MY FAVOURITE HALLOWEEN HORROR

THE FOG (1980: Dir. John Carpenter)

I have a confession to make. I love the films of John Carpenter. For me, all of his work has merit, and I can honestly say that even his weakest films are entirely watchable. There is one however that always thrills me as if for the first time and it is The Fog. Coming after the perfection of his 1978 classic Halloween, it was inevitable that his next project would suffer from unreasonably high expectations but I think the film's imperfections contribute to its charm. Inspired by the depraved tales of vengeance depicted in the EC Comics of Carpenter's youth, the film begins in front of a campfire as the hypnotic tones of John Houseman recount to a rapt group of children, the story of greed and murder that begat the founding of Antonio Bay, a small coastal town in California. Within these few short opening minutes Carpenter himself demonstrates a similar control over the attention of his viewers, using sound, music, and lighting to introduce a palpable, otherworldly sense of dread, a mood that permeates all of his excursions in horror genre. Why do I love it so? The deep soothing voice of Adrienne Barbeau as the isolated disc jockey; the wind-swept lighthouse setting of her radio station; the spacious, anything-can-happen Panavision cinematography of Dean Cundey; the glowing red eyes of 20 year-old make-up prodigy Rob Bottin as the mute undead ship's captain, and the enveloping organic fog that precedes his crew of marauding zombies. These are just a sampling of the pleasures that I return to year after year, never tiring of Carpenter's droningly atmospheric synthesized score, or his unapologetic use of cheap "jump" scares. Far from being the assured filmmaker of his later years, Carpenter was forced to fix the film in post-production by adding many new suspenseful and savage scenes during tense re-shoots after a disastrously mild preview screening. The resulting patchwork is just another example of Carpenter's seamless craftsmanship, reaffirming my belief in him as an auteurist filmmaker with the true heart of an unabashed huckster. DVD & BLU-RAY

A NAZI STATE OF MIND Part Three

CROSS OF IRON (1977: Dir. Sam Peckinpah)

In any film when a German soldier is threatened with being ordered to the "Russian Front" a terrified expression always crosses his face. For decades this frigid hell-hole of war was a place that could only be imagined by audiences, until in 1977, when filmmaker Sam Peckinpah brought this dark chapter of Germany's history to the big screen. Funded by a West German soft-porn producer with artistic ambitions, directed by an alcoholic American auteur and filmed on a limited budget in remote Yugoslavia with an international cast and crew, this could have been one of the great follies in the history of War cinema. Instead these seemingly volatile elements combined to produce a flawed masterpiece. Based on the novel by Willi Heinrich, and told from the Nazi point of view, the idea that this gritty story of burnt-out soldiering could be a potential popular entertainment is nearly as suicidaly insane as Hitler's actual invasion. While there is little doubt that the hardships experienced by cast and crew contributed to the desperate atmosphere of the film, it also didn't help that the film featured a typically disillusioned Peckinpah protagonist/avatar played by James Coburn (Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid). The fates however, were pulling for Peckinpah, who, despite continuing health and addiction problems demonstrated that his filmmaker's eye for heart-pounding violence remained undiminished. Perhaps sensing that his career was winding down, Peckinpah made the film a sub rosa valentine to Coburn, who delivers a masterclass in cinematic magnetism as the stalwart Sgt. Steiner, battling his vainglorious commanding officers, while trying to protect his under-equipped platoon from the bone-chillingly merciless Russian landscape. Beset by constant on-set turmoil due to its precarious financing, the production eventually just ran out of money, resulting in the grim spectacle of its valiant director and his actors, improvising the ending as the cameras rolled. Despite such shortcomings, Orson Welles called it the finest anti-war film since All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), a view shared by much of Europe where its surprising success vindicated the bold ambition of all concerned. DVD REGION 1 & 2

A NAZI STATE OF MIND Part Two

HITLER: THE LAST TEN DAYS (1973: Dir. Ennio de Concini)

After Dracula, Adolph Hitler is probably the most imitated villain in cinema history. Despite his ubiquitous association with goose-stepping silliness, Mel Brooks wasn't the first to reveal the risible qualities of the Nazis and their gesticulating founder. The Three Stooges were in fact the first satirists to take on Hitler in their 1940 two-reeler You Nazty Spy!. Later that same year Charlie Chaplin released his attack on Der Fuhrer in his masterpiece The Great Dictator. America had still not entered World War II, yet Hollywood was now less timid in criticizing the German Chancellor and his policies. During and shortly after the War, the role of Hitler was virtually owned by two actors, the first was Norwegian-born Carl Ekberg who played him five times, beginning with Citizen Kane in 1941. After the U.S. joined the Allies in 1942, American actor Bobby Watson became famous for his eerie facsimile in ten films including Hitler-- Dead Or Alive (1942),  and The Hitler Gang (1944). The first major biographical film on the subject wasn't produced until 1962's Hitler starring Richard Basehart in a studied interpretation that did little to capture the dictator's volatile persona. Another decade would pass before the most authentic and historically accurate English language impersonations of Hitler would reach audiences, those of Frank Finlay in the television production of The Death of Adolph Hitler (1973), and the major motion picture Hitler: The Last Ten Days, starring Alec Guinness. Finlay's may have given the more flamboyant madman performance, but Guinness plays the part with a greater range of emotion, from paternalistic arrogance to paranoid rage, sprinkled with brief moments of pathos and avuncular humour. His Adolph is not some unknowable monster, but an all too human bully boy with delusions of intellectual and artistic grandeur. It is a compellingly authoritative performance often cited by Guinness as one of his proudest achievements, and together with the film's utilitarian production design, combines to make this British-Italian co-production, a plausible adaptation of the eyewitness memoir by Gerhardt Boldt, an actual survivor of the Fuhrerbunker. At the time of the film's release it appeared that the public was expecting an account full of more juicy gossip and seamy dramatics, than the almost prosaic presentation that they got instead. It was however a turning point for Nazi cinema, and cleared the path for other lauded interpretations of Hitler, most notably those of Anthony Hopkins in the made-for-tv film The Bunker (1984) and the haunting portrayal of Hitler's final days by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz in Oliver Hirshbiegel's Downfall (2004). For those who believe in the value of history, all of these films present facets of iconic evil as a warning for generations to come. DVD & BLU-RAY

A NAZI STATE OF MIND Part One

THE NIGHT OF THE GENERALS  (1967: Dir. Anatole Litvak)

As a child I was fascinated by the Nazis. With their Germanic obsessiveness for colour coordinated uniforms festooned with Swatsikas and other sigils, the Nazis were the most enviously accessorized villains in television and cinema. They were, for generations of viewers, the perfect visual personification of evil elegance. During World War II and for many years afterward, there was a reluctance by filmmakers to tell stories from the German point-of-view. Their crimes were deemed so monstrous, that for simple entertainment purposes it was easier to portray them as cold adversaries rather than complex emotional human beings. This trepidation gave way in the Fifties with a few early films such as The One That Got Away (1957), an atypical British film detailing the astonishing true tale of a German pilot who escaped from numerous Allied prison camps. Pioneering productions such as this, told the stories of German war heroes who did not share the Nazi philosophy and were therefore sympathetic as protagonists. Exploring the pathology of Nazism from the inside, didn't really become acceptable until after the last great war crime trial of Adolph Eichmann, whose subsequent hanging in 1962 was a cathartic event for a world still scarred by Hitler's diabolical scourge. Published the same year, the novel The Night of the Generals by Hans Hellmut Kirst dared to expose the grisly sex murder of a prostitute by a member of the German High Command, and the subsequent internal investigation that exposes all manner of collusion and deviance among the Nazi hierarchy. Sensing an unprecedented opportunity to challenge conventions of habit and taste, producer Sam Spiegel (Lawrence of Arabia), purchased the rights to the book and proceeded to turn this WWII murder-mystery into one of his typical large cast super-productions. Attempting to paint a lurid portrait of Nazi moral corruption, Spiegel unfortunately hired Anatole Litvak, a Russian-born journeyman director who had previously directed the sensitive and atmospheric WWII drama Decision Before Dawn (1951), but now was mostly associated with anodyne Hollywood melodramas like Anastasia (1956). The results, despite being photographed on authentic Polish locations, had Litvak choosing camp villainy over true psychological horror. One's enjoyment of the film therefore depends upon an almost fetishistic love of eye-popping military regalia as brandished by the starry cast, including all-purpose foreigner Omar Sharif as a sober military investigator, and bottle blonde Peter O'Toole as a eye-rollingly unhinged SS General. It all amounts to epic cinema with enough Nazi-filled chicanery to please the twelve year-old in all of us. DVD & BLU-RAY

APOCALYPTIC VISIONS Part Three

THE LAST WAVE (1977: Dir: Peter Weir)

   

Mysticism is often scoffed at by a generally literal-minded public. Australian director Peter Weir was one of the first major Anglophone filmmakers to embrace it as a means to comment upon contemporary Western society. Beginning with Picnic at Hanging Rock, and followed by The Last Wave, Weir explored his sober belief in unexplained phenomena, resulting in a pair of financially successful and genuinely unsettling cinematic exercises that helped give international credibility and recognition to the nascent Australian film industry. The story tells of lawyer Richard Chamberlain, who, while defending an Aboriginal tribesman in a murder case, experiences mysterious and disorienting visions that lead him to a lost underground city hidden beneath contemporary Sydney. Much to his credit, Weir portrays native magic with admirable gravitas, utilizing authentic cultural instruments like the didgeridoo to create disquieting sound effects that are enhanced by cinematographer Russell Boyd's masterfully moody lighting, creating a disturbing sense of dread. Ultimately the film is a testament to Weir's unerring craftsmanship, confidently communicating to a naive audience the Aboriginal concept of "dreamtime", part of an animist mythology which includes the ability of the unconscious mind to relay Jungian archetypes across ancient and modern cultures. Prepare yourself for an enlightening excursion beyond the veil of perception. DVD REGION 1 & 2

APOCALYPTIC VISIONS: Part Two

THE FINAL PROGRAMME (1973: Dir. Robert Fuest)

There was no better match of talents than director Robert Fuest and novelist Michael Moorcock. Based on the first book in Moorcock's surrealistic Jerry Cornelius series, The Final Programme is the quintessential film by Fuest, a mercurial talent who began as a set designer and later found fame directing episodes of the pop-art British TV series The Avengers. Having had a recent success with The Abominable Dr. Phibes, followed by the relative disappointment of its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Fuest thwarted career complacency by writing, directing, and designing this oddball sci-fi satire, featuring another fashionably-clad insouciant hero. Star Jon Finch (Polanski's Macbeth) is the very personification of chocolate biscuit-eating anarchist Jerry Cornelius, exuding a Byronesque style with his frilly collars, black nail polish and polymorphous sexuality. Miss Brunner, played with tongue-in-cheek venom by the rangy Jenny Runacre (The Passenger), is his perfect hedonistic nemesis, and its their epic conflict that results in one of cinema's most genetically bizarre and ribald apocalypses. Sadly the film garnered only cult status, and the world was deprived of the further adventures of its singular and charismatic protagonist. DVD REGION 1 & 2

APOCALYPTIC VISIONS Part One

COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (1970: Dir. Joseph Sargent)

Apocalypse movies are the most fashionable film genre of our post millennial age. Every week it seems there is a new release dedicated to visualizing the end of the world as we know it. The turmoil of the first decade of the second millenium, shared much in common with the transitional decade of the Sixties. Both decades contained great economic, social, political, and scientific upheaval. As 1969 drew to close, there was understandable trepidation in the air with the Vietnam war raging, the rise of the PLO, Woodstock, and man landing on the moon. It was also the year that ARPANET, the precursor the internet, was created. Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, it was developed to link computers worldwide, revolutionizing communication and security. Based on the 1966 novel Colossus by British author Dennis Feltham Jones, Colossus: The Forbin Project, was an attempt to examine the issues raised by the burgeoning influence of computers, as it tells the the story of a sentient American super-computer that exceeds its programming by assuming control of all nuclear weapons, thereby blackmailing humanity into "peace". Not surprisingly the film was a failure at the box office, most likely due to its sterile paranoid atmosphere and humourlessly downbeat tone. Courageously, former television director Joseph Sargent eschewed  the casting of stars in the lead roles. The results bore unexpected fruit, with German actor Eric Braeden as the misguided scientist Forbin, along with Canadians Susan Clark (as his girlfriend/colleague) and Gordon Pinsent (as the US President!) all distinguishing themselves in memorable performances. Since 1970, the size of computers may have changed but the danger of sentience is still with us. BLU-RAY

IMMORTAL SPECTRES FROM THE PAST Part Three

THE SHOUT (1978: Dir. Jerzy Skolimowksi )

The cinema-going experience has not always been the eardrum shattering experience that it is for today's audiences. Sound and music were once used much more sparingly to create unique environments and convey emotion. The Sixties and Seventies heralded the era when the music synthesizer moved from the abstract into the mainstream. This new sonic realm was the unique tapestry for the UK production of The Shout, directed by expatriate Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski. Still licking his wounds from the notorious failure of his recent film adaptations of Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Gerard), and Nabokov (King, Queen, Knave), Skolimowski followed up with this adaptation of a short story by another famous literary figure, British poet Robert Graves. The film begins and ends at a cricket match on the grounds of an asylum, where the character of Graves himself (Tim Curry), meets a menacingly mysterious figure (Alan Bates) who relates to him the story of how he inveigled his way sexually, and otherwise, into the lives of avant-garde composer John Hurt and his wife Susannah York. Exploring the power of shamanic aboriginal spells, including the terrifying ability to kill by shouting, the film deftly plays upon the viewer's skepticism by contrasting the modern technology used to create Hurt's otherworldly music, supplied by Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford of the prog rock group GENESIS, with the primal force of Bates' sonic tsunami. Enigmatic, eerie, and worth watching to witness Jim Broadbent, in his film debut, as a man driven convincingly insane by the supernatural forces at play. DVD REGION 2

IMMORTAL SPECTRES FROM THE PAST Part Two

DON'T LOOK NOW (1973: Dir. Nicolas Roeg)

Precognition is a tricky device to pull off in a film. To portray it poetically, without resorting to crude editing and cheap shock effects is the real prize, and no one has done it with more art and taste than Nicolas Roeg in Don't Look Now. Roeg, a former cameraman and cinematographer (Lawrence of Arabia, Petulia), was the reigning king of the flash-forward, a technique he often employed to give his films a kind of interior dream logic, thus injecting the audience deep into the minds of his protagonists. From James Fox's protean gangster in Performance (1970), to David Bowie's asexual alien in The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976), Roeg illustrated the fears and insecurities of these characters by inserting unsettling visions of past and future reality into the cinematic narrative of his films. As the grieving father on a working holiday in Venice, Donald Sutherland is another of Roeg's troubled heroes, and it is Roeg's bold visual and editing choices that make the morbid dread of Sutherland's tragic fate such a traumatic experience for audiences, leaving the shaken viewer with a very palpable sense of loss after the final credits roll. DVD & BLU-RAY

IMMORTAL SPECTRES FROM THE PAST Part One

                                                                                                                                                 MALPERTUIS (1971: Dir. Harry Kumel)

Some films haunt you forever. Many years ago I had a film professor who showed us in class, his favourite cult film, the neglected Belgian fantasy-horror Malpertuis directed by Harry Kumel, famous for his outre vampire film Daughters of Darkness (1971). At the time I vowed not to be drawn in by his cultish obsession and despite being intrigued by its surreal imagery I put the film aside in my mind, but months later the worm turned. Without prompting, its dream-like properties started to surface again in my thoughts. Soon I was craving the experience of seeing it again if only to confirm its power over me. Unfortunately, the herculean lengths that my prof regaled us with, regarding attempts to acquire his pirated copy, had proven all too true. In the era of VHS, the film was unobtainable, except by the most clandestine of means. Bereft, all I could summon up in my mind were disconnected scenes of phantasmagorical characters, and indelibly malefic production design. In the meantime I read, and was suitably impressed by, the eponymous novel by Belgian fantasist Jean Ray, upon which the film was based. Finally in 2004, the Belgium Film Archive undertook a restoration, and in the process revealed that the version previously available was in fact a bastardized cut of the film, edited for its Cannes Film Festival premiere without the approval of its director. A two-disc all-region PAL DVD was released soon after, containing both cuts of the film and featuring a cornucopia of extras compiled by Kumel himself. Re-visiting the movie after decades of yearning was inevitably a slight disappointment, but shortly after seeing the directors' cut for the first time, its spell was cast over me anew. I luxuriated once again in its one-of-a kind casting of seemingly mis-matched European stars including a ferret-like Michel Bouquet, licking his lips over the girlish, sexy, and mysterious Susan Hampshire (in three roles), as an elephantine Orson Welles oversees the action from his engulfingly commodius bed. The audacity of its premise in an age before the unlimited special effects tools of CGI might limit its impact on contemporary audiences, regardless one cannot help but marvel at the nightmarish atmosphere Kumel created within his limited means. I still watch in awe, as it reaches its outlandish climax with a confidence of style and mood that makes Malpertuis a lost classic of its genre. DVD REGION 1 & 2