmed from the last time Donovan helped Murray...
A Double bill with Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts?
Of course if Donovan had simply said no and walked away we would either not have a film or at least a very different one. So, much like the relationship between Terry McCann and Arthur Daley in Minder, Donovan is soon back to working for Murray.
My reference to Minder is not accidental, given that it was one of the highest rated series on British television at the time GBH and that lead – one hesitates to say star – Cliff Twemlow seems something of a McCann character in real life, having worked as a Manchester nightclub doorman for many years.
In part it is the choice of milieu that makes GBH work, since it is clear that the film-makers actually know about the world they are depicting on screen. More important than this, however, is their fundamental belief in what they doing.
For GBH could otherwise be compared to the various David Sullivan and Paul Raymond films of the era, such as Queen of the Blues, Emanuelle in Soho and Paul Raymond’s Erotica – except for the sense that co-writer, producer, composer (under the pseudonym John Agar) and lead Twemlow and his coterie of friends were intent upon doing the best they could rather than just the minimum required.
Yes, the narrative and characterisation are cliché. Yes, the writing and performances are frequently awkward. Yes, it was shot on video rather than film. Yes, there are basically two car door slamming type sound effects used for punches and kicks. Yes...
... but director David Kent-Watson also throws in some Dutch angles, slow motion and so on that he did not have to and also handles the action scenes well. Many of the exchanges written by Kent-Watson and Twemlow are also, in their own way, quite brilliant:
Donovan: Didn’t know this was a gay bar.
Barman: It isn’t.
Donovan: What about those two poofs over there?
[Fight ensues]
Tracy: The big hard type?
Donovan: Didn’t know I was showing.
A Double bill with Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts?
Of course if Donovan had simply said no and walked away we would either not have a film or at least a very different one. So, much like the relationship between Terry McCann and Arthur Daley in Minder, Donovan is soon back to working for Murray.
My reference to Minder is not accidental, given that it was one of the highest rated series on British television at the time GBH and that lead – one hesitates to say star – Cliff Twemlow seems something of a McCann character in real life, having worked as a Manchester nightclub doorman for many years.
In part it is the choice of milieu that makes GBH work, since it is clear that the film-makers actually know about the world they are depicting on screen. More important than this, however, is their fundamental belief in what they doing.
For GBH could otherwise be compared to the various David Sullivan and Paul Raymond films of the era, such as Queen of the Blues, Emanuelle in Soho and Paul Raymond’s Erotica – except for the sense that co-writer, producer, composer (under the pseudonym John Agar) and lead Twemlow and his coterie of friends were intent upon doing the best they could rather than just the minimum required.
Yes, the narrative and characterisation are cliché. Yes, the writing and performances are frequently awkward. Yes, it was shot on video rather than film. Yes, there are basically two car door slamming type sound effects used for punches and kicks. Yes...
... but director David Kent-Watson also throws in some Dutch angles, slow motion and so on that he did not have to and also handles the action scenes well. Many of the exchanges written by Kent-Watson and Twemlow are also, in their own way, quite brilliant:
Donovan: Didn’t know this was a gay bar.
Barman: It isn’t.
Donovan: What about those two poofs over there?
[Fight ensues]
Tracy: The big hard type?
Donovan: Didn’t know I was showing.
Monday, 24 June 2013
Abducted by the Daleks
The plot?
Well, if you are familiar with any of other ‘films’ by director Don Skaro under his other pseudonym Roman Nowicki, you’ll anticipate that is is minimal.
The auteur of the Fantom Kiler and Fantom Seducer series is not exactly known for complex plotting. Rather it is about stringing together a few scenes with the same basic slasher/porno dynamic. Woman gets naked, then woman gets killed (in the former) or fucked (in the latter).
This is much the same, following the softcore dynamic of the former series, with Daleks in the place of Fantoms.
We begin with four women in a car, travelling through woods reputed to be the domain of the Serial Skinner, clearly a close cousin to the Fantoms.
Their car hits something (which we see is a Roswell type alien) so they get out to explore. Three of the four soon end up naked and prisoners of the Daleks.
Here I found it impossible not to think of Victor Lewis Smith’s TV Offal and his Gay Daleks skits, and of Jon Pertwee era Who companion Jo Grant actor Katy Manning appearing topless with a Dalek.
That said, the special effects are probably better than the original Who, if only by virtue of being 20-30-40 years later. (Is there a CGI setting to do CSO?)
Following the extermination (not insemination) of the women (white wee wee, white wee wee) an alien dominatrix in female form, indistinguishable from the others (i.e. bleached blond, silicone breasted, shaved pubis, heavy accented non-native English speaker) finds herself in the woods, where she is captured by a hunter seeking the Serial Skinner.
The Daleks intervene, attempting to teleport her back to their craft, but get the Skinner instead...
There are amusing aspects to Abducted by the Daleks, such as some of the credits (besides Don Skaro the script is by one Billy Hartnell, for instance) and the Star Trek TOS door opening/closing sound, but overall it is a tedious watch even at just 55 minutes.
Maybe Big Finish and Johnny Trunk / Wisbey should do an audio collaboration inspired by this?
Well, if you are familiar with any of other ‘films’ by director Don Skaro under his other pseudonym Roman Nowicki, you’ll anticipate that is is minimal.
The auteur of the Fantom Kiler and Fantom Seducer series is not exactly known for complex plotting. Rather it is about stringing together a few scenes with the same basic slasher/porno dynamic. Woman gets naked, then woman gets killed (in the former) or fucked (in the latter).
This is much the same, following the softcore dynamic of the former series, with Daleks in the place of Fantoms.
We begin with four women in a car, travelling through woods reputed to be the domain of the Serial Skinner, clearly a close cousin to the Fantoms.
Their car hits something (which we see is a Roswell type alien) so they get out to explore. Three of the four soon end up naked and prisoners of the Daleks.
Here I found it impossible not to think of Victor Lewis Smith’s TV Offal and his Gay Daleks skits, and of Jon Pertwee era Who companion Jo Grant actor Katy Manning appearing topless with a Dalek.
That said, the special effects are probably better than the original Who, if only by virtue of being 20-30-40 years later. (Is there a CGI setting to do CSO?)
Following the extermination (not insemination) of the women (white wee wee, white wee wee) an alien dominatrix in female form, indistinguishable from the others (i.e. bleached blond, silicone breasted, shaved pubis, heavy accented non-native English speaker) finds herself in the woods, where she is captured by a hunter seeking the Serial Skinner.
The Daleks intervene, attempting to teleport her back to their craft, but get the Skinner instead...
There are amusing aspects to Abducted by the Daleks, such as some of the credits (besides Don Skaro the script is by one Billy Hartnell, for instance) and the Star Trek TOS door opening/closing sound, but overall it is a tedious watch even at just 55 minutes.
Maybe Big Finish and Johnny Trunk / Wisbey should do an audio collaboration inspired by this?
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Little Shoppe of Horrors #30
The new issue of Little Shoppe of Horrors, devoted to Hammer’s Vampire Circus, courtesy of the fine folk at Hemlock Books arrived earlier this week. I had a vague personal interest in this issue as, in the late 1990s, I was involved with a university film society screening in which one of the film’s actors, Laurence Payne, was in attendance. Unfortunately I could not remember much about the Q&A after the screening and so was unable to provide publisher/editor Dick Klemensen with anything that could have been included in the issue.
One thing that I did do for the film society screening (self-promotion...) was prepare a programme note, a page of smallish type, maybe seven or eight hundred words on the film. Watching Vampire Circus and comparing it to other Hammer films that I had seen to that point – basically whatever had turned up on the four terrestrial UK channels, with the exception of Terence Fisher’s So Long at the Fair, which I had annoyingly failed to set the VCR for – I was struck by how atypical it was.
There was no obvious savant to oppose the monster. Nor, indeed, was there an obvious monster, the lead vampire Count Mitterhaus having been dispatched in the prologue – a sequence that would have likely presented the climax of an earlier Hammer vampire film, or been given a brief recap before plunging into the main narrative, Dracula Prince of Darkness style. The approach was more ensemble based, with character actors rather than stars. You have Thorley Walters, for instance, but no Peter Cushing. As the film went on, it became increasingly fantastique – i.e. Continental, European, not stolid British, physical, Manichean Hammer, in the Terence Fisher mould. There was the tantalising prospect that evil might, for once, win.
So I put all this into my programme notes. I doubt if anyone else in attendance would have got these references. (Okay, so I'm an arrogant SOB...)
Now, reading the various contributions to this issue I feel vindicated. What I said, what I thought, seems broadly in line with what the contributors here felt. (Okay, so I'm an arrogant SOB #2...)
Away from the Vampire Circus related material, Klemensen continues to present a meta-commentary on fandom via his reviews. His magazine also continues its commitment to looking at lesser-known Hammer personnel, through an insightful and tragic interview with actor Peter Arne, unpublished for 30 years, Arne being murdered soon after.
All told, anyone who is a fan of Hammer, British Horror, or even cult cinema in general should get this.
One thing that I did do for the film society screening (self-promotion...) was prepare a programme note, a page of smallish type, maybe seven or eight hundred words on the film. Watching Vampire Circus and comparing it to other Hammer films that I had seen to that point – basically whatever had turned up on the four terrestrial UK channels, with the exception of Terence Fisher’s So Long at the Fair, which I had annoyingly failed to set the VCR for – I was struck by how atypical it was.
There was no obvious savant to oppose the monster. Nor, indeed, was there an obvious monster, the lead vampire Count Mitterhaus having been dispatched in the prologue – a sequence that would have likely presented the climax of an earlier Hammer vampire film, or been given a brief recap before plunging into the main narrative, Dracula Prince of Darkness style. The approach was more ensemble based, with character actors rather than stars. You have Thorley Walters, for instance, but no Peter Cushing. As the film went on, it became increasingly fantastique – i.e. Continental, European, not stolid British, physical, Manichean Hammer, in the Terence Fisher mould. There was the tantalising prospect that evil might, for once, win.
So I put all this into my programme notes. I doubt if anyone else in attendance would have got these references. (Okay, so I'm an arrogant SOB...)
Now, reading the various contributions to this issue I feel vindicated. What I said, what I thought, seems broadly in line with what the contributors here felt. (Okay, so I'm an arrogant SOB #2...)
Away from the Vampire Circus related material, Klemensen continues to present a meta-commentary on fandom via his reviews. His magazine also continues its commitment to looking at lesser-known Hammer personnel, through an insightful and tragic interview with actor Peter Arne, unpublished for 30 years, Arne being murdered soon after.
All told, anyone who is a fan of Hammer, British Horror, or even cult cinema in general should get this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)