Midwinter of the Spirit (2015)

Slightly spooky. Equal parts irritating, hysterical, obvious and silly with a lacklustre ending.

Letterboxd Review

Satan’s Blood (1978)

Sex (a lot), cannibalism (not much) and black-candled, goat-worshipping flimflam (much more than normal) - just the way I like my Satanistic horror films. A few points:

• Why is the non-black dog called Blackie?
• How can they be following a car and then the same car approach them from behind?
• The ouija shit went on far too long.
• Stars an actress who looks very much like Jenny Agutter but gets her kit off even more.
• Was that magick lard they were smearing on each other?
• Who the hell was the bloke in the wooly hat?
• Why do they want to eat all the time?
• After the male satanist gets shot in the head, Jenny Agutter helpfully advises that "he needs a doctor"!
• Just how many times will they try and leave the house of the devil?
• What was with that doll?

A strange mix of bonkers and earnestness.

Note that the pretty crappy subtitles on the Screenbound blu-ray are often a little hard to read - small, white on white text is not good.

Letterboxd Review

Number 13 (2006)

How the opening of a hidden letter can seal a man's fate. A tale of curses, witchcraft and a missing room.

Whereas in previous adaptations, James's heroes/victims tend to be, with a few exceptions, fairly likeable academics caught up in their own little world, this time we have Greg Wise as Professor Anderson, an egotistical and supercilious historian. An easy man to dislike and to help us there's lawyer and bon vivant Edward Jenkins (played by Tom Burke), acting as a foil and irritating Anderson with his every act. David Burke makes a welcome return as the hotel landlord after his appearance in the previous A View From a Hill.

More heavy-handed (the sound design isn't exactly subtle and the feel of the film is reminiscent of The Haunting) than A View From a Hill but this works in the film's favour, slowly building the tension until the quite physical conclusion and the cracking of an Oxford don's empiricism. Good stuff!

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

Letterboxd Review

The Pendle Witch Child (2011)

An interesting documentary on the Pendle/Lancaster witch trails with some very nice animation. Would make a nice companion piece to either Haxan or The Witch and it's available on iPlayer.

See Mark C's review for a more detailed review.

Letterboxd Review

The Witch (2015)

I, for one, welcome our new cloven-hooved overlord.

Letterboxd Review

Simon, King of the Witches (1971)

A Promethean tale of man challenging the gods and the establishment through magic, magick or however you prefer to "spell" (boom-tish!) it. Earnest in its approach of the subject matter, although that doesn't mean it's not fucking hilarious in places (the Wiccan ceremony for one), and the only film I know of with a magical erection that won't go away. Remember though, that there's always a price to pay and in this case, it's the terrible clothes. Super groovy man!

Letterboxd Review

The Antichrist (1974)

A cross between The Exorcist and The Devils with a bit of Rosemary's Baby thrown in for good measure and a beautiful, violin-led Morrecone score.

Letterboxd Review

The Devil Rides Out (1968)

A simple tale of witchcraft, faith and the triumph of good over evil.

This review is for the new Studio Canal Blu-Ray; a restoration taken from new a 4K scan of the original negative (note that the actual release is a 2K downscale). The original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 is kept and the film is very slightly pillar-boxed with narrow black bands at the side of the screen. The picture itself is wonderful and I can't imagine there being a better release of this late-sixties, Hammer classic. So far so good, but what about the controversial digital enhancements to the original optical effects? Well, I'll leave you in suspense until the end of the review.

The Devil Rides Out is possibly the first horror film I ever saw as a child, although due to the haze of time this honour may go to an equally loved film, Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon (1957). At the time that the film conjured an almost palpable sense of dread and terror that made quite the impression on a young boy, aged still in single figures. As a result I've owned The Devil Rides Out in various formats over the years from dodgy "recorded from TV" bootleg tapes, to legit VHS and DVD and now a Blu-Ray. Is it still as good? Well, after seeing the original cinema 'X' certification ident at the beginning of the film, I was hoping so.

The film follows Duc de Richleau (Christopher Lee), aristocrat and occultist and his friends Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene) and Richard Eaton (Paul Eddington) as they try to save the lives and very souls of son-of-a-friend Simon (Patrick Mower) and mystical conduit Tanith (Niké Arrighi) from the dastardly cult leader Mocata (Charles Gray).

The story could come off as risible and overblown, but is treated with with absolutely seriousness and gravitas by all concerned. By all accounts Christopher Lee really did believe that witchcraft was a dangerous subject that could imperil your sanity and soul. The film latches onto the late sixties fascination with the occult and mysticism and goes to great lengths to portray magic with an accuracy that cannot but aid believability and sustains suspension-of-disbelief throughout the film.

The Devil Rides Out relies, in equal parts, in both the horror of the imagination and some more physical manifestations of evil. Along the path to salvation our heroes must face a djinn, a giant spider, Baphomet, and even the Angel of Death itself.

That the film does not rely on blood and gore (of which there is none) but instead  builds a totally believable world filled with a real sense of dread and impending doom is a testament to the care and attention of the cast and crew. Set in the late twenties the setting could come over as a little old fashioned and privileged with every speaking part (apart from two butlers) being either stinking rich or members of the aristocracy but at least it sticks to its guns and rarely makes a mistake in set or dressing - one notable error is the 1960s haircut and rather repulsive and flammable dresses belonging to Richard Eaton's wife. There is none of the farcical, tongue-in-cheek campness that infected British horror of the period.

Directed by Terence Fisher (The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula) with his usual colourful gothic style, The Devil Rides Out oozes the "good versus evil" duality in his Christian background and, during one scene, even goes so far as to have Mocata equate Satanism with science. The compositions are quite beautiful and the use of colour even more so.

The screenplay by horror legend Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Twilight Zone) roars along like Lee's 1927 Bentley barely pausing for breath; there is always something on screen to hold your attention.

Lee plays de Richleau perfectly, perhaps calling on his own aristocratic roots. He is authoritative, commanding and strong, used to people doing his will. What Mocata obtains through mesmerism and cunning, Lee achieves with will and a belief in the social hierarchy present in Britain at the time. A favourite 'Lee' scene of mine is when, towards the beginning of the film, Tanith mentions "Surely we're not meant to be more than 13"; the sharp look that Lee gives her is wonderful!

Charles Gray plays the mesmeric, seductive and quietly menacing Mocata. A villain very much in the mould of Karswell from Tourneur's Night of the Demon but without the childlike petulance. Sort of like a cross between an insurance salesman and Derren Brown.

I know he gets a lot of stick but I think Leon Greene (with Patrick Allen's voice!) is great as de Richleau's friend Rex and the film's resident blundering oaf; forever sticking his foot in his mouth and creating danger wherever he goes. His disbelief in magic is as much to do with stupidity and lack of imagination as it is rationalism.Sure he can be as wooden as a post but I sort of like his blank faced charm. He plays us, the audience, the doubters who need persuading that dark forces really do exist.

Joining Lee and Greene in our triumvirate of heroes is Paul Eddington (The Good Life; Yes Minister) as Richard "Nice but Dim" Eaton the husband of her of the hideous dresses.

A young Patrick Mower (Cry of the Banshee, Callan) is suitably wet-behind-the-ears as the naive Satanist neophyte Simon and is joined by Niké Arrighi as a beautiful and slightly odd and unhinged Tanith. Together they make a great pair of damsels-in-distress, needing constant vigilance to make sure they don't go wondering off back to Mocata or strangling someone in their sleep.

Finally, I must mention a brief appearance by Gwen Ffrangcon Davies as a Countess with the weirdest, most fucked up eyes ever to grace the screen.

While it has its faults (the back-projection during the car scenes is a little ropey and the black baptism orgy could have been a little raunchier), The Devil Rides Out is a master-class in creating a tense horror film from one of Britain's finest genre directors and featuring a top-notch cast. A beautiful restoration of a classic film.

Now, on to the effects enhancements. During the making of The Devil Rides Out the budget given to effects wizard Michael Staiver-Hutchins was cut, ensuring that the majority of the major set-piece effects were unfinished or reduced in scale. Having watched this film well over ten times in the past few decades I can state that I never really cared that much as the atmosphere carried me past all the shonky genies and wobbly observatories. Having said that, I was really impressed with the lightness of touch used in updating the old optical effects. This wasn't a case of George Lucas stomping all over Star Wars in his size 12 "Industrial Light & Magic" boots. These, apart from a replaced lightening strike, are subtle enhancements that complement rather than obscure. Well done Cineimage!

Extras:

I have not listened to the commentary as yet.

The "making of" short documentary was extremely interesting and explained how having Black Magic rituals in the film was important as at the time the UK censors regularly cut them from films (i.e. Masque of the Red Death) and the country still had blasphemy laws (and, unbelievably, still do). Also featured is mention of the late 1960s occult revival and an interview with a very old and infirm Richard Matheson. A couple of interesting facts: Patrick Mower, who plays Simon, is 6' tall but looks short because the rest of the male cast were even taller. The horse playing the Angel of Death's mount was wheezy and only had one lung!

The restoration featurette features the daughters of special effects supervisor along with people from the restoration company, Cineimage. As mentioned above, the original effects were relatively poor, even for the time, due to budgetary restraints. I think the restoration/enhancements to the old optical effects were very sympathetically done and this doc explains how they were created. Anyway, his daughters said he'd be happy with the enhancements and that's good enough for me.

The short Dennis Wheatley featurette contains various talking-heads discussing Wheatley's reaction to Hammer's three adaptations.

Finally, for some strange reason the "World of Hammer" extra has something wrong with its audio (at least for me). Oliver Reed's voice-over pretty much disappeared apart from a deep rumble. This makes me think that they'd stuck it on the wrong channel - the subwoofer! In an attempt to fix this I turned off my 5.1 system and just used the TV sound. Oliver Reed was back, although still very, very badly mixed and almost lost against any of the clip soundtracks. I gave up.

"Don't look at the eyes Rex!"

"The Goat of Mendes, the Devil himself!"

"I shall not be back... but something will"

Letterboxd Review

Dark Power (1985)

The film starts with a young boy, aged about ten, walking through the woods with his toy bow and sucker-tipped arrows being chased by a pack of dogs. What! A boy aged ten in the 1980s should have made his own bow and nail tipped arrows and also had a belt full of pipe bombs! To be honest the dogs look more cuddly than vicious and I'd have been more afraid of being licked to death than mauled. Anyway, the snivelling and ill equipped boy is saved from his canine fate by an old beardy boy scout with a bull whip... Ladies and gentlemen I give you Lash Larue. Get used to the whip because he sure likes to use it! It was like party time at Madam Cyn's house during Parliament recess!

So the story is that an old man who kept some Toltec evil buried under his house dies and it's up to Lash Larue to put that genie back in the proverbial bottle. Unfortunately the house is soon let to four nubile young women and a creepy, racist brother. After that we just have to wait for the rather ridiculous killing to start.

The first half of the film almost like a show-reel for Lash Larue and that damned whip of his. Enough with the fucking whip! Plus his wise old man shtick gets a little tiring after a while.

There's a fair amount of "everyday racism" and a few n-bombs and I was hoping that the perpetrators were to be quickly dispatched as punishment. No, it took far too long. In fact it took way too long for any of them to die. Every one of these little bastards seemed to have stepped straight out of a shitty Porkies rip-off. At one point one of them flosses her teeth! Why do that on camera? Why not have a shit as well? Please stop it!

The four Toltec zombies are terrible with some of the worst masks and outfits I've seen in a horror film. Their bows seem to have strings made from underwear elastic, most of the killing scenes are pretty disappointing, and the comedic zombie routines were utterly misplaced. And that fucking xylophone that played when ever they were on screen drove me nuts! Plus that house must have the best sound insulation ever to stop the girls inside from hearing the zombie shenanigans going on outside.

Then, at long last Lash Larue and that fucking whip turns up to save the day. What do we get? Fucking "cavalry charge" music! That's right, a bearded white man turns up to save the poor women from the Native Americans with a trumpeted charge and a whip! Oh dear. A little while later, during a very, very, very dull bull-whip duel, he even calls one of the zombies "boy". As far as saving the day goes I don't think you could get any more racist unless there were a few burning crosses on the lawn.

Dark Power's biggest problem though is that its nearly 50 minutes until you see any blood! Simply inexcusable!

Unfortunately the picture on my Dead of Night DVD was bright and clear with reasonably clean audio, although the soundtrack does tend to drown out the dialogue a little.

Rubbish. Do yourself a favour and pass this one by. Anyone want to buy a DVD?

Letterboxd Review

Demon Resurrection (2009)

A young ex-cult member gives birth to a demon, whilst all around her zombies threaten the lives of her friends.

Demon Resurrection was shot on digital but has a real SOV feel to it. Maybe it's down to the 4:3 aspect ratio, but you could really imagine this being shot in the 80's. Where a lot of low-budget underground horror films take the easy route of cheesiness to counter any claims that the film is silly, Demon Resurrection has the balls to take itself seriously. There are no crappy jokes, no over-the-top performances, no gross-out scenes for the sake of it. Instead writer/director William Hopkins takes several elements from other films to create a decent and believable plot, builds atmosphere, and gives us a nice pay-off at the end. This is a film that wears it's influences on it's sleeve, from the one building location of Night of the Living Dead, the impregnation and subsequent birth of Rosemary's Baby, to the feel of Hammer's "Witchcraft" films The Devil Rides Out and To the Devil a Daughter. The influences don't stop there, there's also the cosmic horror of Lovecraft and even a Cthulhu-like beast makes an appearance, admittedly in book form, but it all adds depth.

Sure the film looks amateur but the director has a real feel for film making and there are some really nice shot choices. Occasionally you can tell that he was limited by lenses when he has trouble framing several subjects in an interior shot, but really, who gives a shit. The editing is nice as well, I have no idea if more than one camera was used but it really feels like there were several just like in a more expensively shot movie. The performances are well above the standard of usual low-budget films and no-one stands out as being particularly crappy. The sound can get a little muffled and fuzzy in places but otherwise it's nice and clean. The soundtrack is subtle, unobtrusive and adds to the creepy enclosed atmosphere. The video effects were minimal and well used; pretty much all the special effects were practical with CGI being limited to a green fuzz that surrounds the zombies and a couple of other scenes.

On to the blood and guts. The zombie creatures were really quite good. Sure you can tell they were wearing rubber masks and but they had a sort of endearing Rawhead Rex feel to them. I loved them! The blood was standard corn syrup and the guts were either good latex or pig innards. We've got some typical disembowelling (a windowpane evisceration was a stand-out), a broken zombie arm piercing a neck, the demon baby birthing scene (reminiscent of Alien), some boob chewing, and something you don't see in many films... someone pissing their pants. There are a couple of naked scenes but these are handled well and don't come over as softcore porn shoehorned in to sell DVDs.

Demon Resurrection has a good plot, decent effects, tension, jeopardy, and a nice twist at the end. Overall, really good fun for SOV junkies but glossy Platinum Dunes multiplex horror fans should stay clear.

You can buy it straight from the director here

Letterboxd Review

Starry Eyes (2014)

Hey, we're all stars... aren't we?

Starry Eyes starts with an examination of our unhealthy obsession with fame, celebrity, stardom and the darkness, filth and corruption that sits just beneath the thinly veneered gloss of Hollywood. How far will we go for validation and acceptance?

I loved the first half of the film but the second falls into its own pool of decomposing body-horror silliness, full of obvious metaphor and none of the subtlety of the first 40 minutes, but I guess they needed to pull the punters in somehow.

I think I would have preferred Starry Eyes if it was a 40's black & white film staring Bette Davis with (and this is the possibly only time you'll hear this from me) none of the gore!

Original letterboxd review

Inferno (1980)

This sequel to Argento's fever dream of Suspiria is a terrific gothic horror in the tradition of Corman's Pit and the Pendulum and Masque of the Red Death.

Dario throws us into a giallo tinged, demonic thriller filled with a Boris Karloff like antique dealer, vicious rats, bubbling cauldrons, cowled figures half hidden in shadows, organ music, candelabras, dark basements, dusty libraries and cats; lots and lots of nasty cats. Every gothic trope is present and correct but updated with the long knives and black gloves of giallo.

With cinematography tighter and more claustrophobic than Suspiria and Profondo rosso, deep shadows, red and blue lighting and some fantastic sound design, Argento builds tension beautifully until the fire-lit finale.

I've knocked half a star off for Keith Emerson's sometimes, inappropriate score - the taxi ride particularly stands out.

As a parting note: did anyone else notice the parallel between Argento's scene in the music conservatory and Polanski's witchcraft lecture in The Ninth Gate?

Original letterboxd review

The Conspiracy (2012)

A below average faux documentary about the new world order, mithras worship etc.

I had no idea what I was about to watch as I didn't read the synopsis and assumed it was just a documentary. Then, in the first few minutes, we are introduced to an ageing conspiracy theorist in the usual grubby flat with iots walls covered in clippings. This is where my issue with this film started - all the clippings were of a uniform photocopier white and not the expected mixture of whites, yellows and brown aged newsprint - everything was too perfect, too clean, too... arranged. The film was paused while I checked and, yes, it was a mockumentary. Suspension of disbelief (hugely important in this type of film) was broken into little pieces and I just couldn't get into the film again.

I did continue watching and the rest was one telegraphed twist after another. Anyone that is surprised by the final scenes really needs to watch a few more thrillers.

A decent idea ruined in its execution.

Original letterboxd review

Natas: The Reflection (1986)

An hour and a half for a bunch of kids to work out that Natas backwards is satan. This film sucks, not in a good "Plan 9" sort of way, but in a set your own body on fire and wait for someone to our a bucket full of rancid shit over your head to put out the cleansing flames sort of way.

Original letterboxd review

The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)

Great folk witchcraft story that will sit on your shelves happily between Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man. Stunning photography, great music and believable dialogue. Much darker than the usual fayre of the time. Even the effects were pretty spot on - the skin slicing being particularly gruesome.

The film was only let down in two places: the cut between the young man hiding in an attic and then suddenly being bound and in the woods was very direct and confusing for a few seconds. Secondly, the reveal of the devil was a little disappointing.

A classic British horror film that doesn't take the easy route of cheesy campness that so many films of the time did.

Original letterboxd review

Evilspeak (1981)

The uncut extended Anchor Bay version. Note that the "extended" pieces of film are in a noticeably worse condition than the rest of the film and that they do not contain any extra gore, blood or sex.

Really enjoyed this movie. It's really a 70's devil worship film crossed with an 80's computer goes wrong film. A great omen-a-like soundtrack and pretty terrific effects (even the computer graphics/animations) for a cheap 80's movie. Go on, give it a watch.

Original letterboxd review

Night of the Demon (1957)

One of the greatest horror films ever made.

I've loved this film since I was a child. It is one of the few genre films that doesn't seem to have lost any impact in the 40 years since I saw it first. Niall MacGinnis is fantastic as the almost childlike but sinister Karswell and Dana Andrews (drunk or not) introduces just the right amount of scepticism into proceedings . Stand-out scene: the children's party! Give me this over any of these modern teen horrors any day.

Original letterboxd review