Two Birds With One Stone: Whip and the Body (1963)

Bridging my mini-series on ghosts at the movies with a mini-series on Italian Gothic Cinema comes Mario Bava's bizarre bit of S&M Gothic, Whip and the Body. Barbara Steele turned down the role of Nevenka, here played by the stunningly beautiful Israeli actress Dahlia Lavi. Nevenka has recently married Christian Menliff, but as the story opens, Christian’s brother, Kurt, played by the menacing Christopher Lee, returns to the family homestead and picks up where he left off with lovely Nevenka, namely a sadistic relationship where Kurt loves to wield the whip as much as Nevenka loves to be on the receiving end of it.

Kurt’s return throws the entire castle into turmoil. Everyone has a bone to pick with Kurt in one way or another, so it comes as no surprised that Kurt is stabbed to death in the shadows at the climax of Act One.

Kurt’s death introduces the core of the film: a long, hallucinatory sequence in which Nevenka imagines Kurt has returned from the grave. One of my favorite moments of the film is when Nevenka is summoned from her bed by the sound of a whip cracking in the night and follows it through the dusky corridors of the castle.

During the final act, the story by Ernesto Gastaldi, Ugo Guerra, and Luciano Martino pulls out the red herrings left and right. As mentioned earlier, any number of characters in the tale had motive to kill Kurt. We are even led to believe that Kurt is not really dead. The final denouement of the film is a revelation of terrible beauty.

Whip and the Body is presented in a full restored and uncensored European version (in English) from VCI Home Video. The colors are eye-popping. I would not recommend the movie be watched while under the influence of certain consciousness expanding drugs. The DVD package also includes a booklet and commentary track by Tim Lucas, one of the finest scholars of mid-century horror films around.

While the sadism plays a strong theme in the movie, don’t let that dissuade you from watching this film. By today’s standards it would probably pass with a PG-13 rating. Whip and the Body manages to be a lush, romantic, erotic and ultimately Gothic masterpiece all at once. 

Vampire Season: House of Dark Shadows

You know you really love a movie when you can watch it a thousand times and still find something new to appreciate. The VHS copy of House of Dark Shadows sits on the shelf next to about one year's worth of episodes of the TV show (whatever storyline I happen to be watching this year). Compared to the MPI volumes, the top of the cardboard box of HODS is covered in dust. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched it.

One of the most distinctive features of the movie I noticed when I watched the newly released Warner’s DVD this past week was how sleek and compact the screenplay is. Primary episode scribes Sam Hall and Gordon Russell distilled months of daily storyline into 95 minutes that combines characters and reduces story arcs to their lowest common denominator, something the Tim Burton adaptation failed to do.

Those not familiar with the television show may not fully grasp the familial relationships – Elizabeth owns Collinwood manor, Roger is her brother, David is Roger’s son, and Carolyn Elizabeth’s daughter – but it isn’t necessary to follow the storyline. We don’t even need twenty minutes of prologue telling us how Barnabas came to be cursed, who Josette is and why he plans to give governess Maggie Evans her music box.

Filmed in 1970 when old school vampires were at their cinematic peak (think Count Yorga and Christopher Lee’s Dracula popping up in A.D. 1972), Jonathan Frid’s suave, European cousin Barnabas is re-imagined with a visceral taste for blood not possible on afternoon television. The television Barnabas was a bit of a whiney-butt. After all, he is the grandfather of Anne Rice’s reluctant Louis and, whether we like it or not, great-grandfather to Stephanie Meyer’s glittery Edward., two reasons why I applaud House of Dark Shadows. This is a bosom-heaving, blood thirsty vampire movie to rival the best of Hammer Films, complete with savagely bitten throats and fonts of blood when the stakes are hammered home. It’s no wonder when I saw House of Dark Shadows at the theater in 1970 at age 11, the lobby was filled with whimpering grade-schoolers. Barnabas Collins is pee-your-pants scary. If you don’t believe me, watch what happens when Dr. Hoffman takes her revenge and Barnabas shows his true age.

Hyperactive storyline aside, free from the restraints of daytime studio video work, House of Dark Shadows features frenetic cinematography. The camera zooms, tracks, swirls, and sometimes makes the viewer sick with handheld moments. The transfer from film to DVD, while not perfect, at least presents the films murky, dark colors with more clarity, the reds more precise, than was ever possible with VHS. The cast, especially Frid, deliver fever-pitched performances, making this a classic vampire film to be reckoned with.

If you’re new to Dark Shadows (and if you follow this blog, I doubt that you are) and ready to dip your foot into the bloodbath, leave the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp debacle on the video shelf, and spend the night with this lusty demise of the Collins family as we know it.

And as always, fang me later. 

Vampire Season - Kiss of the Vampire (1963)

1963 found both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing unavailable for filming, so Hammer forged ahead on the next Dracula project. Sans the Count and Van Helsing, the script went through several rewrites, incorporating elements previously considered for Brides of Dracula. The result, Kiss of the Vampire, is once again a unique story line that may not have seen the light of day if it weren’t for the studio’s rebellious stars. 

The proceedings kick off in high gear with the usual funeral procession into a desolate cemetery. Before the parson can shovel dirt onto the casket, a grim faced fellow comes along and drives a shovel straight through the coffin lid and the screen bursts with a font of Technicolor blood.

The story then follows the trail of a pair of newlyweds, Marianne and Gerald Harcourt, who run out of petrol while honeymooning by motorcar in Europe. After seeking shelter from a sudden summer storm at a village inn, they are invited for dinner to the home of Dr. Ravna whose castle overlooks the village below. Our newlyweds are just as naïve as Marianne in Brides of Dracula, flies unwittingly drawn into the spider’s web.

Ravna has a lush daughter, Sabane, and son, Charles who knows how to hypnotize the ladies with his seductive piano playing. Along the way we learn that Ravna and his offspring are, of course, vampires who lured the innkeeper’s daughter into their cult, and would have the young girl buried in the opening scene as well if not that her father, Professor Zimmer had driven his shovel through her heart to keep her from rising from the grave.

Zimmer is a worthy stand-on for Van Helsing, a man tormented by drink and the loss of his daughter, but well versed in folklore and the ways of the occult. Wait till you get a load of the inside of his cottage.

Invited to a lavish masquerade ball at Castle Ravna, Marianne is soon waylaid to be inducted into the cult of the undead while poor Gerald wakes up with a hangover and a vast conspiracy to make him believe that his bride never existed. The ball is a stunning set piece, one of the most remarkable scenes of any Hammer horror film whose casts are notoriously sparse. Like its predecessor, Brides of Dracula, Kiss of the Vampire bursts from the screen in dazzling colors, turning the Hammer version of Transylvania into a kind of vampire storybook setting.

But the true piece de resistance of the film is the destruction of the vampire cult when Professor Zimmer unleashes a horde of bats, evil against evil. Some of the effects are cheesy, but the animation is outstanding and the scene will remind many viewers of the attacks in Hitchcock’s The Birds, released the same year.

Kiss of the Vampire comes with The Midnight Room Vampire Season Seal of Approval. 

Vampire Season - The Brides of Dracula (1960)

After an unrelentingly hot US summer that took its toll on this fair skinned red-head physically and psychologically (I am more acclimated to cold, dark places after all), Autumn kicked in full bore this past weekend with a cold snap that has me sleeping under mounds of blankets with the windows open… cause that’s how I roll. With the change in weather come the fragrant aroma of fallen leaves and the acrid smell of wood fires. Days are gloomy, nights are chilly, the dogs howl at sunset, and the bats are about – metaphorically, if not literally.

I’ve never actually put together a top ten list of favorite Hammer Films or favorite vampire movies for that matter, but Hammer’s 1960 The Brides of Dracula would rank high on either list. It’s probably sacrilege to say I don’t care for most of the Christopher Lee Dracula entries (the Peter Cushing Frankenstein series is consistently more creative and, if not frightening, at least disturbing), so what better way to kick off vampire season than with a repeat viewing of Brides of Dracula?

The story goes that Lee turned down the script, originally titled Disciples of Dracula, and that it was hastily rewritten in order to go before the cameras as scheduled. The final product shows some signs of dropped plot threads – but then, story continuity is not one of Hammer’s strong points.

What it lacks in story cohesiveness it more than makes up for with originality and some of the best set design, lighting, and cinematography of any of the Hammer entries thanks in part to the brilliant work of Director of Photography, Jack Asher.

A voiceover narration introducing the film informs the audience that Dracula is dead, but as the nineteenth century draws to a close, the cult of the undead is alive and well in Transylvania. Where else?

Our beautiful heroine, Marianne Danielle (played by “France’s newest sex kitten” Yvonne Monlaur) is traveling through the misty mountains by carriage when she is waylaid at a country village and meets the Baroness Meinster, a stiff shouldered aristocrat played to the teeth by Martita Hunt (Miss Haversham in the David Lean film version of Great Expectations). The Baroness convinces Marianne that she can’t possibly spend the night in the uncivilized country inn and whisks her away to her chateau in the mountains. Saucy French sex kitten, sinister Baroness, isolated castle – the stage is set for some vampire hanky panky.

The first act takes a surprising turn here with a brief detour into family psychodrama. It seems the mutton-sleeved Baroness has a son she keeps chained by the ankle in his tower room. To spice up the plot a bit, there’s an old family retainer on hand, Freda Jackson in a role as equally juicy as that of the Baroness. Scenes between these two women are some of the most dynamic performances in the movie, and Jackson as the young Baron’s nurse delivers a monologue that tells the back story of how the boy became a vampire.

Don’t blame me, mistress. It was none of my doing. Nay. I’ve always kept faith with you. Twenty years since I first saw you come to the castle here with the old Baron and your little son. A fine, handsome little imp he was, too. But you spoiled him. Oh, yes. He was always self-willed and cruel, and you encouraged him. Aye, and the bad company you kept, too. You used to sit and drink with them, didn’t you? Yes, and you laughed at their wicked games. Till in the end one of them took him and made him what he was. You’ve done what you could for him since then, God help you… keeping him here a prisoner, bringing those young girls to him keeping him alive with their blood.

There’s more than meets the eye in this three minute speech than is worthy of any Hammer horror flick. Just what were these wicked games, and why was the Baroness drinking with a bunch of vampires? To me, the implication is a deeper one, inferring that vampirism is a disease that is spread…well, the way diseases are spread… through, ahem…unprotected contact.

This theme of vampirism as disease was explored again in the 1963 follow-up, Kiss of the Vampire, and is what sets these two films apart from the Hammer Dracula series where Dracula is simply a vampire with no social commentary attached. If we look back at Stoker’s original novel, the fear of venereal disease was a palpable undercurrent… and it took more than 100 years for a film version (the 2006 Masterpiece Theatre version) to bring the theme literally to the forefront of the story.

There are some inventive moments in Brides of Dracula, particularly when old Greta lies atop a grave, coaxing the vampire bride to claw her way up through the fresh pile of dirt, and a shocking sequence where Van Helsing, after being bitten by the vampire, burns his throat with a fiery brand before dowsing himself with Holy Water.

The production values and unique story themes are strong enough to make up for the film’s weaker moments – an early, sinister character who follows Marianne to the village only to disappear from the movie altogether, and an embarrassing giant brown bat on a string. Whenever I watch this scene I am reminded of Nicholas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss: “Shoo, shoo.”

If you haven’t seen this entry, or haven’t seen it in a while, you’re in for a treat. If you’re into recreational psychedelics, the colors in this film just might cause you to burst a blood vessel in your eye, and that alone is worth the price of rental. It’s still easy to come by on DVD and is available from online streaming services. 

Mini Hitchcocks: Scream of Fear

Any serious fan of Hammer Films knows all about these juicy little gems, but for the more casual viewer who thinks of Hammer’s output as the Christopher Lee Dracula and Peter Cushing Frankenstein series, you’re in for quite a treat.

The film company itself coined the term “mini-Hitchcock” which had a two-fold meaning. These stories were modeled after the suspense films Psycho (and to a lesser degree, Vertigo), and were produced on an even lower budget than Psycho.

I’ve often compared these Women in Peril stories to some of the Gothic Romances of the same era. Scream of Fear (Taste of Fear in Britain) came out in 1961. Its mechanical plot twists borrow heavily from the aforementioned Hitchcock titles, but also from women’s suspense thrillers of the day. Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree comes to mind.

Scream of Fear is the first and arguably the best of the series (which also includes Maniac, Paranoiac, and Nightmare, among others). Jimmy Sangster’s script is chock full of red herrings and surprise twists, some of them less plausible than others. Props go to director Seth Holt for making it all look classy and believable.

Susan Strasberg plays Penny Appleby, a wheelchair bound, dark haired waif in oversized Foster Grant sunglasses, who returns to the home on the French Riviera she has not visited in more than ten years. Here she meets her new stepmother, Jane (Ann Todd), Robert, the handsome chauffeur, and Dr. Pierre Gerrard (Christopher Lee), her father’s physician. Papa Appleby, however, seems to be missing. Or is he? Penny talks to him over the phone – the day after seeing his corpse propped up in a chair inside the pool house. Is Papa dead? Is Penny mad, or is something more sinister going on?

I’m a big fan of psychological thrillers and mysteries with clever twists and turns. This sort of movie makes me giddy and I can pop one of them in the DVD player several times a year. Others may throw up their hands in despair crying, “Give me a break!” Whichever the case, if you are unfamiliar with these twisted little thrillers and have a pining for lovely old black and white suspense films, track this one down. And as always, thank me later.

The Gothic Zombie

Zombies are taking over the world. AMC’s The Walking Dead is one of the highest rated series on cable television. In major cities around the globe, Zombie Walks and Pub Crawls are held annually in late October to the delight of participants and onlookers alike. Resident Evil, the video games, movies, novels, and comics franchise unleashed in 1996 shows no sign of being stopped. George Romero’s classic 1968 low budget drive-in shocker, Night of the Living Dead, is considered one of the seminal works in the zombie genre.

But another classic from the sixties, 1966’s British Gothic, Plague of the Zombies, often goes overlooked and uncredited for its contributions to the genre. Plague of the Zombies is a minor yet potent entry in the Hammer Horror Films oeuvre, the film company best known for bringing us the outstanding Dracula series starring Christopher Lee and the companion Frankenstein films featuring Peter Cushing. For my money, Plague of the Zombies is one of the studio’s best productions during their mid-sixties horror boom.

Where today’s zombies are a result of science gone horribly awry, Plague’s zombies are straight up old school, the result of a tyrannical landowner using Haitian voodoo magik to bring the dead back to life as a source of cheap labor for his tin mine.

Typical of the studio’s horror output, Plague of the Zombies boasts a period setting in the late 19^th Century, with exteriors shot in Berkshire, standing in for the Cornish moors. Combined with historically accurate costumes (no low-cut Hammer bodices in this entry), a superb back lot village set, and brimming with scenes of voodoo drumming, blood rituals, rotting corpses rising from the grave in misty graveyards, and doe eyed English lassies being chased by a pack of local rakes across the moonlit moor, Plague of the Zombies is sumptuous Gothic eye candy. Filmed in dazzling color by DeLuxe by Hammer’s Arthur Grant, the cinematography is appropriately dark and moody, using light and framing to maximum effect.

There may not be much brain munching here, but Plague of the Zombies deserves to be viewed by fans of zombies and Gothic films alike. Thankfully, the DVD is still in print, readily available for purchase from Anchor Bay Home Video via Amazon, or for rental through Netflix’s home delivery service.