Squirm

Jeff Lieberman's 1976 debut is one of the great underrated Horror movies of the 70's, a film which should have a place among the classic drive-in flicks of the decade but instead feels doomed to live out it's existence with the likes of Bug (1975) and Empire of the Ants (1977). In 1999 the film was given the Mystery Science Theatre treatment, an odd choice along side the usual MST3K schlock - yes this film is about a town under siege from carnivorous earth worms but Squirm is made with such style and confidence that it seems a breed apart from most of the other creepy-crawly films of the era.

Nature blows a fuse in the small rural town of Fly Creek when a storm topples electrical lines sending thousands of volts into the moist earth turning the local worm population into ferocious flesh eaters. New York interloper Mick and his flame-haired girlfriend Geri investigate the strange goings on and uncover some locals devoured clean to the bone, but worse is to come as darkness descends on the town and the worms prepare for supper... On the face of it Squirm is a nature vs mankind film in the tradition of The Birds, but dig deeper and the film reveals a sly subversive strain, the paranoia and repressed emotions of an insular community bubbling to the surface in the form of irrational violence. Aside from one spectacularly gruesome Rick Baker effect, the film was originally awarded a PG rating, but Lieberman fills his film with disquieting images which play on our inherent distaste for all things slimy and slithering - a large fat worm is seen spilling out of a chocolate soda, or the famous shot of worms emerging from the perforations of a shower head. There's some striking macro photographic images as well with the worms seen in extreme close-up, Lieberman's nod to the giant bug movies of the 50's perhaps, but a clever device nonetheless emphasizing just how alien these creatures are.

Squirm begins with an introductory scroll reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and while it seems the similarities end there story wise, stylistically both films share some common ground, with Lieberman reigning in the splatter, with the emphasis on mood and atmosphere. No doubt American International expected some drive-in fodder when the studio allotted Lieberman just twenty-something days to shoot the film, but the first time director managed to circumvent the budget limitations with some impressive exterior photography, the wild Georgia locations looking damp, off season even sinister, and there's some audacious camerawork employing a huge wide angle lens to depict the worms' point of view. As with the director's subsequent films Blue Sunshine and Just Before Dawn, Squirm has an eerie, subtle musical score, as well as a very effective sound design which perfectly compliments the visceral images.

Performances in general are better than typically seen in this type of film, helped in no small part by Lieberman’s writing which breathes life into his characters, giving his cast various bits of business to work with – the pot-smoking tomboy younger sister, the mother with the frazzled nerves, the greasy womanising sheriff, and the dim-witted and disgruntled bait boy under the yoke of his father. One suspects that lead actor Don Scardino is a stand-in for the Brooklyn-born director and his fish-out-of-the-water routine is often very funny. It’s a shame Scardino didn’t appear before the camera more often, but he can be seen in He Knows You’re Alone and Cruising, later going on to produce and direct big TV shows like The Cosbys, Law and Order and 30 Rock

MGM’s 2003 R1 DVD (still denied an official release in the UK for no good reason) looks fantastic and is simply the best looking Squirm to date. The 1.85 anamorphic image looks terrific, colors are vibrant, black levels are solid and the picture is pleasingly sharp restoring much detail obliterated on the old Vestron and Orion tapes. The mono sound is fine too. Extras include the theatrical trailer, a TV spot and best of all an excellent and very worthwhile commentary by Jeff Lieberman who discusses every aspect of the production, including what big name stars almost ended up in the cast, and explains how the whole worm infestation was caused by the movie Ocean’s 11 – to find out more, be sure to catch it.

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Notes
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To read more about Squirm and the films of Jeff Lieberman, head over to Jon's excellent and comprehensive career retrospective at the The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies

Michael Mann on Heat

This post marks the first of a projected series recalling little nuggets gleaned from film maker commentaries. In this first instalment, Michael Mann remembers a primary source of inspiration behind his cops n’ robbers epic Heat...

There was a painting that inspired me about this moment and that painting probably got me interested in making this motion picture of Heat longer than anything else, and it was a painting of a table with a .45 on it and a rear shot of a man standing against a background, and contained within it somebody was involved in some life of aggression and action and yet the contrast was in the mental state because here was a moment of inner loneliness. It didn’t dictate something, instead it posed a question – what is this man thinking, what is he imagining...

Michael Mann, Heat (Warners DVD/Blu-Ray, commentary index point 20:12)

Pacific by Alex Colville, 1967

Blood, Boobs and Beast

Documentaries about film makers are a dime a dozen these days but few are as enjoyable and as affecting as this 2007 portrait of Don Dohler, a Baltimore director and producer who specialized in ultra cheap Sci-fi and Horror pictures. Dohler may not be a household name but chances are you've come across one of his films at some point. His debut feature from 1978, The Alien Factor was a staple of late night TV (and still shows to this day on TV in the UK and Ireland), while his subsequent films Fiend (1980) and Night Beast (1982) were two of the more memorable films from the early VHS era, if only for their striking sleeves which commanded attention from the shelves of the video store. Blood, Boobs and Beast begins in conventional enough fashion when director John Kinhart caught up with Dohler during the production of 2007's Dead Hunt, and found Dohler at an impasse in his career - to continue working in the stressful world of no-budget film making or to focus on family commitments. Ultimately, Dohler had to abandon film production entirely when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and Kinhart's documentary assumed a much higher calling, as an epitaph for an unsung but much loved film maker.

Don Dohler interviewed in 2007

In some respects Don Dohler could be compared with Andy Milligan - despite making films at the low end of the exploitation market, both were talented artists in their own right and lived rich and fascinating lives. Unlike Andy Milligan, Dohler was not a psychotic prima donna, but a quiet, soft spoken family man who made films out of sheer love for the craft. Kinhart's film picks up Dohler's story in the 60's when Dohler began publishing Wild! a comic fanzine that would later mutate into underground comic Pro-Junior (securing Dohler's lofty position in the world of underground comics). In the 70's Dohler shifted gears and published Cinemagic Magazine, an influential journal for aspiring special effects artists. Dohler's first film The Alien Factor from 1977 rode the coattails of the Star Wars craze, and was a schlocky sci-fi-monster movie hybrid which became a favourite on local TV networks. Dohler made sporadic films throughout the '80's including 1991's Blood Massacre, said to be Dohler's best film, but the film went unseen for four years when the film's backers high-tailed it with Dohler's workprint only to be recovered by chance some years later. Exacerbate by the whole business, Dohler took an extended leave from film making not returning until 2001 for a belated sequel to The Alien Factor

Blood, Boobs and Beast includes many clips from Dohler's films and it must be said that most of them look terrible. Dohler would later branch into video production (with collaborator Joe Ripple handling directing duties) and these are especially grueling. In discussing his career Dohler makes no claim that his films are great art, and seems genuinely amazed that fans would seek him out at conventions to autograph DVDs, let alone that he would be the subject of a documentary. Unlike say American Movie, Kinhart maintains a great respect for Dohler throughout the film especially in the sequences chronicling the weekend shoots of Dead Hunt, a blue collar production plagued by misfortunes that would otherwise be ripe for a Spinal Tap-style parody (the unexpected departure from the film of the leading man when his wife goes into labour, or the film crew routinely triggering an alarm at the warehouse where the film was shot, much to the security company and owner's annoyance). To his credit, Kinhard maintained a respectful distance from Dohler as his illness took over and the film includes just one very poignant scene where a visibly frail Dohler hands over his personal film archive to Joe Ripple.

The documentary gathers together a number of Dohler friends and family, many of whom were at the centre of his film world, like Dohler's kids who pop up in various bit parts, and Dohler often shot his films in and around the homes of friends and neighbors. Also featured are two Dohler fans who offer an amusing Greek chorus style commentary on their hero but interestingly cast an uncertain light on Joe Ripple suggesting that Dohler's films took a sharp decline when Ripple came on board, citing the shot-on-video silicone pole dancer antics of 2004's Vampire Sisters as ample proof. In fact Dohler cringed at the idea of sex in his films and included it only when a distributor demanded (the title of the documentary is supposedly the three essential ingredients for a profitable horror picture). Also featured in the film are Tom Savini and Tom Sullivan who discuss Dohler' Cinemagic magazine with some fondness, (Sullivan recalls bringing issues of Cinemagic to Tennessee when he was designing the special effects for The Evil Dead) as well as J.J. Abrams who composed the score for Night Beast when he was still in his teens.

As much as it pains me to recommend a Troma DVD, Blood, Boobs and Beast is required viewing for fans of independent Cinema, and amateur film makers. Aside from the usual Troma junk, this DVD is a fine package, with a very welcome second disc containing Night Beast. The documentary itself looks excellent, with a crisp fullscreen image (a sharp contrast to the scuzzy clips from Dohler's films). The main extra on Blood, Boobs and Beast disc is an informative commentary from director John Kinhart.

*****

Night Beast, Dohler’s second feature from 1982 can be approached in two ways – as an affectionate tip of the hat to '50's monster movies, or a documentary about a bunch of non-actors struggling with a screenplay they may not have read. In the film, an alien from the far side of the galaxy crash lands in a rural American town, and promptly begins disemboweling and vaporising the inhabitants. The only thing standing in it's way are the town sheriff and some brave locals...


Night Beast is quite frankly a terrible film, and after some 87 colossal minutes, it's a relief when the film comes to a close. Whatever suspicion one might have about Dohler's film making skills, a large part of the problem is the film's ultra low budget which has Dohler cutting corners throughout, like a scene where the creature is breaking down a basement door, but rather than seeing the beast destroy the door, Dohler simply tosses bits of wooden debris before the camera. Optical effects are embarrassingly crude as well, like the alien's laser blasts turning its victims into glowing silhouettes (much like the starkicker logo seen on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test). Fortunately the alien soon loses its gun (prohibitively expensive to run no doubt) and is reduced to ripping his victims apart, at one point resulting in one of the worst severed head effects I've ever seen.

Of the cast, only Jamie Zemarel delivers anything approaching a performance and proves far more resilient than leading man Tom Griffith who plays the utterly ineffectual sheriff who sports quite an extraordinary hairdo. Griffith also gets to bed his leading lady in a truly unflattering and protracted love scene that will have viewers pressing the fast-forward button in a desperate frenzy. It would be unfair to rest all the blame for Night Beast at Don Dohler's feet. In fact Dohler shows some occasional talent, and is well capable of framing a shot and putting together an action set piece, and there is at least one inspired moment in the film when the alien is electrocuted, the scene illuminated only by subliminal blue slivers of light given off by the discharge. By far the most successful element of the film is the excellent electronic score partly attributed to a 16 year old Jeffrey Abrams.

To put it delicately, Night Beast is like all of Don Dohler's films, an acquired taste, but if you're a fan of Without Warning and The Deadly Spawn you might not want to pass this one up. Troma's DVD of Night Beast is decent enough. The fullscreen image looks suitably lo-fi with grain by the truckload and colors that lack vitality - but still a strangely agreeable transfer considering the film's poverty row budget. Audio is fine, if limited. Extras include a 6min collection of outakes and bloopers, some behind the scenes footage and a director's commentary.

The Devil Rides Out

Hammer's 1968 film The Devil Rides Out based on Dennis Wheatley's hugely popular 1934 novel was the first of the studio's three Wheatley's adaptations, soon followed by The Lost Continent and some years later by To the Devil A Daughter. In 1963, three of Wheatley's novels, The Devil Rides Out, To The Devil A Daughter and The Satanist were publicly optioned and acting on the advice of Christopher Lee (who knew Wheatley personally, both sharing an interest in black magic and the occult), Hammer bought the rights to all three properties. In 1964 the studio set to work on The Devil Rides Out. Producer Tony Hinds commissioned John Hunter to write a screenplay (having previously written Hammer's 1960 child molestation drama Never Take Sweets From A Stranger) but Hunter's adaptation proved unsatisfactory, and Hammer next approached Richard Matheson, who delivered a faithful rendering of Wheatley's novel whilst sidestepping some of the more kinkier, censor-baiting aspects of the book. Terence Fisher was appointed directing duties and in the summer of 1967 The Devil Rides Out finally began shooting.

In the film Duc de Richleau and his friend Rex discover their friend Simon has become involved in a satanic cult, and he and a young woman are about to be baptized into the world of black magic. After rescuing both from the initiation ceremony, de Richleau and his friends come under attack from cult leader Mocata, a powerful and dangerous sorcerer determined to get back his young recruits... Worth admitting upfront that I find The Devil Rides Out one of Hammer's most disappointing films, and there was much trepidation on my part approaching this review, such is the high esteem Horror fans hold the film in. Even the usual Hammer naysayers are conspicuously absent when the film comes up for discussion. First, the good stuff - Fisher's stylish relaxed direction, those beautiful elliptical dolly shots around the protective circle, complimented by Arthur Grant’s atmospheric lighting; the striking set pieces (the spectral genie in the observatory, the appearance of the horned Satan); some memorable dialogue (at one point Mocata warns “I shall not be back... but something will. Tonight, something will come for Simon and the girl”), and of course a majestic and towering Christopher Lee in one of his best roles for Hammer.

The reputation of The Devil Rides Out may well be secure as one of the great Hammer classics, but the film is deeply flawed in many respects. Technically, the film has not aged well, there's some atrocious back projection during a car chase sequence, and the big special effects set piece where de Richleau and his band of defenders are menaced by a monstrous tarantula and the Angel of Death appearing on horseback, is poorly realized and badly edited. Matheson's screenplay has its problems too. It tips the balance of power too much in de Richleau’s favor and badly undercuts the dramatic tension, the question of good conquering evil never quite seems in doubt considering de Richleau can counteract black magic with a simple spell, and the devil can be banished with little more than a crucifix. Also, the support cast are too thinly sketched - Charles Gray’s Mocata feels underwritten and de Richleau’s right-hand man, Rex is a thankless role for actor Leon Greene, playing a character who seemingly botches any task assigned to him.

More frustrating though is the film's lack of daring in its presentation of Satanism and witchcraft. These were of course delicate subjects for Hammer to be toying with, but the film does feel unnecessarily chaste - even the studio's 1966 film The Witches hinted at something more perverse during the climactic orgy, and tellingly the BBFC signed off on the film without so much as a cut, head censor John Trevelyan even citing the film as one of the studio's best pictures. Worse still The Devil Rides Out feels decidedly quaint when compared to the powerful and disturbing Rosemary's Baby released in close succession, and one might argue that the writing was on the wall for Hammer Horror at this point with the arrival of Polanski's film and 1968's other major Horror, Night of the Living Dead.

Optimum's DVD of The Devil Rides Out features a very impressive 1.66 anamorphic transfer, taken from a excellent quality print, exhibiting only a little grain during some special effects shots. The mono audio sounds robust and dialogue is sharp. For extras only the theatrical trailer is included, a shame Christopher Lee's commentary track from the US Anchor Bay edition could not be included. The Anchor Bay disc also featured a World of Hammer episode (simply entitled "Hammer") but sadly this and the later edition which included Rasputin the Mad Monk are now well out print.

Andrei Tarkovsky: A Photographic Chronicle of The Making of The Sacrifice

This latest addition to the Tarkovsky library takes an intimate look at the making of the Russian film maker's final masterpiece The Sacrifice, shot during the summer of 1985 on the Swedish island of Gotland.

Author Layla Alexander-Garrett who worked as Tarkovsky's interpreter and liaison between the director and the film's Swedish crew, took over two hundred photographs whilst on set recording the process of making the film as well as Tarkovsky's life in Sweden. The Sacrifice has already been the subject of the 1988 documentary Directed By Andrei Tarkovsky but Alexander-Garrett's book offers a different take on the film's production - rather than showing Tarkovsky as the serious artist (as portrayed in the documentary, intensely focused, framing shots with his hands), these photos show the director, and cast and crew relaxed, upbeat and friendly. Each of the photos are accompanied by scene-setting English text (side by side with Russian text) and are often fascinating - Tarkovsky having an entire field plucked of yellow flowers before shooting, actor Erland Josephson snoozing between takes or Tarkovsky and cameraman Sven Nykvist waiting to play a game of tennis. I've taken my own pics of the book to offer a flavor of what's inside...

Andrei Tarkovsky: A Photographic Chronicle of The Making of The Sacrifice published by Cygnnet Books is currently available direct from Cygnnet's website, or can be ordered from the publisher via Amazon UK Marketplace. The book retails for £32.95, which may seem steep but no doubt will command high prices when the print run has been exhausted. For Tarkovsky fans, the book is an essential purchase.

The Vengeance of She

If Hammer's 1965 film She was a enjoyable distraction on a rainy Saturday afternoon, the studio's 1968 sequel The Vengeance of She is a bit of a bore, essentially a retread of the earlier film but employing a gender reversal - in She it was Ursula Andress who summoned her male lover across the desert, while in The Vengeance of She, Czech model Olinka Bérová does all the running. In the film, Bérová plays Carol a young woman who is lured to the secret city of Kuma in Africa under the spell of sorcerer Men-Hari who has tricked Kuma's ruler Kallikrates into thinking Carol is the reincarnation of his lover Ayesha. In return Men-Hari has been promised the gift of immortal life which he intends to devote to spreading evil throughout the world.

With its combination of exotic adventure and the shapely curves of Ursula Andress, She, Hammer's first foray into pure Fantasy Cinema was one of the studio's most profitable pictures of the sixties. Originally the sequel was to be called Ayesha, Daughter of She, but rather than seek inspiration from the pages of H. Rider Haggard's own series of She novels, Hammer stuck closely to the formula of the first film. In a very early draft of the screenplay Peter Cushing's character from the first film was to make an appearance lending a sense of continuity, but the idea was scrapped and the finished film emerges as little more than a remake, just three years after the original She. Worse still, Andress declined to appear in the film and despite a change of title to the thunderous Vengeance of She, the film limped all the way to the box office and soon retreated behind the shadow of the original.

Principle photography began in June 1967 during a particularly busy period for Hammer, with a number of films in production. Much of the studio's most experienced crew members were working on three major productions - Bette Davis' second Hammer outingThe Anniversary; the special effects extravaganza, The Lost Continent and the Terence Fisher, Richard Matheson film The Devil Rides Out. As a consequence, The Vengeance of She features many one-time Hammer personnel with little affinity for Fantasy Cinema - director Cliff Owen had one previous film to his name (starring comedy duo Morcambe & Wise), while screenwriter Peter O'Donnell had penned Joseph Losey's 1966 comic caper Modesty Blaise. This perhaps explains much of the film's sense of anonymity, despite the the presence of André Morell and John Richardson, both returning from the first film, albeit as different characters. Sadly, the film would be Morell's final Hammer film and for an actor who had enriched so many Hammer productions, the film was hardly a befitting swansong.

The film's biggest stumbling block however is O'Donnell's screenplay which manages to be banal and convoluted at the same time, the film burdened with far too many longueurs and overwrought plotting, so much so that the the film may leave you perplexed on first viewing. Cliff Owen's direction remains pedestrian at best and renders the would-be explosive climax when the cast is brained by Les Bowie's crashing matt effects, dull and uninspired. Even the work of camerman Wolfgang Suschitzky, is utterly undistinguished, a shame considering he was responsible for the luminous b/w cinematography of Ulysses the previous year. Critics of the film tend to heap scorn on Olinka Bérová's wooden performance, unfairly so considering she's one of the best things in the film, at least to look at, and by the time she strips down to some skimpy white lingerie, you'll be ready to forgive the dreadfully corny theme song.

Optimum's DVD of The Vengeance of She is another decent looking addition to the Hammer boxset. The 1.66 anamorphic transfer generally looks fine, with good detail and strong colors. Audio is adequate and dialogue sounds fine. The sole extra is the theatrical trailer. The Anchor Bay disc from 2000 featured a similarly strong picture but added another episode of the World of Hammer, Lands Before Time which focused on Hammer's Fantasy films with clips from She, One Million Years B.C., Creatures The World Forgot, Viking Queen, Slave Girls, The Lost Continent and Slave Girls.

The Scottish Play by Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski's 1970 film, a nightmarish adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy is impossible to see without viewing the film through the prism of the Manson murders. It was Polanski's first film after the gruesome slaying of his wife Sharon Tate and the violence and oppressively morbid atmosphere of the film was greeted with considerable disdain by US critics who felt that the director was subjecting audiences to gore and images of death for the sake of exorcising his own demons. Polanski vehemently denied the charge claiming his decision to film Shakespeare's play was inspired by his own childhood memories of witnessing the brutal treatment of his family at the hands of the Nazis. It's difficult to say where the truth lies, but what is certain is the film is one of the director's most brilliantly realized works and a key film of the 70's.

If you're unfamiliar with Shakespeare, a brief sketch of the play is as follows - set in 11th century Scotland, Macbeth a brave and loyal general hears a prophecy spoken by three witches, that one day he will be King of Scotland. Macbeth and his wife both ruthlessly ambitious, murder Duncan the ruling King, and Macbeth swiftly ascends to the throne. Macbeth however grows increasingly paranoid and tyrannical and murders all those who threaten his rule, and soon he and Lady Macbeth are consumed by despair, guilt and madness as their enemies move ever closer... Written most likely around 1606 for a special performance before King James I and his brother-in-law Christian IV of Denmark, Shakespeare in a sense tailors the play to his audience - the political intrigue, the treason in the court and assassination plots were highly topical of the day and James I was something of an expert on the subject of witchcraft having written a book on the practice in 1597 entitled Daemonologie, in which he advocated the trial and persecution of witches. Shakespeare's inclusion of the witches might have be viewed as a flattery towards his king, but it's one of the most powerful devices in the play and one could imagine a young Roman Polanski darkly impressed by these secret, black, and midnight hags.

In 1969 Polanski was in London working on a screenplay for Day of the Dolphin when he received a phone call from LA about the terrible events of August 9th. In the early hours of the morning his heavily pregnant wife Sharon Tate was savagely murdered by four members of the Manson Family. Polanski wasn't required to return to the US during the investigation and trial of Charles Manson and his followers, and decamped to a Swiss ski village where the idea developed to film one of Shakespeare's plays. Polanski later wrote in his autobiography that he was concerned that his next film would be greeted with huge interest, and immediately ruled out doing a comedy which he felt would be in poor taste. In fact Polanski had been considering making a film of Henri Charrière's novel Papillon but was now set upon the Shakespeare play. The project quickly gathered momentum. Polanski invited friend and English theatre critic and iconoclast Kenneth Tynan to co-write the screenplay with Polanski and reshape the original Shakespeare text for Cinema - streamlining the play into a manageable two hours with some tweaks and adjustments, like the use of internal monologues and showing the actual murder of Duncan, a scene which occurs off stage in the play.

One of play's central themes is universal chaos, and it seems somewhat appropriate that financing for the film was partly received from Playboy Productions, the first and surely the last time Shakespeare and Hugh Hefner would share a credit. Rather than shoot the film in Scotland, Polanski settled on the highlands of Snowdonia and the beaches of Portmerion in northern Wales. Filming began in late summer of 1971 but unseasonably stormy weather had slowed the pace of the production considerably with Polanski grabbing only a few usable minutes of filming here and there before the cast and crew were forced to take shelter. Playboy's interest in the film was overseen by Film Finances who began leaning on Polanski to quicken the pace. Polanski wrote in his autobiography that Italian Job director Peter Collinson was hired to complete the picture if necessary but Polanski offered to waive his fee and in return Hugh Hefner injected more cash into the production earning the director a reprieve. Polanski completed the film in time for its US release in October and the film was released to lukewarm reviews, the film heavily criticised for it's nudity and gore, and there was controversy about Polanski's motivation for making such a violent film. The film fared better in the UK but this alone was not enough to recoup the film's production cost. Polanski had by then moved on and began working on an erotic comedy with Jack Nicholson in mind for the lead, a germ of an idea that would eventually grow into the absurdist 1973 sex comedy What?

From the opening sequence where the three witches gather on a windswept beach and ritualistically bury a dagger, a noose and a severed hand, Polanski's film depicts a world of cruelty and barbarism. Early on in the film, one of the king's subjects is hung for treason, pushed off the gallows with a heavy iron collar around his neck, his body left to hang for all to see. In another scene the exotic prize of a caged grizzly bear is tormented and provoked by members of the court until the poor beast is set upon by dogs and torn apart. There are images of blood and gore throughout the film - enemies of the king are vanquished with swords and spiked balls, while the murder of Duncan, violently stabbed by Macbeth, is starkly realistic (Polanski claimed that to film it any other way would have been an obscenity). There is almost no doubt that Polanski channeled the grief of his wife's death into the film, there are numerous signs throughout if you look for them, but two scenes are particularly resonant - when Macbeth gives instructions to two assassins to murder his general Banquo and his son, and the sequence where Macduff's wife and his child are brutally slaughtered while Macduff is safely ensconced in England - which echoes something Polanski wrote in his autobiography about that dreadful night at Cielo Drive - "To this day I believe that had I been there when the gang of three women and one man climbed over the fence and broke in, Frykowski and myself might have tackled them and between us driven them off"

Shakespeare's play had been previously filmed by Orson Welles in 1948 and in 1957 by Akira Kurosawa, both visually arresting works and Polanski's film follows in that tradition. Gil Taylor's magnificent 'scope photography expertly draws on the play's theme of light and darkness, the film perpetually bathed in that strange illumination known as magic hour, with the retreating sun an appropriate blood red. Among the visual highlights are the shots of Macbeth's castle looming over the horizon like a sinister spectre, or the blood soaked living dead Banquo haunting Macbeth's feverish imagination, and there's one particularly extraordinary moment where Macbeth's vision extends into a mirror, which extends into another mirror, and another and so on. Jon Finch, who previously appeared in Hammer's Vampire Lovers and Horror of Frankenstein does a fine job as Macbeth and tackles the complexities of Shakespeare's conflicted anti-hero with surprising skill. Francesca Annis equips herself very well in the role of Lady Macbeth. She's not quite the equal of Isuzu Yamada's equivalent in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, but nevertheless she makes for a fine wolf in sheep's clothing. Incidentally Annis was later cast as a very different Lady in David Lynch's Dune (playing Lady Jessica).

Columbia's 2003 DVD is a fairly modest affair featuring a good serviceable 2.35 transfer. Aside from some spotting on the opening credits, the print is generally clean, sharp and colorful. Audio is fine overall, dialogue is clear and the memorably weird score by The Third Ear Band sounds robust. No significant extras aside from the trailer and who in Columbia's art department decided on the DVD artwork which inexplicably features a still of Martin Shaw's Banquo ? At the time of writing, a Blu-Ray edition has yet to be announced so the mid-priced Columbia DVD comes highly recommended.

The Camp on Blood Island

You'd be forgiven for imagining Dr. Moreau-type grotesqueries upon discovering the title of this film, but The Camp on Blood Island, Hammer's 1958 film is a story of real-life horror - the plight of British soldiers held captive by the Japanese as prisoners of war in the jungles of Southeast Asia during the Second World War. Made a year after Bridge on the River Kwai, Camp on Blood Island was an altogether grittier affair than David Lean's film and seen today after years of obscurity, it emerges as one of the Hammer's finest films of the '50's.

Set during the final days of the Pacific War, Blood Island POW camp is on the verge of disintegration. When Col. Lambert, leader of the prisoners learns of Japan's defeat by way of a smuggled radio, he puts together a plan to alert allies of the camp's existence before Commandant Yamamitsu's liquidation of the camp and its remaining prisoners. When an American navy pilot successfully escapes from the camp, matters come to a head and Lambert and his men are forced to overthrow their Japanese oppressors by any means necessary... Directed with customary skill by Val Guest, Camp on Blood Island was considerably strong meat for audiences back in 1958 with scenes of British prisoners being routinely humiliated, punished and executed, like the arresting opening sequence showing a British officer machine-gunned into a freshly dug grave. Not surprisingly the film was mired in controversy on its release, but the tough stance taken by Hammer was endorsed by the BBFC who gave Jon Manchip White's screenplay a relatively easy passage from page to screen, eliminating just a few instances of coarse language and grisly violence.

Despite Hammer's considerable success with The Curse of Frankenstein the studio was still some months away from signing a lucrative distribution deal with Columbia and financing for Camp on Blood Island was often perilous. Nevertheless Hammer's art department managed to turn a corner of the Bray back lot into a convincing stand-in for Malaysia with some cleverly placed palm trees, not to mention a well-oiled cast to conjure up a suitably sweaty atmosphere. Val Guest's lively, muscular direction and cameraman Jack Asher's expertly shot black & white 'scope photography lends the film an immediacy and a genuine sense of scale that belies it's humble budget. The film is well acted too, with a perfectly cast André Morell taking the lead as Lambert and joined by a roster of fine English character actors and familiar Hammer faces, including Michael Gwynn (from The Revenge of Frankenstein), Marne Maitland (The Reptile), Richard Wordsworth (The Quatermass Xperiment) and a fresh-faced Barbara Shelley in her first significant appearance for the studio.

Given the era it was made, it would be ungracious to criticize the film for being a simple, routine actioner but seeing it today, the caricaturing of the Japanese as monstrous brutes is regrettable. The Japanese were particularly cruel in their treatment of prisoners of war (considered beneath contempt for allowing themselves to be captured), but the Japanese could be equally brutal disciplining their own soldiers, and of course not all guards were sadistic monsters - as JG Ballard recalled in his semi-fictional memoir Empire of the Sun, Japanese soldiers could also be kind and humane. Worse still, all the principle Japanese characters were played by British actors, including an embarrassing turn by the otherwise marvellous Michael Ripper, japanified with some silly eye makeup and a cringe worthy accent - thankfully his appearance is confined to just two short dialogue scenes. Also, and this is a minor complaint, the cast is far too healthy looking to pass for genuine prisoners except for the perpetually emaciated Richard Wordsworth whose scarecrow frame looks the part.

Sony's 2009 UK DVD of The Camp on Blood Island is a mostly bare bones affair but nonetheless is very welcome, this being the first ever home video release of the film. The 2.35 anamorphic transfer is generally excellent, aside from some haziness in long shots, the b/w image looks very smooth and impressively detailed. The audio track sounds robust too, even if some of the dialogue can be hard to catch (most likely due to the technical limitations of the day), but thankfully Sony have provided English subtitles to fill in the blanks (worth noting, the subtitles do not translate the few instances of Japanese dialogue). The only extra offered is a throwaway stills gallery, but the DVD comes with an excellent scene-setting booklet by Hammer historian Marcus Hearn. The inferior prequel The Secret of Blood Island followed in 1965 and has yet to surface on DVD.

Renaldo and Clara

Bob Dylan's 1978 film Renaldo and Clara is one of the great white whales of Rock 'n' Roll Cinema, a sprawling 4 hour vanity project, part fictionalized drama, part concert film made during the early leg of Dylan's '75/76 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. When the film was released in January 1978, it was savaged by critics for its seemingly incoherent story, and deliberately obscure meaning. The film is undeniably self-indulgent, and despite its rather shaky reputation, Renaldo and Clara remains an oddly compelling and enjoyable film, and besides some terrific music, where else would you see Harry Dean Stanton scoring with Joan Baez and a semi-naked Allen Ginsberg flirting with a scantily dressed whore?

The plot of Renaldo and Clara resists easy interpretation. Dylan himself explained rather tortuously to Playboy: "It's the essence of man being alienated from himself and how in order to free himself, to be reborn, he has to go outside himself" In plainer terms, the film is Dylan's self-examination of his love-life and his troubled relationships with women. At the heart of the film are the characters of rock musician Renaldo and his lover Clara, played by Dylan and his wife Sara. Renaldo and Clara both have complicated pasts - Sara has left her emotionally withdrawn husband (played by Sam Shepard) while a former lover of Renaldo's, known simply as the Woman in White (Joan Baez) is back on the scene and Renaldo has to make a decision...

Renaldo and Clara is best likened with the lyric experimentation of Tangled Up In Blue - this is a film dense with symbolism, obscure references, shifting time lines and unexpected tangents. Dylan cast much of the extended Rolling Thunder band in the film, like Nashville star Ronee Blakely, former Spider from Mars guitarist Mick Ronson, Roger McGuinn and David Mansfield (who would later turn up as a rollerskating violin player in Heaven's Gate). Harry Dean Stanton appears in two or three scenes (as a jail breaker who trades a horse for Renaldo's lover), and Allen Ginsberg, in a significant role (listed on the credits as the Father), gets to read his poetry, sing songs and mantras, and at one point visits the grave of Jack Kerouac accompanied by Dylan. Most extraordinary is that Joan Baez was chosen to play Renaldo's former lover, the Woman In White, considering Baez was Dylan's former lover. Dylan and Baez split some ten years before the Rolling Thunder tour, but the chemistry between both of them in the film is still palpable - at one point Baez playfully asks Dylan "What do you think it would have been like if got married?" Ironically, by the time Renaldo and Clara was released Dylan and Sara's marriage was over apparently due to Dylan's womanizing.

"We never actually wrote a script" remembered playwright Sam Shepard whom Dylan hired to write the film. Shepard is credited with "additional dialogue" but much of the film feels loose and improvised, like a sequence at a Native American reservation (where guitarist Bob Neuwirth antagonizes one of the Indians, before Dylan arrives messiah-like). Elsewhere, there's some footage of boxer Hurricane Ruben Carter at a press conference speaking about his incarceration (followed by Dylan leaning on some record executives to release his Hurricane single), while other sequences suggest that the trio of credited cameraman simply showed up to record events as they happened, like two evangelists preaching a fire n' brimstone sermon outside the New York Stock Exchange. There's some genuinely funny stuff in the film as well, like a scene where Mick Ronson playing a bouncer refuses entry to rockabilly musician Ronnie Hawkins (playing a character called Bob Dylan), a disgruntled Hawkins responding to Ronson's thick Hull accent, "I don't care anything about the Queen, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or David Boowie (sic) or his lead guitar figure, or anybody else". In another scene Allen Ginsberg reads aloud his famous poem Kaddish (which includes the line "a long black beard around the vagina"), to some unimpressed old aged pensioners.

Dylan shot over 100 hours of footage throughout the filming of the Rolling Thunder Revue and felt Renaldo and Clara's four-hour cut was itself a compromise, as he later explained: "I knew it was not going to be a short movie because we couldn't tell that story in an hour. Originally I couldn't see how we could do it under seven or eight hours." The final draft of the film features live footage of nine original Dylan songs, as well as songs from Joan Baez (singing Diamonds and Rust), Ronee Blakely (Need a New Sun Rising Every Morning), and a strangely androgynous Roger McGuinn singing Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Chestnut Mare (one of the Byrds' best songs), and a lively instrumental jam of Eight Miles High. Dylan himself appears in face paint (and an unnerving transparent mask seen in the opening number) and in contrast to his subdued, aloof turn as Renaldo, on stage he's in terrific form, with excellent renditions of When I Paint My Masterpiece, Isis and a rollicking John Lee Hooker-sounding version of A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. Dylan's commitment to the film was such that he initially refused to be filmed for The Last Waltz, which was to be released around the same time as Renaldo and Clara, but Dylan relented and allowed the cameras to roll on two of the four songs he performed. Incidentally, the live footage violates an age-old convention of concert films by never cutting away to the audience, the cameras remaining firmly locked on Dylan and his band.

After the disastrous reception of Renaldo and Clara, Dylan tried to rescue the film by reshaping it into a two hour feature but still the film was greeted with jeers, even from the Dylan faithful. Dylan withdrew the film from public and still to this day has never enjoyed a home video release. Luckily, Channel 4 in the UK once screened the four hour cut (believed to be from the mid 80's) and was taped to VHS (with the adverts cut out). This seems to be where all bootlegs of Renaldo and Clara stem from but fortunately, the film looks very decent, if a little grungy. Every now and then, there is an announcement that the film is being prepared for DVD but at the time of writing, the film still remains elusive.

Poor White Trash Part II

Hard to figure out who exactly are the scum of the earth in S.F Brownrigg's 1974 backwoods cult classic. The sleazy brutish patriarch Odis Pickett whose remote shack the long-suffering Helen takes refuge at ? Could it be Pickett's clapped-out alley tramp of a daughter who threatens her retarded brother with hexes and floats her favours among the local boys (as well as her father). Or maybe it's the mysterious homicidal maniac stalking the woods and killing the cast off with various sharp objects ? Either way, good, bad or indifferent, no one gets off lightly in the brooding, gloomy and downbeat world of a Brownrigg film.



Originally entitled Scum of the Earth, how Brownrigg's film settled on it's more well known title is one of those convoluted tales from the Babylonian days of Exploitation Cinema, stretching back to 1957 and the lurid Southern melodrama Bayou. In 1961 Bayou had been reworked into the more roughie-tinged Poor White Trash, and went on to earn a considerable profit for its distributor. Ten years later the film was still doing good business at drive-ins, so much so that Dimension Pictures distributed the film in the mid-70's on a double-bill with Scum of the Earth, now renamed Poor White Trash Part II. The name evidently stuck - US label Magnum put the film out on VHS in the mid-80's under that title while in the UK, Intervision distributed the film on video (in that incredible sleeve above) simply as Poor White Trash, which must have confused punters when the title on the actual print included the Part II suffix. The film opens with newly weds Helen and Paul arriving at a lakeside cabin, but before they can begin their honeymoon, an unseen assassin buries an axe in Paul's chest. Helen flees in terror deeper into the woods and chances upon local Odis Pickett who brings Helen back to his home where she is effectively held prisoner and subjected Pickett's perverse designs...

Made around the same time as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and featuring a braless and bell bottomed actress who could have stumbled out of Hooper's film, Poor White Trash is relatively restrained in what it shows onscreen - a few spurts of blood, a rape that mercifully cuts away before the actual assault, but the film positively oozes a thick sinister atmosphere, much like Brownrigg's best work. As with the director's previous film, Don't Look In the Basement, Poor White Trash confines itself to mostly one location - Pickett's ancient looking shack which may well be one of Cinema's least alluring places, with its vomit-colored moldering wallpaper and decidedly rickety furniture which looks like it may fall asunder at any moment. This is a film which grates on the senses - from the eccentric soundtrack, which features a truly depressing theme song ("Death is a Family Affair") to the inconsistent exterior day-for-night photography, a technical limitation of the production no doubt, creating a weird disorientating effect where the sense of time is gradually eroded. Helen may have slipped the clutches of the maniac patrolling the woods, but she might as well be marooned on a hostile alien world.

The low-budget look of the film is apparent, but Poor White Trash is an accomplished piece of work. Unusually for a film of this kind, the cast is quite strong, most of them regulars in the Brownrigg repertory. First and foremost, the crater-faced Gene Ross as the sneering Odis Pickett is wonderfully greasy, you can almost smell the stale moonshine breath as he wrestles with that unruly comb-over. Marvellous too is Camilla Carr as the whore-ish daughter Sarah, landing the film's best line, when in a fit of jealously over her father wanting a little talk with Helen, private like, declares "Yeah, I know what kind of private you got in mind. The same one you been pokin' in me since I was gone on twelve" Fine support too from Ann Stafford as the dreamy but kind-hearted wife Emmy, (sold to Odis by her father to pay a debt) and Charlie Dell as the mildly retarded son Bo. Brownrigg's direction is impressive too, with some eerie prowling camerawork around the woods (prefiguring the killer POV shots of Friday the 13th by five years), and some aggressive close-ups making the film feel all the more uptight. Complimenting Brownrigg's visuals, is Mary Davis' excellent script full of ripe dialogue (at one point Odis says to Emmy, "What make you think I'd wanna poke a blow'd up balloon like you") and brilliantly conveys Helen's predicament with a simple line or two, like in a scene where Helen decides to brave the woods to reach a neighbour's phone, and is taunted and discouraged by Odis "Ol' Tom and his boys, theys generally pretty liquor'd up coming evening...they ain't got no womenfolk to care of 'em". Nasty stuff indeed.

Back in 2009 Grindhouse Releasing announced a full blown special edition of Poor White Trash, under the Scum of the Earth title, and promised an extensive restoration of the film from the best surviving elements, plus comprehensive extras covering the making of the film, but at the time of writing this release has yet to materialize. The film is still included as part of Grindhouse's roster of films so perhaps a DVD is still on the cards. The trailer can be viewed over at their website.