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By Matt Harries

What does the vampire mean to you? Looking back through the annals of cinema we are spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing our favourite manifestation of the bloodsucker. In recent times, long form television has given us vamps who look like models; sexually charged, magnetic and beautiful as in True Blood. In Guillermo Del Toro’s The Strain, The Master has some characteristics in common with the fanged denizens of Bon Temps – seemingly all-powerful and capable of inspiring fear and devotion in equal measure – but in the flesh he is all monster, an ancient horror that spreads the plague of vampirism through worm-like parasites and violent genetic mutation. In the Blade series of films the vampire exhibits elements seen in both True Blood and The Strain, combined with the achingly modern life skills such as mastery of the martial arts and expertise in the most cutting edge technological advances. Vampires come in all shapes and sizes, and often these days their story seems to be tied in with very contemporary concerns. There are surely no other creatures of fantasy out there who have quite managed the transition into modernity with such aplomb, but who yet have their roots deeply embedded in the folklore of pre-cinema.

Cinema’s journey into vampirism began in such very different circumstances of course. F.W Murnau’s 1922 Expressionist classic Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens was an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – surely the definitive vampire story. It came from a time long before the vampire had become a cliché, a commonplace staple of popular horror culture, and the subject of countless interpretations and adaptations. By the time Werner Herzog chose to make his own version of the classic tale, over half a century had elapsed. The likes of Hammer had offered their own unique rendering, but despite the plethora of vampire films released even in the same year, Herzog’s version comes from a time before all that. In choosing to create a link between the great era of Expressionist cinema and the then new-wave of German cinema, he once again tapped into that ancient wellspring from whence Murnau’s iconic masterpiece itself was derived.

Far removed from the modern tendency toward self-referential irony, Herzog’s Nosferatu paints a picture of a society for whom the light of modern age has yet to cast aside the darkness of superstition. As such the film is full of contrasts between two opposite states; light and darkness; life and death; youth and age. Water is often used as a symbolic mirror, capable in its raging torrents and calm placidity of reflecting the fluid states of human emotion. Early in the film, Jonathan (Bruno Ganz) and fiance Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) visit the beach where they first fell in love. The placid retreating tide beckons him toward the unknown Transylvania and its possibilities, away from home town Wismar, full of “canals which go nowhere”. Jonathan’s desire to explore the lands beyond Wismar, and experience a richer life, highlights another contrast – that of the modern world and the ancient wildness of nature.

Throughout the film we witness the interplay between these differing states of being. Jonathan leaves the calm order of Wismar for Transylvania. Who better to tell him of the dark lands beyond the civilised world than the gypsies who themselves live outside the strictures of modernity? Only they travel across the great chasm that divides the world’s of Jonathan’s past and future. Yet for all this they fear the darkness and are naturally suspicious of its place within the natural order of things. “No such castle exists there except perhaps in the imagination of man”, he is told. And yet, being the modern man, Jonathan quests on, driven by his desire for adventure as much as the need to provide a better future for Lucy.

Herzog’s direction focuses upon creating a powerful ambient atmosphere, utilising the grandeur of the natural world in a manner that will be familiar to those who have followed his work. The tone is set with the arresting imagery that opens the film, namely footage of the mummies of Guanajuato in Mexico. These grim figures were disinterred during an 1833 cholera epidemic. Apparently there were examples where the dying were buried before their deaths. Indeed, the corpse of one woman was found face down in her coffin biting her own arm, her mouth full of blood. Some of the post-mortem facial expressions of these unfortunates also indicate the horror of dying in their own tombs. Although unrelated in time and place to the events of Nosferatu, there is something about these mummies that strikes an horrific chord with the subject matter of the film. Mankind’s own attempt at claiming a slither of immortality; preservation of the dead and dying, their desiccated remains denied the ultimate release of decay. Powerfully redolent of Dracula’s own state of undying.

The slow motion footage of a bat flying is equally haunting, but for all its sinister overtones is imbued with a timeless dark elegance. The night hunter is focussed and seemingly swooping in to land, filmed against a grainy background. As it leans in towards the object of its attention Lucy sits bolt upright in bed, screaming one of cinematic horror’s classic screams. If her nightmares were of the images we have just watched, it is no wonder she feels such a sense of foreboding.

After this ghastly introduction we arrive at Wismar and its calm order. Filmed largely in Delft in the Netherlands, Herzog chose the location for its stylised, dreamlike atmosphere. The gentle flow of water through the town’s canal system contrasts with the white waters that churn through the Transylvanian mountains, that seem to usher Jonathan through the treacherous Borgo pass and beyond to Castle Dracula. Jonathan’s ascension to the castle is quintessentially Herzog; lingering awestruck shots of the forbidding monochromatic peaks. Clouds at once soar above and cling smothering to them. Finally we arrive at the Castle. Jonathan is beckoned in by the pale form of the Count. The heavy black iron door clanks shut like it is itself a part in the mechanism of a great lock, behind which the Jonathan Harker who enters the castle will never emerge again as he once was.

Enter then our Count himself, played by Klaus Kinski. Wearing a rather fetching hat and coat combo he nonetheless appears startlingly vampiric from the get go. There is none of the latter day shape shifting – appearing sometimes older, sometimes younger, some times more or less human altogether. No, here Dracula appears as he remains throughout the film, preternaturally long teeth and nails and all. As he watches Jonathan eat he resembles a strange amalgam of the striking images of the opening sequence. Pallid, deathly flesh toned and almost corpse still, yet at once focussed upon his guest, radiating a hunger that boils just below the surface. Yet he also exudes a sense of age, of weariness. “Ah young man”, he laments, “you are like the villagers who cannot place themselves in the soul of the hunter”. At this point Jonathan seems to lose his appetite. His pensive mood is further unsettled by the bizarre chiming of the Count’s fantastic clock and, not surprisingly I might add, by the Count’s attempt to drink his blood after he cuts his finger. Despite Jonathan’s obvious fear we can see the Count is hardly a rampaging killer. Instead he appears frail and old yet at once utterly compelled by hunger.

Isabelle Adjani’s Lucy is the story’s other principal player. With a pale complexion framed in the dark shadow of her black hair, her youthful beauty places her as Dracula’s opposite and yet eventually also his obsession. For all her innocence and loyalty to Jonathan, there is a kind of intensity to Adjani’s performance that makes her a slightly more convincing object for the undead Count’s obsession than say, Winona Ryder, who for all her prettiness lacks Adjani’s classically gothic good looks. Her wide eyed expression of horror seen during her first real meeting with Dracula himself remains one of the most haunting after images of this film, burned into the mind’s eye like those of Shelley Duvall in The Shining.

Kinski it is though, who steals the show. Out of makeup he was a striking enough presence, well known for his apocalyptic mood swings and hysterical fits that mark his relationship with the equally intense but somewhat more placid Werner Herzog as one of cinema’s great partnerships. Despite his reputation as a diva he was apparently quite taken by the Japanese makeup artist who rigorously applied his prosthetics on a daily basis, being for once the model of patience and composure, and this reflects in his rather measured and contained performance as a whole. His delivery, all far away looks and distant memories, is full of weariness and the longing for mortality. There is none of the power or grandeur of Oldman’s Dracula, nor the stern darkness of Lee’s. When we see Kinski’s Count forced to do his own donkey work, lugging the coffins through Wismar, we do feel a bit sorry for him. The whole move to Wismar has the feel of a desperate last gambit. A strategy that will only bring him true victory through its own failure. Of all the Draculas in cinematic past, it is Kinski’s who most convinces when he utters “to be unable to grow old is terrible.”

I also really enjoyed Bruno Ganz as Jonathan. At first he is optimistic and adventurous; cautious, but ready to press on and do what he considers to be the right thing. His demeanour changes utterly, of course, upon his return to Wismar. He no longer recognises Lucy and has become increasingly reminiscent of his one time employer, Renfield (the entertaining Roland Topor); now finding bizarre amusement in the stories of Nosferatu Lucy reads to him. We may suspect that when Dracula finally perishes – so consumed by his hunger for Lucy’s blood he fails to heed the cock crowing to herald the dawn – this gives him the release he ultimately craves. However the final twist of the film sees Jonathan, now sporting junior versions of Dracula’s teeth and claws, extricate himself from behind Lucy’s folk magic barrier, tear off the crucifix that hangs around his neck and summon his horse, enigmatically stating “I have much to do”. Finally he is seen galloping away by horse back, along bare wind strewn sands. This ending put an interesting spin on the tale. Ostensibly, ‘evil’ wins through, with Jonathan now seemingly lost to vampirism and Lucy dead through her sacrifice. However Dracula, in seeking out Lucy, is at last able himself to find the mortality he craves.

Perhaps I am being hasty (having yet to watch the film), but I have seen the new direction Dracula is taking in cinema and I am not overly enthralled. Dracula Untold (editor’s note – here’s Keri’s review) appears on first glance to be a CGI-fest inspired by Lord Of The Rings and Game Of Thrones. The titular prince is ruggedly handsome and resplendent, a commander of armies with a beautiful wife and son. It seems like another popcorn friendly big budget epic in age of blandly invincible superheroes. Suffice it to say, there is nothing heroic about Kinski’s Dracula, who lingers through a loveless, futile existence, his humanity an old and painful memory. Herzog’s Nosferatu does not try and romanticise the Count. Despite his machinations and his hunger there is a tormented sadness within him. Feared as a great and monstrous evil, there is a yearning there that is entirely human. This is not a film about super powers or the ultimate triumph of love over evil. It is a film about a world that is full of shadows and light, of monsters and maidens, of prey and the preyed upon. About the illuminating light of discovery and the shadows that exist within mankind’s own heart.

Fundamentally, Nosferatu; Phantom der Nacht is the perfect antidote to the modern reading of the vampire story. Richly atmospheric, well acted, full of unaffected natural grandeur and with a fantastic, dreamlike soundtrack by long time Herzog collaborator Florian Fricke, it belongs at the very dark heart of vampire mythology.

By Quin

A few years ago, when Edward Scissorhands was was having its 20th anniversary, I remember thinking at the time, “Yep, that sounds about right.” Now four years later, as Tim Burton’s Ed Wood turns 20, I find myself feeling really old and wondering where the time went. It’s so strange how two films being released four years apart can seem so far apart – but for me, it was the difference between being 13 and 17, between being a child and a bigger child. But most importantly, at 17, I became a licensed driver – a child with a car. As a high school student with no job, but a weekly allowance that made it possible for me to get from one end of town to the other and buy tickets to screenings and various events, the world had become my oyster as far as I was concerned.

The early 1990’s was a pivotal time for me. On top of having my own transportation, my interest in film took a turn for the weird around that time. I was pretty much born drawn to the movies. But as a younger kid, my favorites were always dumb comedies or summer blockbusters (oh, things like Crocodile Dundee and Lethal Weapon 2…I’m not proud.) Upon starting to rent titles from the Cult section of the local video store, I began to realize that there was a whole sub-genre of films that were so bad they were great! There must have been something in the air or water at the time, because I clearly wasn’t the only one discovering these gems. It turned out that there had been this television show where robots make fun of these movies in hilarious ways, and it had been on since the late 80’s. My ridiculous cable company didn’t offer the Comedy Central network in the 90’s, so I really wasn’t properly introduced to Mystery Science Theater 3000 until Netflix. I had seen a few episodes and loved it, but was never able to see it regularly or even semi-regularly. The rest of the initiated had MST3K fever. I had it too – I just didn’t know it yet.

There were cable channels at the time (like TNT and USA – my cable provider did offer those) that would show older B-movies late Friday and Saturday nights. These shows had catchy names like Up All Night and 100% Weird, and used interesting personalities to introduce the films like Playboy Playmate Rhonda Shear and comedian Gilbert Gottfried. They showed unwatchable stuff like Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, as well as some really great and nuanced Atomic Age stuff like The Manster. It didn’t matter what they were showing, I wanted to see it, and I taped it every weekend so I could watch it during the day. I still have a few VHS tapes with these movies complete with vintage commercials for diet pills and ThighMasters as well as 1-900 party hotlines filled with visions of tube tops and lots of hairspray.

I don’t know for certain if this was where it started for me, but I seem to remember reading about a long dead director named Ed Wood in the pages of the newly resurrected magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. I had seen Forrest J. Ackerman on an awards show that was televised a couple of times and filmed at Universal Studios in Hollywood (Well, Universal City, but whatever). It was called the Horror Hall of Fame and I remember being sucked in by the fact that it was hosted by Robert Englund. They were honoring classic horror films, as well as advertising newer ones. But it was all great. I think both of them are still on Youtube if you are interested in taking a look. At one point during one of the broadcasts, they talked about this old man who had Dracula’s cape and the Mummy’s ring and he started this horror/sci-fi/fantasy magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland. He lived in L.A. and owned the largest collection of horror/sci-fi memorabilia in the world and even allowed fans to come to his house to see his stuff. This blew my mind and I filed it away for future reference. Fast forward a couple years to 1993, Forry Ackerman resumed publication of the magazine after a ten year hiatus and started putting on annual conventions. He had certainly picked up a new fan and reader in me.

As I said, Famous Monsters had articles about all kinds of monster movies, but mostly classic ones. And I do believe it was here where I first read about Edward D. Wood Jr., supposedly the worst director of all time. As my obsession with horror grew and I became more interested in the writers that dissected the films, I started reading Michael J. Weldon’s Psychotronic (including his Encyclopedia of Film), John McCarty and David J. Skal. Between them, they covered all aspects of everything I loved about the horror genre. But nobody talked about Ed Wood’s career and movies with such reverence and respect as Famous Monsters of Filmland.

When I first heard that Tim Burton was going to be doing a biopic of Ed Wood, I was ecstatic. I had been a huge Tim Burton fan since Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and now he was going to be bringing Ed Wood back to life on the big screen. The Los Angeles Times was following the production closely because it was being shot on location in L.A., so in a pre-internet world it was pretty easy to follow the updates on the progress of the film. I didn’t find out until years later that Tim Burton was originally only going to produce the film and Heathers director Michael Lehmann would direct. Due to a scheduling conflict, Burton took over as director and I’m glad he did. It doesn’t have quite the Burtonesque stylized look that most of his other films have, but it definitely has a feel that only a Tim Burton movie can have. He made it a bit differently than his other films; he didn’t feel the need to storyboard the scenes and shots because he wanted it to be a more spontaneous process. Disney had also given him complete creative control, so he decided to make it feel like Ed Wood was in one of his own films; shooting in black and white would give it that feeling. Cinematographer Stefan Czapsky had worked with Tim Burton on the highly stylized and super dark Batman Returns, as well as several Errol Morris documentaries, which are way more visually stylized than most documentary films. But Ed Wood has the look of a classic Hollywood picture with the zany flair of the average B-movie of the era.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to tell you about my experience of seeing Ed Wood for the first time and then the second time. When it was originally released, the newspaper said that it would have a limited engagement. This meant that I had to venture out of the area to find a place to see it. I think it was only playing at two or three theaters when it opened. Still being a new and not very confident driver, I convinced my mom to come with me to see it in Century City. It was a Friday afternoon and I either had the day off school or we had a half day, my mom and I got in the car and went to see Ed Wood. It was wonderful from start to finish. At the time I would have told you I thought it was perfect. Again, being in the days before internet, relying on a newspaper for movie times was the norm, although it seems maddening now. The following week, the paper informed me that Ed Wood would be opening wide and there would be a midnight screening pretty close to my house. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to see it again.  This time with a rowdy midnight crowd, and free shirts were promised to the first 100 people. I didn’t realize that the crowd would be there so early. When I arrived, there were well over 100 people and the shirts were gone. Fortunately the show wasn’t sold out. I got my ticket and got in line. I met a very nice person in line who was not an Ed Wood fan at all and asked me if I wanted her free shirt. I gladly accepted and I still have it to this day. It’s a pretty cheap print of the film poster on a white t-shirt. The image has Ed in a director’s chair wearing an angora sweater. I wore it a lot, so it’s now faded to a grey rectangle. But I’m glad I ended up getting one and that girl was nice enough to give hers to me. I have no idea who she was, but I sort of like that I can publicly thank her here all these years later for her kindness.

This midnight screening was great. It was at the old South Bay Galleria, a theatre where The Rocky Horror Picture Show played every Saturday at midnight with a live cast. I think it was the same crowd that showed up for Ed Wood, because they were loud and they appreciated it on a level I didn’t experience the week before in Century City at lunchtime on a Friday afternoon. It was loud and energetic – exactly the way a screening of this movie should be.

If you’ve read this far, chances are you are already aware of Ed Wood’s legacy and you’ve probably already seen the biopic. But for the one or two of you who have just found interest in my story of what lead me to Ed Wood, but have yet to see the film, let me tell you a little about it. When we first meet Ed, he is already a struggling playwright. He has managed to put together a stage production consisting of friends of his. The acting and writing is atrocious, and when the camera cuts to the audience, we see a lot of empty seats, a sleeping old lady and a leaky ceiling. This is pretty much how Ed’s entire career and life go – empty seats and leaky ceilings – metaphorically speaking of course. He soon talks his way into getting a job directing a low budget film called I Changed My Sex, which is supposed to be based on real trans woman Christine Jorgensen who was the first person to have sex re-assignment surgery. Ed tells producer George Weiss that he is most qualified to shoot the picture, because he enjoys wearing women’s clothes. We find out that this is the first time Ed has ever told anybody about his secret, which he kept all during his time in the Marines while serving during WWII.

He conveniently and perhaps serendipitously meets Bela Lugosi and convinces him to be in his movie. Bela becomes a close friend, but also a bit of a bargaining chip. He will use him in anything, even if there is clearly no place for him, like  say Glen or Glenda. During shooting, Bela asks him, “What kind of picture is this, Eddie?” As you might guess, I Changed My Sex becomes Glen or Glenda, much to the dismay of Weiss. He’s already printed the posters and tells Ed if he ever sees him again, he’ll kill him. The making of Glen or Glenda also serves as a way for Ed to tell his girlfriend Dolores about his transvestism. She doesn’t handle it well at first, but gets over it. It is suggested that the making of the movie was a bit of a catharsis for both of them.

From there, we meet the rest of Ed Wood’s regulars – a psychic named Criswell, Bunny Breckinridge, and Brent Hinkley (who is actually a fictitious combination of Conrad Brooks and Paul Marco – two of Ed’s real friends). We get to see Ed making movies, and the movie wisely and brilliantly recreates classic scenes from his films. We also get to see how Ed worked constantly. He was always hustling in some way and thinking ahead so he would be able to do what he wanted as cheaply and quickly as possible. Along the way wrestler Tor Johnson is added to the cast of regulars, and then T.V. horror hostess Vampira reluctantly agrees to be in Plan 9 From Outer Space as long as she doesn’t have to say anything. The film ends with what appears to be a successful premier with Ed feeling like he finally made it. Plan 9 From Outer Space was going to be his Citizen Kane.

Apart from an American Graffiti style montage at the end of whatever became of so-and-so, there is no other mention of Ed Wood’s real life descent into poverty and alcoholism, which led to his untimely death of a heart attack at age 54. The film also stays away from him moving from B and Z grade films to sexploitation (Orgy of the Dead) and ultimately pornography (although most of it pretty soft core, some of it has been released through Something Weird Video.) The optimistic view is what really makes this film a love letter to a man who made movies the way he wanted to. He had unwavering belief in his abilities and he knew he was destined for greatness.

There is a completely fictionalized scene in Ed Wood where he meets his hero Orson Welles in a bar. They bond over making their first film at such a young age, and the Welles tells Ed, “Visions are worth fighting for.” This is exactly what Ed Wood did and even if he was technically inept at making movies, he did it and even long after his death he is admired by serious film makers as well as fans of the genre. Too bad he died in obscurity and probably felt irrelevant at the end. He never got to see the interest in his films hit its peak.

The cast of Ed Wood is an ensemble of big name movie stars and recognizable character actors. Some work better in their roles than others, but over all the film is very well cast. Bill Murray as Bunny Breckinridge is hilarious, but underused. Real pro wrestler George “The Animal” Steele plays the late great Tor Johnson; his voice is much deeper, but he looks exactly like him. The weakest performance is Lisa Marie as Vampira, but having done some research on Vampira, I’m not convinced that her character in Ed Wood is very well written. (I guess if Tim Burton had waited a few years to make Ed Wood we probably would have had Helena Bonham Carter as Vampira.) A few of these characters just seem like they were thrown into a stew. It works, but they could have gone deeper.

Johnny Depp as Ed Wood is amazing to watch. He physically looks like him and while he had done serious acting before, this was his first transformative role, which is something he has become known for. We’ve all heard how he picks real people to model his characters after – for instance, he chose Michael Jackson as inspiration for Willy Wonka and Keith Richards as inspiration for Captain Jack Sparrow. He has said that his version of Ed Wood was a combination of Ronald Reagan, Mickey Rooney and Jack Haley as The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. He also used Casey Kasem’s voice as inspiration. Knowing this, if you go back and watch it you can see and hear all of these people in his portrayal of Ed Wood.

And finally, even though this movie is called Ed Wood, as far a I’m concerned, it all belongs to Martin Landau. He even won a Best Supporting Oscar for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi. The makeup team consisting of the great Rick Baker, Yolanda Toussieney and Tim Burton regular Ve Neill also won Oscars for transforming Landau into Bela. The makeup is mostly just over the nose and upper lip. Landau captured the soul of Bela Lugosi and you can really see it in his eyes. It is some damn fine acting.

In the summer of 1995, I attended the Famous Monsters of Filmland convention at the Universal City Sheraton Hotel. It is still one of the best days of my life. It was the day I met Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen for the first time. I also got to meet Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis, as well as John Landis and Joe Dante. But so many people who were associated with Ed Wood were still alive at the time. They were all there too. I talked to Forrest J. Ackerman for a few minutes. He gave me a business card and told me I should make an appointment to see his collection (I never did, and I regret that.) I asked him what he thought of the movie Ed Wood, since he was friends with Ed and Bela. He said he didn’t care for it much, mostly because Bela would never talk the way he did in the film. He felt the swearing was unnecessary and unfair to his memory. I can appreciate this opinion, but some of that profanity laced dialogue provides some of the movies biggest laughs, like “Karloff? Sidekick? Fuck You! Karloff doesn’t deserve to smell my shit!” and “Let’s shoot this fucker!” I guess the screenwriters thought that it was more interesting if there was some fake rivalry between Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, but Forrest Ackerman assured me that they were friends. I briefly said hi to Maila Nurmi (Vampira) as she walked past me. But I had some great conversations with Conrad Brooks and Paul Marco who played Police Officers in Plan 9 From Outer Space.

I also talked to Dolores Fuller for about ten minutes. There was no one at her table and she was really friendly and talkative. If only I had known that I had been sent from the future to interview her for Brutal As Hell, but alas I was only an 18 year old guy and mostly clueless. I did have the good sense to ask her what she thought of the movie Ed Wood. She had mostly good things to say about it, but pointed out that they had some of the facts wrong and she could not stand Sarah Jessica Parker’s performance. This was pre-Sex in the City. I really loved the things Sarah Jessica Parker did in the 80’s, but she’s pretty unlikeable as Dolores Fuller. Over the course of the film she goes from clueless to bitter. I can tell you first hand that Dolores Fuller was a sweet lady. Apparently she was a hard worker too. She worked in television production before Ed Wood ever made a movie, essentially supporting the both of them. After they broke up she had a successful songwriting career that included “Rock-A-Hula Baby” for the Elvis movie Blue Hawaii. I have a signed 8X10 photo of Dolores Fuller where she’s wearing the famous angora sweater. She wrote “To Quin, Don’t stretch this one out. Love, Dolores Fuller.” Pretty awesome!

By Karolina Gruschka

Cinema “Pionier”, ulica Krakowska in Strzelce Opolskie, Poland; built in the 1960s, it suffered a crisis it could never recover from, when home entertainment arrived in the East. Slowly, the building would decay to become the derelict and atmospheric cinema I so much loved in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was the kind of cinema that looked long closed from the outside, but had gangs of young punks and goths hanging about inside (and scary dogs), doing God-knows-what. The one screening per every couple of days would run only if at least four people would attend; this meant that often my brother, my cousin and I had to buy an extra ticket.

The screen was cold, smelled mouldy and had a weird vibe to it; it seemed like the ghosts of cinema’s past were still lingering (accentuated by the fact that there were head-shaped grease marks on the wooden headrests)…

“I want you to pretend you are in a […] movie theatre, you’re the only one there […], and in the whole pitch black theatre there’s only one thing you can see and that’s the white screen.”

There I am with my family sitting in this empty cinema looking at a screen that – Holy Shit! – looks like an extension of the movie theatre I am in, and there is this ghostly girl sitting in the front, about to turn around… I almost peed my panties. I might lose my (non-existent) street cred now, but Stir of Echoes (1999) is one of the few horror films that genuinely scared me. For days after I kept on seeing that girl and could not sleep without taking pills (herbal, ok?) to calm me down; years later I would cover my ears if somebody were to mention the movie. Why did this film have such a great effect on me? Speak to me on so many levels? Sure, I was quite young (you see, small local cinemas in Eastern Europe do not care about ratings), but I had seen worse by then, and this was a harmless 15.

I’ve often thought that a reason Stir of Echoes hit me so hard was the emotional affects it stirred in me (hello, hormonal teenager). Often, horror films tend to focus on predominantly two emotions, i.e. horror and disgust, or fear and horror; whereas Stir of Echoes had scenes that made me feel in equal amounts fear, horror, terror, anger, empathy and great sadness (I felt so terribly sorry and sad for the ghost girl). All this was probably enhanced by the fact that the effects and visuals were all I could go by in grasping the movie, since it was played in English (had a very basic knowledge of it then) with Polish subtitles (growing up in Germany, reading Polish fast was never my strength). The scenes where the protagonist Tom (Kevin Bacon) is trying to connect with the spirit of Samantha (Jennifer Morrison) have this odd, night terror vibe – oh, those night terrors I used to get as a kid! Combined with some shock effects and creepy, unnatural movements, this film had me destroyed by the end of it. Since then I will never, ever have anyone hypnotize me for the fear that some backdoor might be opened I will not have any control over. Here I am 15 years later still vividly remembering that night and shuddering at the thought of it. I got the DVD and have watched it once since its cinematic release in 1999 (although in Poland it might have been slightly later), but am scared to re-watch it now because I am home alone.

Stir of Echoes is based on a novel by Richard Matheson (which I have yet to read… maybe) and features Kevin Bacon as Tom. Yes, Kevin Bacon before all those annoying EE adverts, when he was still one of the coolest guys about (and slightly creepy). Tom moves with his wife Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) and little son Jake (Zachary Cope) to another area within Chicago. This “decent” neighbourhood seems to be great, everyone knows each other and there are constantly some communal events going on. During one of the parties, sceptic Tom gets hypnotized by Maggie’s friend Lisa (Illeana Douglas), who is training to be a hypnotherapist. What starts off as harmless fun ends in Tom becoming more open-minded, literally: he receives glimpses of the beyond.

He is, however, not alone in this; his little boy Jake, who, by the way, loves monster movies, has a natural sixth sense which is comparable to The Shining. Both can sense teenager Samantha, a ghost inhabiting the house, who is getting more and more pissed off as they do not get what she is trying to tell them. Tom is turning increasingly mad trying to understand Samantha, feeling that this is something important, something that will give meaning to his “stupid” and “ordinary” life. Maggie – bless her – is freaked out and hurt by all of this, but stays surprisingly strong and patient (despite being pregnant on top of that). I won’t say more to the story other than, maybe this neighbourhood ain’t that decent; even the nicest people can have skeletons in their closets…

15 years later, Stir of Echoes did not freak me out as much; back then, extra-textual factors might have contributed to the horrific (but awesome) experience I had. However, I still think it is a great movie and would recommend it to anyone who has not watched it yet. Yes, I admit Stir of Echoes is a mainstream drama/horror, but come on, what is wrong with that, eh? Get the DVD for a fix of 1990s and a massive dose of the uncanny.

By Ben Bussey and Keri O’Shea

Here at Brutal As Hell, we have at least one bona fide Last House on the Left scholar in our midst: our beloved Nia, who penned a fairly epic tribute to Wes Craven’s breakthrough movie on its 40th anniversary in 2012. However, just to balance things out, the BAH staff also has at least two Last House novices: Keri and myself. Yes, the editors of a site called Brutal As Hell have, until now, been almost totally ignorant of one of the most reputedly brutal films ever made, beyond its reputation.

However, the current UK tour of a rare original print of The Last House on the Left – organised by 35mm devotees Cigarette Burns, and Psychotronic Cinema –  presented a unique opportunity to not only educate ourselves, but hopefully have a viewing experience close to what was originally intended. Here, in brief – and with some spoilers – are our reactions…

Ben: So – this past Saturday night we attended a screening of The Last House on the Left at Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, second stop of the tour that Cigarette Burns are doing with their rare 35mm print. We should get this out of the way and thereby end our horror cred forever in the eyes of many – it was the first time you’d ever seen it, and only the second time for me.

Keri: Yep – it was one of those films I knew of, could describe the plot and even name the characters, but – I’d never seen it. And, actually, I enjoyed it far more than I was expecting.

Ben: My feelings are quite mixed. It’s notorious for being one of the nastiest, most extreme films ever made – and put in the context of early 70s cinema, the horror genre in particular, it’s not hard to see how it would have been considered that way back then. But I’m not sure if it still has that sort of power today.

Keri: I still felt like it packed a punch – even though it has wildly inept moments throughout, i.e. whenever those cops are on screen. But in terms of indiscriminate, senseless violence, LHOTL certainly delivers – though I accept that I’m probably looking at the film in terms of its place in horror history too.

Ben: For me, it was less disturbing than it was disorienting – and it was absolutely the sudden shifts from wanton cruelty to slapstick buffoonery that did it. The very end, for instance (spoiler warning): Dad’s just chainsawed Krug to death, freeze frame – then end credits set to that comedy Chas & Dave-style music. You can’t help laughing – but it’s not so much from amusement as bewilderment. A genuine WTF moment, of which the film has many.

Keri: Yep, tonally I can’t see that Craven knew what he was doing. Slapstick ordeal horror? Well, that didn’t quite take off…

Ben: Yeah, it’s a very peculiar contrast. It’s one thing for a grueling film to have moments of levity, but this was pushing it. I have to assume it was intended as some sort of pointed effort to further emphasise the cruelty of what Krug and his gang were up to – showing how oblivious the rest of the world was. Maybe that was part of Craven’s Vietnam metaphor; how much of America was blinkering itself to the horror of what was going on. But that’s me rationalising it intellectually, knowing what Craven and umpteen others have said about the film since; as a viewer going in blind I doubt I would have made such an association, and the comedy elements would have just seemed a huge lapse in judgement.

Keri: It must have seemed an odd fish to viewers at the time… I mean, how recent is the common consensus that the film was a commentary on Vietnam? It seems pretty well understood/accepted now. But was it at the time?

Ben: I honestly don’t know. It mostly played flea pits and drive-ins, didn’t it? I can’t imagine it attracted too many high brow dissections on release.

Unless I missed it, I don’t remember them ever directly referring to Vietnam in the movie. Though they do make more explicit reference to the end of flower power, what with the girls going to see a band called Blood Lust, and the mother saying, “I thought you were supposed to be the love generation? What’s with all the violence?” Or words to that effect. Obvious Alice Cooper reference there too – the mother mentions chickens being killed onstage, I think.

Keri: Dr. Collingwood mentions ‘being in the barracks’, though it’s not clear for which conflict – could easily have been World War II, considering he looks to be in his fifties. I always wonder how much these social commentary ideas develop over time, rather than being purposeful.

That said, I did think that Phyllis’ near-escape and then how she’s cut down in a cemetery – where others have had decent burials but where she will not – is telling. That could relate to a lost generation. Like, the old rules or ways of doing things surrounding death had to be forgone in Vietnam – no headstone, nothing. But then, again, is that me making that fit with the film? That’s one of the issues around dissecting films of this nature, I guess!

Ben: I get your point. And yeah, I do wonder sometimes if having an interest in film history is actually a hindrance in approaching some films, because it keeps you from engaging on a basic viewer level. I don’t mean that as a slur on less informed viewers, but rather that we should be able to engage with a film on our own terms – and on the film’s own terms for that matter. However, with something like Last House, we’re immediately considering its role in bridging the gap between Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chain Saw Massacre, ushering in the new era of horror; we’re immediately relating it to the later works of Wes Craven and producer Sean Cunningham. (Heh, I said ‘I get your point’…)

Keri: Nice work! * But yes, it can be hard to disengage horror genre mode – and just watch the damn film…

Ben: Staying in horror genre mode – it is interesting to note the differing paths Craven and Cunningham went on to take, notably in creating the two dominant horror franchises of the 80s in Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Cunningham’s franchise was just pure blood and sensationalism, whilst Craven’s was more interested in the subtle nuances of terror, and symbolism. Last House could, I suppose, be said to balance those elements.

Keri: Yeah I guess so – LHOTL was where two different disciplines got going. It’s notably not a bloody film, either – a bit like Texas Chain Saw. You assume it’s grisly, but it’s assumption only.

Ben: That said – I gather it wasn’t an uncut version we saw, nor was it uncut when I saw it however-many years ago. I’ve seen clips which showed intestines being pulled out, and that moment definitely wasn’t in there.

Keri: Ah, yes, I remember you saying about this on the night… Still, considering the screentime many slashers dedicate to gore, it’s still a case of less is more generally. (Slashers as an example of what followed, of course.)

Ben: It’s more about the psychological cruelty. I don’t think it has quite that same relentless heart-thumping quality that Chain Saw has – but I think it tops it in sheer mean-spiritedness.

Keri: ‘Mean spirited’ is a good description.

Ben: I mean, the one really horrible moment that sticks in my head is Krug saying “piss your pants.”

Keri: Yeah – humiliating someone, that always has more of an impact than anything else. And of course Hess does it so well.

Ben: Oh yeah. Again falling into horror geek mode (kinda hard not to, what can I say), one can sort of see the roots of Craven’s Freddy Kruger there, in that for all his repulsiveness there’s something strangely, unnervingly compelling and attractive about him. (Plus the fact that the name ‘Kruger’ was indeed derived from ‘Krug.’ Dig that, trivia fans.)

Keri: Gravitas, definitely. And then he went on to more or less play the same role again in The House on the Edge of the Park, so he cornered the market there.

Ben: And of course he did the music too – the gentler, more haunting stuff as well as the comedy Chas & Dave number. The soundtrack seems to have almost as big a cult reputation as the film itself in recent years.

Keri: It was cool to see a LHOTL merch stall at the cinema! There’s something so cool about incongruous horror soundtracks. I’ve been humming ‘The Road Leads to Nowhere’ for days…

Ben: I thought it was ‘the road to nowhere ends in Leeds…’ Thank you, I’m here all week. But seriously, I agree! Far better than the crash-bang-wallop soundtracks we so often get nowadays; soothing music against horrific material can have such an eerie effect.

Alas we’re running low on time, so we best wrap this up simply: when all ‘s said and done, did you like Last House on the Left?

Keri: I did. I thought it had more going on than I’d anticipated, and above all else it was great to see the film as it was intended – a late night screening at a cinema, so kudos to Cigarette Burns for making it so.

Ben: Agreed. Getting to see a film from a pre-video era in its original format, and on a big screen, is a sadly rare treat these days, and one we should embrace when the opportunity arises. While my feelings remain mixed about the film itself, I’m definitely grateful for the experience.

Keri: Amen to that!

Cigarette Burns’ Last House on the Left tour continues with screenings at Duke of York’s, Brighton on the 13th September; Cameo, Edinburgh on the 18th; the Showroom, Sheffield on the 23rd (in association with Celluloid Screams); and the GFT in Glasgow on the 30th.

* If you think this is childish, you should have heard how loudly we sniggered when the end credits revealed the father was played by an actor named ‘Gaylord.’

By Nia Edwards-Behi

Twenty five years have passed since Shinya Tsukamoto unleashed his hellish vision of society on us, in the form of his techno-body horror masterpiece Tetsuo. Arguably the ur-film of Japanese body horror, Tetsuo rightly stands the test of time to remain eerily relevant and one of the finest abstract horror films ever made.

It took me a while to get round to Tetsuo. For a while my first and only experience of Japanese body horror was the wonderfully baffling Meatball Machine. Then followed a modern classic, in the form of Machine Girl, closely followed by the experience of sleeping through Tokyo Gore Police because it was midnight and directly after I’d just been traumatised by Martyrs (ah, festivals…). I eventually got around Tetsuo and its ‘sequel’ Body Hammer on DVD at home and boy, did it blow my mind. Not long after I also saw the other ‘sequel’, Bullet Man, which I’ve previously reviewed here.

While both sequels are enjoyable enough (caveat on Bullet Man, it’s enjoyable if you can get past the terrible English dialogue), neither comes quite close to recreating the sheer visceral power of Tetsuo: The Iron Man. The film is brief – its longest cut only 77 minutes long, the standard version only 67 – but it does more in that time than most 90+ minute films come close to. It’s a short, sharp smack right in the face, for sure, one which leaves you reeling and wondering if you might have just nodded off and had one hell of a nightmare.

A synopsis barely does the film justice. The film opens with the Metal Fetishist (played by Tsukamoto himself), a man digging into his thigh with a metal rod. When he notices maggots in the festering wound he screams and runs wild, and is hit by a car. The driver of the car, a salaryman (Tomorowo Taguchi), and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara), dump the Metal Fetishist’s body and leave him for dead. The Salaryman’s life is irreversibly changed, however, as throughout the film his body slowly transforms, his flesh and bones metamorphosing into scraps of metal. He encounters two others made of metal, namely a madwoman who chases him through the streets and his girlfriend in a humiliating dream sequence. Finally, he meets the Metal Fetishist again, and a final battle leads to surprising results.

If that sounds utterly bonkers, well, it is. A plot like that doesn’t work without the brazen, raw, exhausting style of its telling. Made entirely in black and white, and shot on 16mm, the film’s look removes it far from any semblance of ‘realism’. Incorporating stop-motion animation, rapid editing, expressionist performances and a truly discordant industrial soundtrack by Chu Ishikawa results in a brain-melting experience. Ishikawa’s masterful soundtrack brings everything else together and is one of my favourite things about the film, all clanging sounds and incessantly driving beats. Tetsuo’s the sort of stylistic mish-mash that needs to be experienced to be believed.

Of course, Tetsuo isn’t all about its incomprehensible plot and imagery, even if that is the main appeal. Like body horror across any national filmmaking context, the film abstractly deals with human crisis, psychological conflict or trauma manifest on the body. In the case of Japanese body horror, sometimes referred to as Japanese cyberpunk, this is intrinsically linked with issues of industry and technology. I won’t pretend to be an expert on Japanese history and society, but given the extremely rapid growth of the Japanese economy post-WW2, and the importance of manufacturing, technological developments and corporate rule, it’s little surprise that such industrial concerns emerge in its art. It’s no mistake that the protagonist of Tetsuo is a salaryman, a stereotype figure known for his mundane loyalty to work. The Salaryman becomes the Iron Man, his body as industrialised as his mind – but crucially, by doing so he is freed, and is able to rebel against that which otherwise constrains him. A crisis of masculinity is central to that metamorphosis too, I think, with the immediate narrative contrast of dream sequence Girlfriend and the mechanical penis extreme evidence of that. One of the film’s strongest assets is Kei Fujiwara, who not only plays the Salaryman’s girlfriend – her performance in the dream sequence is surely the spiritual heir to mechanical Maria’s dance in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis – but she also shared camera duties with Tsukamoto.

The human body in crisis is always going to be a relevant theme to explore in art, and horror’s one of the best places to do that. Tsukamoto’s exploration of the fine line between body, soul, work and industry is still remarkably topical today. Though we might now be more concerned with issues of surveillance and living in the Cloud and bitcoins or whatever, the physical human body, in relation to these, remains in crisis. I think if Tsukamoto were to revisit Tetsuo once again issues of surveillance and our increasingly virtual existence would be the way forward. At the end of The Iron Man the Salaryman and the Metal Fetishist seem to resolve to turn the world to rust. But at least if we’re made of iron, we’re still made of something, right?

By Quin

While I am certainly no expert on psychology, I have read a little about an occurrence in the human mind, where something that is traumatic and terrifying at a young age will become attractive later in life. I think this says a lot about why some of us are drawn to horror films. It seems like everyone I know has a story about the time they watched that one movie when they were way too young that scarred them for life. But by the same token, quite a few of us have turned that scarification into the motivation that drives our hunger to find the thing that will scare us the most. Like we want to get the feeling back that we experienced as a kid.

My own personal story about watching things I shouldn’t have goes back to when I was in Kindergarten. I guess I was about 5, and my parents had a VHS copy of An American Werewolf in London. I knew I had to see it, but I also knew that I probably shouldn’t. Even at 5 I think I was aware of the consequences. But I was a smooth talker and I convinced a babysitter to put it on for me. I made it to the dream sequence in the forest and ran from the room crying. (Frankly, I’m shocked I made it through the initial attack on the moors, I guess I was tougher than I thought.) Following that instance, I lost sleep over everything from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It got so bad that I knew horror movies weren’t for me and I didn’t like to be scared. I decided sometime in 1985 that I would never watch another scary movie again. This lasted until sometime around 1988 when I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street on television. I was amazed to find that it didn’t scare me at all. I guess I got a little cocky, thinking that watching edited mainstream horror with commercial breaks actually meant something. Little did I know, about a year later, I would see the movie that to this day is still the scariest thing I’ve ever seen – Pet Sematary.

First let me clarify, I have seen thousands of horror films as of now. So when I say that Pet Sematary is the scariest, I mean that comparatively and within the context of which I saw it. It was 1989, I was 12 years old, and the conditions were perfect for me to be emotionally destroyed by that movie. Also, I was still young and innocent enough to not have a way of defending myself against its dark and complicated themes.

Pet Sematary is the film based on the book of the same name. Like almost all stories by Stephen King, it takes place in Maine. Specifically, it is set in a small town called Ludlow, which is the same town in which Stephen King’s The Dark Half takes place. King has spent almost his entire career as a writer in Maine, with the exception of a stint in Colorado, which is where he wrote The Shining. It’s very common for writers to draw from their personal lives to fill in the details of their stories. Pet Sematary may be one of the best examples of this. So many of the things that happen in the story actually happened to Stephen King, without all of the supernatural stuff and the main climax of the film. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, I’ll get to that in a sec.

The Creed family have just moved from Chicago to Ludlow so Dr. Louis Creed can begin woking at the University of Maine as the head physician of campus health services. Across the road lives the old Jud Crandall, played by the great Fred Gwynn in a brilliant performance that puts Herman Munster out of your mind completely. He and Louis become very close over the course of the film. Early in the film, Jud warns Louis about the road they live on. It’s actually a highway that sees the occasional big rig tearing through with a truck driver behind the wheel hopped up on speed. Jud feels the need to mention the danger of the highway since the Creeds have two young children and a cat named Winston Churchhill. The next Day, Jud takes the family on a short hike to the pet cemetery. It’s a crudely made resting place – so crude that the sign provides the title’s misspelled word. This cemetery is a place for beloved pets who have died in the area dating back generations, some of which were killed on the road. Things start to get weird for Louis Creed right away. His first day on the job at the college, a student is hit by one of those trucks. Louis works to save him, but the guy doesn’t make it. This leads to Louis having dreams about the kid, or is he actually haunting him? Not only does he serve as a warning for Louis, but he is also foreshadowing personified for the viewer.

As you might guess, tragedy eventually strikes twice for the Creed family. First the family cat is killed in the road. This happens while Louis is home alone. Jud decides to let him in on a little secret. Just beyond the pet cemetery, past a deadfall, is a Micmac indian burial ground. Jud leads him there so he can bury the cat, telling him, “I’d help ya, but ya gotta do it yourself. Each buries his own.” That night, Jud tells Louis not to tell anyone what they did preaching the eerie sentiment, “The soil of a man’s heart is stonier.” It doesn’t take long for Louis to realize that Church is back from the dead, only he isn’t quite the same. He smells bad and is much more irritable than before. Louis begins to think he may be going crazy. Jud tells him the story of the time he buried his dog spot in the burial ground, “A man doesn’t always know why he does things, Louis.” But when Louis asks him if anyone has ever buried a person up there, he emphatically tells him no. Well, when tragedy strikes again, Louis does the only thing he can.

It’s the start of what looks like a beautiful day. The Creeds, along with their friend Jud, are having a picnic in the yard. Some conversation, laughter and kite flying turn into the unimaginable when the Creeds’ young son Gage stumbles after his kite into the road just as a truck approaches. Gage is killed instantly. We see his father scream in anguish and horror, as a small bloody sneaker skips in slow motion across the screen. What is a grieving father to do? He has been given the option of cheating death out of taking anything he loves. Yes, he makes the choice to bury Gage just beyond the pet cemetery. Gage comes back. But much like Church, Gage isn’t himself. People start to die and a chain of events is now in motion where Louis cannot make any more good decisions.

As I mentioned before, the themes at play in Pet Sematary are so dark and disturbing, it’s almost a miracle the book was ever written and that the film was made. Stephen King was so afraid he had crossed a line with this story that he put it away for five years before his wife Tabitha finally convinced him that the story was great and needed to be published. As horrible as the death of a child is, the story goes even deeper at reminding the viewer of their own mortality. With the tagline SOMETIMES DEAD IS BETTER in mind, the movie presents us with imagery that shows us how horrifying getting sick can be. Shortly after the first visit to the Pet Sematary, Louis and his wife Rachel have an argument over how to talk to their daughter about death. Rachel is of the opinion that she is too young and it shouldn’t be discussed. What follows is an emotional but deeply spine-chilling flashback that explains why Rachel feels the way she does. When she was a young girl, her older sister Zelda had become sick with Spinal Meningitis. One afternoon she was left to care for her alone as her parents went away for the day. Her sister had become so physically twisted and mentally insane, she could no longer feed herself or move and she looked like the stench of death. As Rachel feeds her mushy, gelatinous goo, easy enough for her to try to swallow, Zelda begins to choke. She writhes as her mouth opens to reveal the goo and her black tongue. Her eyes roll back. As Rachel explains in a voice-over, “They’ll say I murdered her by choking. They’ll say, “you hated her”… and that was true.”

Zelda represents the fear of death. The death of Gage has always been troubling to me. And I couldn’t even imagine what the imagery in this film could do to a parent. But for me, Zelda was the thing that haunted my nightmares for a very long time. It got so bad that I couldn’t even say the word Zelda. I couldn’t even think of the letter Z without her boney, sunken face flashing through my mind. It was entirely by accident one day years later, I was watching Ramones videos on youtube and I ran across the music video for “Pet Sematary” – the title track on the soundtrack – as the video goes through clips from the film, it gets to a quick shot of Zelda with her hands up near her face, laughing. I saw it and felt this burst of adrenaline. My heart started to pound. After all these years I couldn’t believe I saw her again. When the anxiety began to die down, I decided to take another look. I had no more adrenaline and I was no longer frightened. I laughed.

In the last 5 years or so, a special edition DVD of Pet Sematary was released. It includes a widescreen transfer of the film, a behind the scenes documentary as well as commentary with the director Mary Lambert. Since I was no longer afraid, I bought it immediately. I’ve now watched it at least half a dozen times. I can now look at it more critically. While the story is great (the script was adapted by Stephen King himself), some of the acting is terrible. Fred Gwynn is superb, as is the young Miko Hughes who plays Gage. But Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby as the Creeds are positively wooden. The young Ellie Creed is played by twin sisters and she delivers many of her lines like she’s in a school play. The direction of the film goes back and forth between made-for-TV-esque melodrama and taut, chilling horror with gorgeous country scenery. The film gets a big thumbs up for looking almost exactly how you imagine it when you read the book as well as following the story remarkably close. For me, I can forgive the acting that goes wrong in places.

Fortunately, this is one of those films that makes its way through the rumor mill every year or so, with reports that it is going to be remade. I know that hardcore horror fans turn up their noses at remakes as much as new “found footage” films, but Pet Sematary is a remake that I would welcome with open arms. I would love to see someone else’s interpretation of it. I would also welcome the possibility of being scared all over again by an updated version that is more stylized. I’m not going to lie. If it ever gets made, I will be nervous as hell to see it. But I will see it no matter what. Until then, my fears are buried just beyond the deadfall, waiting to return.