At the Mansion of Madness

There is a lot to say about unoriginality in some of AlbertoDe Martino’s films, with Holocaust 2000 and The Antichrist being quickly produced cash-ins of The Omenand The Exorcist, respectively, and Operation Kid Brother is probably the boldest Bond rip-off ever. However, these films are also the best of their kind; The Antichrist is easily the best Exorcist knock-off, and Operation Kid Brother, along with De Martino’sSpecial Mission Lady Chaplin, probably ranks in to any Eurospy fan’s top ten list.

The Italian-British co-production Holocaust 2000(akaRain of Fire) is regarded as being better than any of The Omen sequels, and so, it would seem to me that to call Holocaust 2000 a lackluster version of The Omen would be just as foolish as calling Fulci’sZombie Flesh Eaters a lackluster take on Romero’sDawn of the Dead. I won’t go as far as saying they are better, but the aforementioned films by De Martinomost certainly are not mere copies or inferior imitations of their source inspiration, yet they do have certain superior qualities and, in their own way, became influential themselves.

It is obviously smart from the business end to capitalize on successful international movies by creating other movies in a similar vein, catering to the taste of the audiences of the time, exploiting the spirit of the age. I imagine that this is what most likely gave these kind of genre films the green light from producers who probably cared more about what other movies the pitched script was similar to and not necessarily how original it was. Call this trendy, if you must, but a lot of these movies brought the source inspiration to different directions and new heights and therefore have an originality that can be discovered for those willing to look beneath the surface.

Made more towards the tail end of writer director Alberto De Martino’s filmmaking career, Holocaust 2000 stems its tale from controversy over the progression and eventual implementation of thermonuclear power and the potential onslaught of the apocalypse, Book of Revelation style but with a topical twist on the prophesized seven headed beast.

The movie stars Kirk Douglas as the main character, Robert Caine of Caine Enterprises, and this is basically his story. So there’s a lot of time spent with him. Fortunately he’s great here, pulling off a range of different acting modes between stoic but friendly business man, helpless and panic stricken, and pissed off survivor. Though about sixty years old at the time the film was made, Douglas still carries a young vitality, appears in good shape, and his character manages to find himself a beautiful young lover, Sara (Agostina Belli), who’s around the same age as his son, Angel Caine (Simon Ward).

I don’t know if it might just be Ennio Morricone’s apocalyptic sounding score, but the way this movie insinuates the end of humanity really creeps me the Hell out. It doesn’t instill in me any sort of insecurity about us blowing up the world; I don’t believe we are close to the end, but it sure can be terrifying to think about, especially from a more evil and supernatural point of view in the gory and nightmare film-vision this movie provides us with.

The narrative structure feels very episodic and also, unlike a lot of its Eurohorror contemporaries, very comprehensive and coherent. It almost feels like a TV series, condensed into one-hundred and two minutes, with some of the requisite drama motifs that would usually accompany such serialized fare, like troubles between father and son (which is to be expected if you're pretty certain your son is the antichrist), relationships, and pregnancy dilemmas. Perhaps it might even get a little on the talky soap side at times. But it’s a compelling, if a little long, story, and if you watch the English version, Rain of Fire, you’ll come across some really great gore. Many believe that the helicopter head chopping scene, here, was later ripped off in Dawn of the Dead.

The grand highlights are the insanity that is unleashed in Caine’s panicky nightmare and more than once in an insane asylum run by a, I’d say underused, character played by genre stalwart Adolfo Celi. The inmates in this asylum are like twenty Renfields in one place. The scenes with the protestors are pretty chaotic and entertaining, too. The repeating chant by the protestors should say it all: “What do our children want to be when they grow up? Alive!!!”

I have the Italian DVD for Holocaust 2000 by Legocart. It’s readily available on Amazon, and I didn’t know it was only in Italian, without subs or dubbing. I accidently ordered it since it is under the more well-known title Holocaust 2000. When I finally saw it in English as Rain of Fire I noticed that the movie is a lot gorier than the Italian DVD had led me to believe. Though, towards the end, there’s a really weird unexplained scene with a visual of a dead baby in a hospital that I thought was unnecessary, I still think the English version, Rain of Fire, is the better version to watch; it’s available on Amazon Instant under that title. It appears to me that the actors originally spoke English, so they are actually dubbed in Italian on the Italian version. I’m assuming we are hearing all of the actors’ original voices in the English version, even Adolfo Celi’s voice, which is usually dubbed due to his heavy Sicilian accent. I honestly loved Agostina Belli’s lovely Italian accent.

With enough patience, viewers will notice that this is another great addition to the Italian horror canon of the ‘70s, and even though The Omen comes to mind, Holocaust 2000 will still end up feeling quite different. The extended nightmare scene of a naked and helpless Caine on some kind of island of salt with some fun blue screen work of something big coming out of the sea shouldn’t be missed by any fan of nightmare sequences in a horror movie.

There’s this doomy and foreboding feeling of the approaching end that the movie pulls off rather well. I also like the commentary on the occasional desire to go back to the simple and basic things, seen from Caine’s retreats to his country house with his lover, and escape, temporarily, from the lifestyle that the progressing developments in technology enables. Despite my own reliance of modern conveniences, I still sometimes feel a desire to disconnect for a bit every now and then, unplug the internet, forget about video games and movies for a while and rediscover again what it’s like to have to go outside for entertainment.

"Progress... And after centuries of it, all we want is to come back where we started from..." Robert Caine / Kirk Douglas

Cthulhuprobably stands as one of the more controversial attempts at bringing the Cthulhu mythos to the screen, exploring certain themes completely absent from H.P.Lovecraft’sfictional writing. It’s a totally modern take on the novella The Shadow over Innsmouth that, at its core, still ends up feeling like a very true embodiment of Lovecraft horror.

Taking the more suggestive and indescribable approach, not much is seen yet much is insinuated. Hearing the radio news reporting on wild polar bears going extinct and the oceans rising, amongst others, suggests a kind of world that is falling apart, an uneasy feeling of an approaching end. Blending this with an emphasis on a beautiful but ominous dark ocean, it really feels like Cthulhu might be rising very soon and the Old Ones will be claiming what is rightfully theirs. The East Coast New England settings fans of the author are more in tune with have been transferred over to the West Coast in Astoria Oregon, and the setting is an interesting and fitting shift that doesn’t feel disagreeable at all. There’s just something about seaside towns that work so well for the Lovecraft sensibility. Why, after all, cannot the Old Ones haunt a port town on the other side of the country?

What stands out the most in Cthulhu and seems odd, at first, for a Lovecraft film is the significance of the homosexuality of its main character, history professor Russell Marsh (Jason Cottle), to the story. Though the film has found an approving horror audience, and it was well received at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, from what I understand, a number of people expressed an extreme disapproval for the film on the internet, exclaiming that the movie seems more like a gay love drama than a Lovecraft horror film adaptation. It’s definitely a bold move, one I admire, from the filmmakers, and I’ll admit that it took me by surprise, but I honestly thought Cottle nailed the role and it ended up working really well.

In the film, Russell receives word that his mother passed away and now has to return home to a family he’s distanced himself from for a long time, in order to attend the funeral and carry out the terms in his mother’s will. Aside from Russell encountering a fatal car crash involving a driver that seemed to know him too well, a type of deadly omen, the homecoming seems to start out rather well. However, it is revealed that Russell had a troubled past and an unhealthy relationship with his father, Reverend Marsh (Dennis Kleinsmith), a high priest in the religious order of Dagon. Russell’s father’s formal religious fanaticism and disapproval of his sexuality seems to be the primary reason for the hostility and Russell distancing himself from his family.

A lot of the story setup seems to provide a deep drama feel to the film: Russell’s sister, Dannie Marsh (Cara Buono), and her husband, who’s played by an actor (Rob Hamm) who looks just like Lovecraft, are failing at trying to have kids, and the only light in Russell’s life seems to be from reuniting with his childhood friend, Mike (Scott Patrick Green), who he seems to have unrequited feelings for. Things for the most part seem pretty downbeat and, given the current state of Russell’s life, very depressing. It does a fine job at setting itself up for a down to Earth story, but viewers in the mood for the Sci Fi fantasy escape that Lovecraft’s writing offers might start getting a little restless. Fortunately there’s an occult fantasy horror feel that pervades more and more as the movie goes along, and those Lovecraftian moments we’ve come for start to appear in remarkable ways that the film deserves more credit for, the first, for me, being a kind of twilight black mass procession over a bridge into a fishing net house. There’s a fearful feeling of isolation that begins to grow as it becomes more and more apparent that something is totally screwed up with this place.

The character of Zadok (Richard Garfield) is lifted straight from the novella, and the iconic conversation between the lead character and Zadok, the town drunk who’s old enough to have lived through a lot of its secret horrors, is given a new reimagining. Most might remember a similar moment in Stuart Gordon’sDagon, but at least here we can understand what the actor is saying. Anyone who’s seen Dagonshould know what I’m talking about.

Another odd and strange wild card here is the addition of Tori Spelling (apparently she liked the script) in a role that’s completely unexpected and in stark contrast to her current status as a mother of four reality TV star, but that’s what great actors do. She’s extremely seductive and totally hot, here, which is something I never thought before I saw this movie (I was more of a Tiffani Amber Thiessen man in the 90210 days). Some of her scenes are jaw dropping in more ways than one, and I can especially appreciate some of her overacting since I feel overacting can be quite fantastic when done by a professional.

As long as it’s not cold and rainy, I’m a big fan of cloudy weather, and, from what I’ve seen, it would seem that Astoria is generally cloudy and foggy around whatever time the film was being made, which in the story is from the end of April to the beginning of May. Yes, it takes place over Walpurgis Night, the eve of April 30th just before the first day of May, something that Lovecraft mentioned in Dreams in the Witch House. When Russell is imprisoned in the local jail, following a great nightmare scene involving a huge wooden crate on the beach with a bunch of flailing arms jutting out of it (which I'm imagining is an allusion to the kidnapped children mentioned by Zadok), he wakes up to what seems like an apocalypse taking place outside; it almost seems fortunate that he has his jail cell to hide in. Something indescribable outside his door unsuccessfully tries to break through, and after the commotion has died down, he finds his door opened. Everything seems to have gone to hell in a way that I thought seemed reminiscent to the intro to 28 Days Later. The police station is empty and Russell walks to a calendar on the wall and tears off the April 29th/30th sheet, revealing May 1st and that all that chaos that was alluded to outside of Russell’s cell took place on Walpurgis Night. An example of the film’s many subtleties that I appreciated.

The biggest strength in this film, for me, something I really felt, was how it generated this attraction and a feeling of longing to return to the sea. Towards the end, everything culminates into something Russell denies and is disgusted with, but all the horror Russell is running from completely seems to deteriorate once he, while trying to escape, opens the backdoor of his family mansion to a terrific shot of the ocean. The view and smell of the sea seems to stop him in his tracks, as all that he was mortified of seems to become his true calling, a realization as to what he is, where he’s come from, and where he belongs. This leads into an astonishing shot at the beach with people walking out of the sea, like zombies. The parked, empty vehicles on the beach with open doors and headlights still on sort of suggest an abrupt mass abandonment of life on land. It leads into the film’s final scene, which ends up being purposefully inconclusive, leaving it up to viewers to decide what they would've done. The lead is faced with a final decision, and as it becomes clear that he’s made up his mind, the movie ends without us ever finding out what choice he made. I dig it, but I could imagine a lot of people at theaters and film festivals being like: “Ok, and…?”

In the long run, Cthulhu has become one of my favorite Lovecraft film adaptations. I’ve wanted to review it for a long time, but I just wasn’t too sure how to approach it. As I said, it is very controversial; a look at the polar reviews on IMDB should help attest to that. The director, on the DVD commentary, even mentioned that the movie’s approval/disapproval ratio was 50/50, right down the center. The movie is sort of all over the place with a ton of filming locations, something that scriptwriter Grant Cogswellexpressed regret for, but we dig that sort of thing here. Be sure to go into it with an open mind, and you just might be fortunate enough to be on the approval side of the controversy and discover what’s there to appreciate.

Lord of Tears is the first co-production between Hex Media and Dark Dunes. It is an attempt at making a different type of horror film and revitalizing the classic, supernatural chiller style of the British Hammer horror that played an influence on Lord of Tears director Lawrie Brewster. It is also rich in Pagan influenced mythos, providing an avenue of research for its protagonist, giving it a Lovecraftian feel.

Lord of Tears just recently (a few days ago) won two awards at the 2013 Bram Stoker International Film Festival: 1) The Audience Award and 2) Best Female Lead. My congratulations go out to the production, cast, and crew. I had a feeling it was going to be good, but Lord of Tears just turned out to be incredible.

The story concerns a school teacher's, Jamie's (Euan Douglas), vague nightmares and unsettling childhood memories and his drive to uncover the mystery behind these visions at his inherited estate. Despite a warning letter from his recently deceased mother, Flora (Nancy Joy Page), he’s driven back to his childhood house, which seems to be the site of a past traumatic incident for Jamie, one he does not seem to clearly remember. An entity seemingly related to his past trauma, a tall figure with long arms, the head of an owl, Victorian clothing, and intimidating talons, manifests at times in front of Jamie. As nightmares take further hold on him, he begins to wonder if he’s gone mad. All isn’t entirely bad, though, thanks to a young, lovely lady employed in the area, Evie (Lexy Hulme), who Jamie starts feeling a romantic connection to as she aids him in uncovering the mystery behind the Baldurrock House.

It is one thing to create an exceptionally gorgeous, intellectual, and artistic horror film, but it’s another to create a scary one, and Lord of Tears excels in all of these elements.

Owing a lot to the natural landscape of the filming location in Scotland, the cinematography, by Gavin Robertson, is absolutely stunning. The surroundings of the mansion have a deep rooted mystique and beauty to them that compliments the very pleasing gothic interiors done in the classic Hammer film tradition. I was already delighted early on with the look and tone of the film, but I couldn’t help becoming ensconced in the story, written by Sarah Daly, and attached to the well thought out characters.

There’s a kind of interesting relationship between its two leads, Evie and Jamie, which has an endearing quality to it. The heavily isolated gothic mansion in the haunted Scottish Highlands is as much a character in the story as any other and makes the developing connection between these two seemingly strangers with a profound connection on the site of this mysterious estate that much more peculiar and fascinating. It really does succeed in creating a genuine romance, but of course there’s something obviously sinister lurking beneath, something not quite right, with an air of mystery and unanswered questions lingering about: What does the owl man want with Jamie, why does Jamie’s childhood friend and fellow teacher, Allen (Jamie Scott Gordon), make disturbing appearances in his nightmares, and what’s Evie’s deal?

Although the movie had already exceeded my expectations after the first half, I started wondering if the story would ultimately deliver and go beyond its established premise and into something unexpected, with my main concern being; will all that’s happening have any relevance later on? Fortunately my suspicion of the movie possibly going nowhere was put to rest, because it went somewhere, and it went somewhere good, achieving an unexpected level of excitement that broke its pleasantly somber tone. I really came to appreciate just how clever and well made all of the symbolic foreboding and foreshadowing really was. It’s essential on the second or third viewing to listen to the DVD commentary, as Brewster further exposes many brilliant subtleties that may have been missed on first viewing.

Before seeing this, I already had many glimpses of the film’s owl man from the movie poster going around online, and it gave me a preconceived notion of a type of violent monster that also acts as a cool little Lord of Tears mascot. Of course looking at those intimidating talons on the movie poster, my mind was anticipating a film with a killer creature and a high body count, in the slasher tradition. I’m actually relieved Lord of Tears didn’t turn out this way. Not that I don’t like slashers; they just tend to be formulaic and end up getting lost in the mix.

The owl man is more of an entity than a monster or creature, not particularly ambiguous but definitely enigmatic, with an agenda made more apparent at the story's end. The dialogue from the owl man, by David Schofield, is well done, conjuring a fitting dread with nihilistic and doomy verses. It really does remind me of a voice from a deep, dark oblivion. As an interesting surprise, the owl man isn’t the only antagonist, as there are a few twists along the way. Lord of Tears is also a slick little ghost story. The performance from the actor who plays a very animate ghost is an entertaining deluxe that I can always keep watching.

The writer and second unit assistant director, Sarah Daly, is also an accomplished musician, known as Metaphorest, who supplied some of the soundtrack. After watching the end credits and recalling the lyrics during the pool scene, I realized there’s a haunting essence to her voice that compliments the supernatural in the film, which in turn compliments her singing.

Lord of Tears turned out to be just the type of movie I usually gravitate towards: atmospheric, psychological, gothic, artistic, weird, twisty, and symbolic. It’s true that I do have a tendency towards particular film types, genres, tropes, but I also like to be surprised. Lord of Tears is great in this regard since it feels classic, but it also brings something different and new. And the film’s revelations are chilling. I’m looking forward to future films from Brewster and company. Count me in as a fan. If anyone is wondering what my favorite part is, it would have to be Evie’s classy dance number. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was her improvised choreography that helped Hulme win the Stoker award for this film. Of course she’s a terrific actor and an alluring presence in the film, too. I like Brewster’s description of her as a “gothic Marilyn Monroe.”

Lord of Tears can currently be purchased in a deluxe DVD or BD package, complete with disc extras, soundtrack, booklet, and a scary surprise sealing the package wrapping, at the Lord of Tears Official Fan Page.

As a kid, my earliest understanding of Count Dracula came from The Monster Squad (1987), Count Chocula, Sesame Street, and a mythical final boss I could never get to in the Nintendo game Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest. None of which was the proper way to get to know The Count, of course. And so, I remained ignorant of the real legend of Count Dracula until fairly recently when I was instilled with a desire to read Bram Stoker’sDracula (1897), following a pleasurably short read from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’sCarmilla (1872). Thanks to Stoker’s novel, I’ve been on quite the Dracula kick lately, watching a lot of films based on the novel, such as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), Dracula (1931), Horror of Dracula (1958), Count Dracula (1970), Nosferatu: The Vampyre (1979), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), and Dracula 3D (2012).

I really think we would’ve had a near-perfect adaptation with Francis Ford Coppola’s version from 1992, if it weren’t for the love story between Dracula and Mina thrown in, and I don’t think Lucy was supposed to seem so promiscuous, either. I’m actually not offended by a soft Dracula that could genuinely fall in love with a living woman without wishing her any harm; just don’t shoehorn it into an adaptation of Stoker’snovel. A lot of people who haven’t read the book will probably think it was a romance novel. I actually thought it was an interesting idea in Count Dracula’s Great Love (1974), where Paul Naschy created and portrayed, for the first time, Count Dracula as a romantic softie.

It might be a little hard to recommend to Dracula fans in general, since it is a slow, cheap, low-key Jess Franco film, even lacking the ultra-surreal, kinky, supernatural sexiness seen in movies like Vampyros Lesbos, which Franco fans might long for here, but I really came to appreciate Jess Franco’sCount Dracula. It’s not perfect and has its flaws, primarily on account of budgetary restraints and being a rushed product, but I really think they did everything right with regards to creating the Count from Stoker’s novel.

Independent film producer Harry Allan Towers, who frequently worked with Jess Francoaround this time, had a lot of interest in creating a Dracula movie that was faithful to Stoker’s novel. He repeatedly asked Jess to direct the film, and, being an admirer of the novel, Jessultimately agreed. By this time, Sir Christopher Lee had grown weary of his Dracula roles, but when he was offered the chance to play The Count in a faithful adaptation to Stoker’s novel, Lee once again reprised the role. For the first time on film, Dracula appears as an older looking man with grey hair who appears younger as he feeds on blood, like in the book.

Jess Franco’s Count Dracula does come off as extremely faithful, at the beginning, during the episode with Jonathan Harker (Fred Williams) and Dracula at his castle in Transylvania, but following the shift to London, things get turned around in certain ways, as the film takes liberties with the plot, that sort of undermines its commitment as a vehicle for a true film version of Stoker's Dracula. I was a little disappointed that the segment involving the doomed crew of the ship that transports Dracula to London and its stormy arrival to the port was completely omitted. Some of the fishy changes that I can’t help griping about a little were how the mental clinic was run by Professor Van Helsing (Herbert Lom) instead of Dr. Seward (Paul Muller), and when Lucy’s (Soledad Miranda) fiancée shows up, he introduces himself as Quincy Morris (Jack Taylor)… (Arrgghh! We all know that she chose Arthur Holmwood, who’s not even in this movie, and turned down Dr. Seward and Morris’s proposals). There’s also a bit that takes place at an opera house, where Dracula attacks Mina (Maria Rohm), which I like to think was supposed to be an homage to a brief segment in the 1931 Dracula. Also, that whole bit with Van Helsing having a stroke and ending up in a wheelchair seemed a bit puzzling.

Of course, I’d be contradicting myself, in a way, if I was to let these inconsistencies between the book and the movie ruin it for me, as I have praised a few Lovecraftfilm adaptations for not merely copying the book. I do like this movie, and as a Jess Franco fan, it’s a treat to see a lot of beloved Franco regulars acting in a formidable version of Dracula. The style and look of the movie can stand its own alongside any of the Hammer horror Draculas. Franco can sometimes handle era creations quite sublimely, and the look and feel of Count Dracula (although filmed in Barcelona) really touches the Victorian sentiments in me.

Fans of Soledad Miranda (She Killed in Ecstasy, Vampyros Lesbos) will no doubt make the trek here for her dark, enchanting beauty and doughy eyed pleasures. Her scenes with Lee, involving Lucy’s encounters with Dracula, have become the primary icon for this film’s memory. We don’t see a whole lot of her as the undead Lucy, “The Bloofer Lady” as it was coined in Stoker’snovel, but the shot of her as a vampire, standing in the shadows, luring a stray child her way is a powerful one indeed.

He only utters one word, “Varna,” in the movie before dying, as a hint to where Dracula is traveling, but Klaus Kinski creates an interesting new take on Renfield, the institutionalized lunatic under a profound influence from Dracula, with some of the more attention grabbing scenes in the movie. Bypassing spoken words, Kinski uses blank stares and erratic outbursts to convey a madman that’s also a victimized soul. Kinski supposedly ate real flies, too. His screams are sometimes heard throughout the asylum, giving it that familiar lunatic asylum motif. Interestingly enough, Kinskiwould go on to play the pestilence ridden Count Dracula in Werner Herzog’sNosferatu The Vampyre (1979).

Franco first wanted Vincent Price, but Herbert Lom was still a good choice for Van Helsing, though I don’t think he was quite eccentric enough. The Van Helsing in the book had a way with words that seemed enlightening in a head spinning sort of way, something I think only works in long winded text.

I’m glad that Sir Christopher Lee had a chance to portray Dracula exactly as he was meant to be, and he is arguably the only one who has done so, which, considering how many times he’s played Dracula, should further serve as a testament to his being a very true embodiment of Dracula. In the book, Count Dracula makes quite a speech about his family name, but I assumed he was talking about himself and his own triumphs throughout the ages. This part was brought to life in the movie with Lee giving a mesmerizing and bone chilling speech: "This was a Dracula indeed".

As I said before, certain liberties are taken with certain details and facts in the plot, but the overall story still ends up being the same as the one from the novel it is based on. Being a low budget picture, it’s obvious why certain things were omitted, and, as the film is modifying a 300 plus page book into a standard runtime, things were probably changed around to condense what is a very epic story. I think it still captures the heart of Stoker’s novel, and I think it should receive at least a passing grade as a faithful adaptation. As a standalone movie it isn’t bad either and should appeal to fans of Lee’sHammer horror Dracula films. I do think that it’s one of the more widely known Franco films outside of the diehard fan base, which should be saying something about its accessibility. In any case, if an atmospheric, era horror movie with a classic monster played by one of the greatest actors of our time is what you are in the mood for, than you can’t go wrong with Count Dracula.

I’m starting to realize I have a weakness for filmmakers who have their own distinct style, the type I could easily recognize even if I didn’t know what movie I was watching. After having a blast watching several of his short films on YouTube, I became hooked on a lot of the inherent, and consistent, characteristics of Czech surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer’s films. He’s a hero of sorts of the stop animation technique, bringing inanimate objects like food and clay sculptures to life in very perplexing ways. What really got me, after watching a particular short film by Svankmajer, simply titled Food, was the way actual human actors were utilized in stop motion sequencing, something known as pixilation, which created a super strange reality, where people seemed to hover around and move like androids, and eat like monsters. Of course, stop motion has quite often been used by many filmmakers, but Svankmajer’ssurreal style tends to lead to pretty morbid and bizarre visuals that are also amusing and humorous (the fourteen minute short Virile Games (1988) comes to mind).

After making short films for twenty years, Jan Svankmajer made his first full length movie, Alice, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a book that is supposedly for kids but still works for adult readers too, especially ones still in touch with their inner child. The anthropomorphic creatures of Carroll’s dreamland present a perfect opportunity for Svankmajer to create a unique vision with his distinct stop animation style. It’s also that much creepier and a tad bit disturbing that most of the creature models used were once living animals, like the skulls, the stuffed White Rabbit, or the barracuda head.

Just about everything we know from the book is done with a different interpretation, here. Perhaps the simple title of Alice is fitting enough, for her dream doesn’t really feel quite like the Wonderland we all know. In this case, the title Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland could be modified to something more like “Alice’s Nightmares in an Animator’s Workshop.”

The dialogue in Alice is delivered with a surreal voice over by voice actress Camilla Power who sounds a little older than the child playing Alice (Kristýna Kohoutová). This single and only voice we hear in the movie is supposed to be Alice’s voice, who also voices all of the other characters. It is strange hearing a little girl’s voice when the caterpillar or the rabbit talks, but it does make the uncanny creatures inhabiting Alice’s dream seem more like creations from her imagination, or subconscious.

Not only is Alice’s voice used to indicate character speech from the first-person narrative, but a close up of her talking mouth is intercut during dialogue to give third-person reference: “thought Alice to herself”, “said the White Rabbit”, “shouted the Queen of Hearts”, etc. It happens a lot, and I was suspicious at first that this style might get a little redundant, but I ended up thinking it was brilliant and very much a part of what makes Alice such a unique experience.

The girl that plays Alice (Kohoutová) does a good job at looking bored during that familiar moment from the book, with her and her older sister along the river bank during a mundane afternoon. A close up of Alice looking pretty disenchanted with reality certainly signifies a child more interested in the wondrous imaginings of the childhood mind, rather than a boring, dry book with no pictures in it, and escaping somewhere more exciting.

The moment Alice starts dreaming is not made quite obvious, which I like because it sort of lends a certain ambiguity as to the realness of the dream, but it’s obvious that the dream is underway as soon as Alice notices the White Rabbit. It’s a little stranger, or should I say “curiouser”, this time, for it’s a stuffed model rabbit, come to life (stuffed with sawdust and woodchips) – escaping from a glass tank while making rickety, squeaky metallic sounds when it bends and moves, as if it is an old mechanical toy, always pulling out its clock from the inside of its chest and noisily slurping off the sawdust and woodchips (noisy eating is a thing with Svankmajer). Instead of going down the rabbit hole, Alice follows the White Rabbit into Wonderland through the drawer of a writing desk, which did make me think a little bit of the wardrobe that leads to Narnia.

Alice is always after that rabbit; it’s always afraid when she catches up and calls out to him. The look on the White Rabbit's face before it clanks its teeth and bolts off always gives me a laugh. Alice usually tries to imitate what the White Rabbit was doing, before losing him, but without the same result, as what worked for the rabbit usually does not work for Alice. The White Rabbit is actually kind of a bastard in this, and I couldn’t help cheering Alice on when she started throwing blocks at him, or knocking him off the window seal, more than once in what starts to feel a little like physical comedy, to come crashing down into the cabbage-frame below.

Smaller sets are used to denote Alice growing big, but more charming is the way she turns into an animated toy doll when she shrinks; it’s actually quite adorable. An interesting idea, though one that leaves me a little perplexed is, in certain instances, objects grow or shrink independently of the background. When Alice eats one half of a mushroom, granted to her by the Caterpillar, it causes a tiny house to grow. I’m not sure if the house is supposed to be growing, or if I’m supposed to use my imagination to see it as Alice shrinking with respect to the house.

The exterior of the White Rabbit’s house is about as inventive and resourceful as you can get: it’s made with colored children's blocks – the exact one’s I played with as a kid. The interior is like a rundown work shed, and the bedroom looks filthy and grimy, especially when doll-Alice peaks under the blanket on the bed to reveal an unsettling greasy looking mess of coals and sticks on the sheets. In fact, most of the locations in Alice’s dreamland look like grimy, abandoned old rooms and storage closets. Peeled paint and rotting wood are very prevalent (another Svankmajer thing), and I think it’s a nice touch.

My favorite part in the book is the mad tea party and Svankmajer does add a personal touch to this part of the movie that sort of accentuates that feeling of being caught in some kind of time loop. Everything seems to keep cycling around, with the rhythm of a clock, for infinity. The Mad March Hare is probably my favorite creature in this movie, an old rabbit doll that repetitively keeps spreading butter on every pocket watch it sees and needs to be repeatedly wound up and have one of his button eyes, that sometimes falls out, pulled back in to place (old children’s toys is a Svankmajer thing, too). One thing I caught on to, being that time is a major theme to the mad tea party, is that everyone keeps moving around the table, shifting to different seats because the Mad Hatter keeps wanting a clean cup, in the clockwise direction, like the hands of a clock.

The segments involving the Queen of Hearts are actually very simple yet effective, using flat cardboard cutout animation (rather fitting since they are supposed to be playing cards), which I found rather charming, and when the Queen shouts “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!” heads really do get cut off, by the White Rabbit carrying a pair of scissors.

It’s supposedly made for children, but it’s definitely darker than the book it was influenced from, especially during a brief moment when Alice spots her mouse friend dead in a mouse trap. I’ve been a fan of the Disney version since I was a kid, but this movie actually made me want to read Alice in Wonderland. It’s weird and just as nonsensical as the book but without the usual puns and wordplay, and I think it is more of an interpretation than an adaptation. Like the book, it works for kids and adults.

"He's late as usual. I think I'll cut his head off." Alice / Kristýna Kohoutová

It seems there are always new potentials to explore with an isolated movie setting in a mansion, small villa, or castle, where a number of situations with fixed conditions can arise, murders can go unnoticed, and the sexually liberated can binge to their heart’s content. The peculiar sex crime thriller Top Sensation (aka The Seducers) embraces the many possibilities of the isolated story setting but does away with the more conventional remote house and substitutes it with a private recreational yacht, setting most of the movie on the open sea. Cabins below deck are the lavish bedrooms, the control room makes a nice study, and the poop deck is obviously the lounge, for partying, adultery, and all other manner of fun nonsense.

Top Sensation was directed and written by Ottavio Alessi who has writing credits for some thirty-two movies, which include Dick Smart 2007 and Emmanuelle in America, but only two directing credits with Top Sensation being the last film he ever worked on as a director. The soundtrack, by Sante Maria Romitelli, consists of a melodic and epic sounding piece that could’ve come from a Spaghetti Western but does still manage to feel very welcome here and is extremely memorable.

A big selling point to this movie is the fact that it stars Edwige Fenech and Rosalba Neri. Both of these Eurocult goddesses in the same movie, in the same sex scenes together, is a big deal. Fenech hadn’t quite cemented her fame in several giallo films yet at the time the film was made, and so the fact that she and Neri were together in the same movie was probably incidental, but in retrospect it’s a glorious spectacle. However, after watching Top Sensationit should be apparent that this is not the film’s only credential.

Though the story is well written, the premise is an offbeat one. Filthy rich oil industrialist Mudy (Maud Belleroche) has an emotionally immature twenty-year-old son, Tony (Ruggero Miti). She feels that hiring a hooker and flipping on her son's sex drive will flip on everything else and finally cure him of his stunted mental development and drag his childlike mind kicking and screaming into adulthood.

Most of the story takes place during a private pleasure cruise on Mudy’s yacht. Along for the cruise are Mudy's two lovers, the swinging husband and wife pair Aldo (Maurizio Bonuglia) and Paola (Rosalba Neri), Tony, and a prostitute, Ulla (Edwige Fenech). Aldo and Paola are extremely interested in discussing oil concessions with Mudy and will do anything to gain her favor, which includes taking turns engaging in intercourse with Mudy and taking part in helping to cure her son of his juvenile mindset. The effort to get her son laid is monitored by a video recorder in Tony’s room, and, needless to say, Tony shows no interest in copulating with either hussy his mother’s fixed him up with.

Interestingly enough, when the yacht gets stuck in a shallow region next to an island, Tony meets a married peasant girl, Beba (Eva Thulin), the pure and innocent type and the exact opposite of Paola and Ulla. Tony responds to her with an emotional maturity that has so far lain dormant. Aldo notices Tony’s startlingly different behavior and quickly invites Beba onboard the yacht. Beba just happens to be handy with stalled yachts and manages to help free the boat of its immobilization. The boat sails, and the old fashioned farmer gal, Beba, is given a giallo-diva makeover by Paola and Ulla.

There is a kindhearted and passive nature to Beba’s personality, be it from goodwill or naivety, that makes her vulnerable to everyone on the boat who wishes to exploit her. Her cosmetic transformation is a stylishly crafted scene and is part of a running theme of the rich and cultured corrupting and taking advantage of the poor and ignorant. Purity and innocence collide with adultery and falseness as Beba stares back at a different person in the mirror and goes cold, holding on to what’s left of her honor and innocence as she finds herself in a threesome with Paola and Ulla, not resisting yet not playing along either.

Exuding her authority and dominance, Mudy barges in and pulls Beba away from Paola and Ulla’s clutches before immediately sending her to Tony’s room. Beba, looking absolutely stunning, appears traumatized in a way but finds a small degree of solace in Tony’s childlike behavior as he welcomes her by showing off his walking toy robot and race-car track (I have to say, being able have a gorgeous female in your room to show off your neat electronic toys to is every boy's fantasy. It’s thought of as a serious mental condition, here, but nowadays we just call that acting like a geek). The two start to connect in an odd way that suggests more of a mental connection than a physical one. When Beba’s husband, Andro (Salvatore Puntillo), eventually comes aboard the yacht, amusing hijinks ensue until things take a dark turn when something goes horribly wrong in the cabin with Tony and Beba.

Of course the offbeat premise of Top Sensation is improbable and ridiculous, but I think this is supposed to be the point. I seem to be detecting some sort of mockery about the idea of sex as immoral and evil. If the child is a symbol of innocence then there’s obviously a satirical message in this film about the loss of innocence through sex, as if a transformation will come over someone once they’ve lost their virginity. As far as childlike Tony is concerned, the loss of innocence leaves behind a corrupt and immoral adult, something his mother Mudy, and the company she keeps, most certainly represents. From his conversations with Beba, Tony confesses to hating his mother and her company. By getting him to have sex he’ll be like them and made into the type of adult he loathes. But sex instead unveils a latent mental disorder, and, when innocence is taken away, a monster is all that remains.

Made five years before the heavily sexually themed Emmanuelle, Top Sensation seems ahead of its time with regards to pushing the boundaries of its sexual content. Nowadays one would probably consider the movie tame, but it still wasn’t as tame as I thought a movie from 1969 would be. However, after noticing the rich-abusing-the-poor subtext and realizing the juxtaposition of nature with corrupt-culture, it should be apparent that the film isn't just a shallow sexploitation.

In contrast to the usual nightclubs, seedy streets, ancestral mansions, or castle settings, the oceanic, sunny boat setting sets Top Sensation apart from most other Italian thrillers of the time. With its isolated and focused setting, every actor gets to play a significant role -- no subsidiary characters here. Fenech and Neri do deliver and prove that there is a reason they are revered Eurobabes in the cult film world. In addition, Eva Thulinis a surprise and another visual delight. The film also takes care to minimally cover the babes-with-guns quota that is usually seen in the popular spy movies of the ‘60s; the little murder conundrum on the boat reminds me a bit of Ian Fleming’sThe Hildebrandt Rarity.

What initially plays out as a frivolous sex drama/comedy turns into a pretty decent thriller, without any cheap twists. Everything unfolds fairly smoothly with a demented conclusion that’s like an Italian rendition of Psycho. But even if the pairing of Fenech and Neri is the only reason you came then you shouldn't be disappointed with Top Sensation either.

At first glance, Renato Polselli’s stylistic S&M fever nightmare, Delirium, might feel like an interesting case study of psychopathy, but I’m hesitant to call the film’s protagonist a psychopath. He’s definitely a sadistic maniac of sorts, but a psychopath has no conscience and therefore cannot feel empathy and remorse. Our maniac, here, feels remorse and is at odds with himself. After doing harm, he gets emotional and curses his reflection before shattering the mirror. Just to stop the monster, he tries to set himself up to be caught by the police.

No sir, he may be a serial killer, but the highly respected, criminal psychologist and police consultant Dr. Herbert Lyutak (Mickey Hargitay) is no psychopath.

He actually makes for a compelling lead, thanks to a fair amount of charisma and outward charm that contrasts with his hidden sick side. It’s made known early on that Herbert’s a particularly nasty fellow, with a pitch black disturbing murder sequence involving a young lady (Stefania Fassio). In making its protagonist a murderer, we have something more unique from the get go. Though we know Herbert’s a killer, murders still continue in the traditional ‘whodunit’ giallo style, which imposes the question of Herbert being the only killer. The multiple murder scenes of pretty girls getting killed are cruel, which isn’t surprising for a giallo, but Polselli really seems to be trying to outdo them all.

Being a criminal expert, Herbert is recruited to help out on the case regarding the girl he just murdered, unbeknownst to the inspector, of course. Inspector Edwards (Raul Lovecchio), doesn’t seem to suspect Herbert as much as he should, as a bartender did point out that Herbert was the last one to be seen with the murdered girl. The police almost seem unintentionally comical, which sort of hurts the dark and disturbing aura that the opening murder initially casts on the film. To be fair, it is ironic and does add edginess, having the killer so close to the police.

Herbert’s wife, Marcia (Rita Calderoni), has suspected her husband of being a murderer and a sadomasochist, and even after her suspicions are confirmed, learning of his dirty secrets in his treasure box, her love for him causes her to not necessarily overlook but accept him for what he is. Marcia’s nightmares indicate that she knows her husband’s true nature. Hargitay and Calderoni have good chemistry; both characters they play are sadomasochists and really seem made for each other. She wants him to know that she loves him no matter what, and, as a form of bedtime play, she tempts him, inviting his hands to her neck to strangle her just shy of suffocation, among other things, letting him indulge of his sadomasochistic desires. A Polselli trademark emerges while he strangles her, as she appears to be suffering, but somewhere along the way a smile briefly flashes across her face as her eyes roll back for a second.

There are familiar genre motifs running their course, here, and the story's outcome isn’t too much of a surprise, but the murder mystery isn’t necessarily what sells the movie; plot is usually secondary in a polselli film. It is not an issue of what is played out, but rather how it is played out, which is where a lot of the fun is. Deliriumemphasizes a sadomasochistic illness in its serial killer protagonist and explores the fascinating marriage relationship between Herbert and his wife, both in reality and in nightmares, which serve as artistic attempts at capturing insanity on film. Polselli really seems to drive everyone to give their all for the camera during the nightmares, where disorienting montages involving chains, orgies, and Sadean elements coupled with maniacal screams and laughter help the film to deliver what its title promises. However, some have claimed that the nightmare sequences are the best part and are unfortunately underused.

From what I’ve seen, Renato Polselli also seems to enjoy incorporating clown-like characters into his scripts, as should be apparent from Steffy in The Reincarnation of Isabel or Totoletto from The Truth According to Satan. Here, in Delirium, the clown-like character is murder suspect and parking lot attendant John Lacey (Tano Cimarosa). The scenes with Lacey exploring Herbert’s mansion to try and clear his name and getting locked in the cellar almost feel a little like padding. It tries to amplify the mystery, in a way similar to Deep Red, with the character searching the big spooky house for clues. He’s the red herring, but he turns out to be more of a goofy hero who suffers from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for better or worse.

The latter parts sink into total madness and I really think that Calderoni owns the last thirty minutes of Delirium. I do enjoy the insanity, and I could never tire of watching Rita Calderoni and her committed acting. I love that chic purple outfit she sports at the beginning.

There’s a suggestive relation between Marcia, her maid (Cristina Perrier), and niece in law, Joaquine (Christa Barrymore), that is sapphic in nature, which manifests itself in her dreams. Joaquine always looks stoned, which I thought was an interesting quality about the actress playing her, who I also similarly remember from The Reincarnation of Isabel.

There are two different versions of this movie, the original International version and an alternate American version, that have been released together on both the Anchor Bay and Blue Underground DVD releases. I think they’re both worth watching. The US version is edited down and quicker paced, though not any less violent. If it was at all possible, this alternate version has a couple more brutal kill scenes that actually outshine. A part in the American version where Herbert murders his other niece, a character not even in the International version, with a plastic bang, is about as cold and realistic as it can get. Additionally, many would recall that it would seem that Herbert resists killing the school girl he picks up, but in the US cut, after urging her to leave his car, he goes after her and strangles her with her own hair; I’ve never seen that before.

Although I do think the international cut should be considered the definitive version, the alternate cut is quite different and does work surprisingly well, extending the story and adding re-watch value. The added angle of making Herbert a Vietnam War vet is plausible, making the film something more topically relevant to the US audience at the time it was made, and it does feel a little more complete, for it does give him a backstory. Though a lot of it is stock, the added war footage wasn’t just intrusively added by distributors, which sometimes happens, but Polselli actually shot the additional war footage, using Hargitay, Calderoni, and Lovecchio in the scenes.

The music for Delirium by Gianfranco Reverberi is absolutely rockin’, particularly the main theme song, How Many Times, and the voice from the singer is exquisite.

A while ago, a friend of mine, Terence*, brought to my attention that Raul Lovecchio (born Ettore Lo Vecchio), who played Inspector Edwards in this film, is a singer, who goes by Raoul, and lends his voice for soundtracks. His voice can be heard on the spaghetti western soundtrack for Kill Them All and come Back Alone. Listen to that voice, and I think you’ll agree that it’s very likely the same one singing How Many Times.

*(Check out Terence’s YouTube page, Rules of Achia, for several great clips and rare movies, like Demons 5, Etoile, and La verita secondo Satana).

The astounding gothic chiller Lord of Tears is an official selection for the 32nd Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival(BIFFF), one of the biggest genre film events in Europe. Lord of Tears will be screened against some of the best independent and studio-based films. The event runs from April 8th to the 20th.

In other news, Lord of Tears' very own Owlman has been making the rounds stalking users on the chat roulette site Omegle, a site that randomly pairs people around the world to have a go at a webcam-based conversation. Watch the amusing responses from terrified users who found themselves face to face with The Owlman, on the video clip below.

There’s also a new official trailer for Lord of Tears.

Furthermore, Lord of Tears directorLawrie Brewsterdiscusses what’s in store for Hex Media.

Anyone who read my article on Lord of Tears from back in October knows how much I loved watching and reviewing this film. It’s truly an impressive start from Hex Mediaand Dark Dunes Productions, and I congratulate them on the success of Lord of Tears.

Being a conversation heavy drama mystery with a bit of a dreamy languor about it, Love and Death in the Garden of the Gods may require a little focus from viewers if they hope to get absorbed in its compelling story, beautiful scenery, and tragic characters, but it is worth it. The plot is more or less structured to be an exploration of a hazy backstory that slowly crystalizes before eventually catching up with the present.

The film is directed by Sauro Scavolini, a prolific screenwriter (All the Colors of the Dark, amongst many others) with few directing credits. He is the brother of director Romano Scavolini (Nightmares in a Damaged Brain), who also helmed cinematography for Love and Death in the Garden of the Gods.

The story is fed to us in fragmented bits and pieces from an inquisitive Professor of ornithology (Franz von Treuberg), restoring and listening to a heap of tangled audio recording tape he discovered in the forest outside the villa he’s rented to study the non-indigenous birds of the region. As the Professor listens to the tape recordings, the film cuts to flashbacks of the previous inhabitants of the villa, making the place seem haunted by a past that is both alarming and fascinating. While the past is the primary setting of the story, the film still emphases events in the present, particularly the relation between the professor and the seedy estate administrator, Dominici (Vittorio Duse), giving the Professor dimension and making him more than just an avenue of backstory disclosure.

The mystery element to the past storyline seems to stem from trying to find the truth behind, what seems to be, a suicide attempt from the lady of the house, Azzura (Erika Blanc). One of the movie’s most compelling images is of the fiery red headed, nude Erika Blanc with her wrists slit, lying unconscious in a tub of red water. The conversations between Azzura and her psychoanalyst, Dr. Martin (Ezio Marano), regarding her suicide attempt, her past, her marriage to her husband, Timothy (Rosario Borelli), and her incestuous relation with her brother, Manfredi (Peter Lee Lawrence), permeate throughout the course of the backstory, making the movie feel like a Freudian psychoanalysis. There’s sometimes a lot of reverb in the characters’ voices to indicate the discussions happening in the past, or as in a dream.

Azzura’s marriage to Timothy causes her brother heartache, driving him away from the villa, only to turn up a few months later with a photography studio and a new love interest, Viola (Orchidea de Santis), a free-spirited vagabond. Viola is the one who later finds Azzura with her wrists slit in the tub, and, after saving her life, becomes sexually involved with Azzura. It becomes apparent that Azzura has insidiously been the cause of severe torment for her brother. Despite being a highly disagreeable and unsettling character, Manfredi manages to be sympathetic and, one could say, the tragic hero of what does end up feeling like a Shakespearean play. (Lee Lawrence’s life was tragically cut short. There had been a false notion that he committed suicide, but his wife of the time, Cristina Galbo (What Have You Done to Solange?) recently confirmed that he died after a battle with brain cancer at the age of thirty.)

The emblematic spooky, disturbing, yet beautiful dream sequences are a Eurocult hallmark and are appreciated very much here on this blog, and Love and Deathhas a nifty little dream scene of its own, related by Azzura to her psychoanalyst, that’s definitely a highlight. The dinner table setup in a lush beautiful garden reminds me of the Mad Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland, which could probably be called a Mad Fried Chicken Party, in this case.

There’s also a frequent tendency from the director to film Erika Blanc walking or running through long passages and alleyways, sometimes with the camera stationed or following from behind. She’s a phenomenal leading lady here as an actor, but as a visual delight, she shines like a fiery idol and really seems to compliment every stunning backdrop. In addition, there’s a pink lamp in the nicely decorated living room that shows up a lot and matches Blanc’s pants and vest in a couple scenes, a nice way of integrating the leading lady into the foreground, as well.

Despite an absence of anything supernatural, Love and Deathstill manages to feel eerie, with a moody and atmospheric environment that is wonderfully complimented by the dramatic and haunting classical music, by Giancarlo Chiaramello. There does end up being quite a body count, and the chemistry between Blanc and Lee Lawrence is intense, as their characters together embody the Eros & Thanatos theme so aptly promised by the film’s title. The actress playing Viola, de Santis, is a pleasant new face for me, whose presence in the story, driving the infidelity theme, completes a dysfunctional love square.

Patient viewers who don’t mind a bit of melodrama to go with their thrillers will discover a hidden gem in Love and Death that’s also a reminder of how underrated Erika Blanc is.

© At the Mansion of Madness

Witchcraft, tainted family history, and murder mysteries are very agreeable story themes, but writer and director Angelo Pannaccio, hitherto unknown to me, gives these horror hallmarks an attractively perverse edge with Sex of the Witch.

This is one of those films that brings a substantially large group of shady relatives together in a family mansion for the reading of a will, with the inheritance being split equally among the relatives, with an added stipulation that if any beneficiary should die before a certain time, their share must be split among the surviving heirs. Of course this will inevitably create a murderer or two, amongst the family. I’ve seen a similar plot device in a couple other movies, One Body Too Many and Legacy of Blood, but something different with Sex of the Witch is the inclusion of a perverse, evil witch relative with a good measure of hate and malice for the family, which gives what could’ve been a routine plot device a rather demented and supernatural spin.

The problem here is that there are too many unfamiliar characters to keep track of, and some of them kind of look the same. And it does take a while to sort everyone out. The first time around, not really knowing who everyone was, the conversations were a little challenging to follow, but it still wasn't too difficult to get the gist of the plot. I’ve watched it three times now, and I’m pretty confident I’ve got it sorted out. This probably says something about the quality of the film, but despite the confusion, there’s this haunting and dissonant feel to the film that’s still very intriguing.

The methodology of the title witch, Evelyn (Jessica Dublin), is quite novel and twisted. The name Evelyn causes me to recall Emilio Miraglia’sRed Queengialli, and I can’t help wondering if the common use of the name Evelyn for the villainess in these films is more than coincidental.

Camille Keaton’s presence in this film has probably drawn in a lot of viewers, and though her screen time is rather limited, the times she does appear manage to have an impact. She is in a catatonic state most of the time, which is something she does really well, especially during a climactic scene where she’s shown singing alone in a room, in a trance, but the dialogue is cut out, and all we can hear is organ-laden music. It’s hard to tell if this was an editing mistake, but her lip moving, and the time she blinks her eyes, does seem strangely synchronized with the background music, and it is an eerie and striking moment.

The music is by Daniele Patucchiand it was taken from the C.A.M. film music library (which I think means it was not composed entirely for this movie but was available to be used in other movies, but can anyone tell me what C.A.M. stands for?), and I really did enjoy it in this one, particularly a pleasant Bruno Nicolai-esque lounge tune with a harpsichord and a spooky sounding piece that sounds the same played forwards as it does played backwards, like Ennio Morricone’s theme to Argento’sThe Stendhal Syndrome.

A washed out looking nightclub sequence, shot with an overpowering sepia tone, interrupts the film, but it really pushes the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll theme, accentuating a moral decline that may be analogous to the ‘shameful’ nature of the Hilton family and its detriment by the will of an evil witch, as some of the dancers do look a little like ceremonial witches. Although it’s hard to see what’s going on during the nightclub scene, it’s still very sexy and a definite highlight.

Some may not buy into the weird and offbeat twists at the end, but I was impressed. I thought a little of Sleepaway Camp, but without that movie’s effective shock, during an amusing closing scene that ends on a freeze frame that left me cackling madly, just like the butler.

Sex of the Witch is a supernatural giallo from the golden era of Eurocult, and it feels like it. It’s one of those movies that you can tell isn’t very well made, but it still has this ability to sink deep into your cerebral cortex and become somewhat of an obsession.

© At the Mansion of Madness

Morgiana, by Slovak director Juraj Herz,is a seldom spoken of curio from the Czechoslovak New Wave that’s heavily stylized with regards to its visuals and mood but is straightforward with its story and might feel a little influenced by the ‘Grand Dame Guignol’ horror of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. Much like Poe’sThe Black Cat, there is an escalating sense of guilt in its protagonist, aristocratic villainess Viktorie (Iva Janzurová), that’s not particularly out of remorse or regret for her crime, but from paranoia, constant annoying reminders of her misdeed, and fear of being found out, which is where I think a lot of the suspense comes from.

I like that there is a lot of appeal to its detestable, unsympathetic villain. Viktorie (Viki) is probably one of my new favorite villains. She emanates a wicked aura, primarily due to her excessively evil gothic look that pretty much gives away the nature of her game at first glance. Janzurová's performance is frightening, stellar, and versatile. I say versatile because she also plays Viki’s sister, Klára. The personalities and appearances between the sisters are like night and day, and I don’t know if I was a bit naïve at the time, but after watching the whole movie for the first time, I had no idea the same actress played both sisters.

The music is by Valerie and Her Week of Wonders composer Lubos Fiser and it is exquisite, with a main theme that has a terrifying foreboding in its melody, which I think works as a leitmotif for Viki and her cat, Morgiana.

The story concerns the conditional inheritance granted to Klára and Viki after the recent funeral of their father. Klára must have been the favorite because she inherits the villa and all bank accounts and shares, while Viki only gets the country house. It really isn’t Klára’s fault fortune shines on her; she’s also very innocent as well as respectful and kind to her less favored sister. The men are more interested in her, too. A tarot reading convinces Viki that she is the Black Queen, deserving great fortune, while an obstacle, the Queen of Hearts, stands in her way. Not surprisingly, Viki acquires a slow acting, unidentifiable poison and slips it to her sister. Klára’s health slowly declines as Viki’s sense of guilt increases.

Something most will remember from this movie is the large but fabulous looking Victorian feathered hats the upper class females in the movie wear. They seem oversized and almost look like they are ready to fall off or be blown away by the wind at times, and I do think the excessive gothic feel this movie has does owe a lot to those excessive feathered hats.

Color is used to define and contrast characters, and it isn’t subtle at all. The good and evil human duality is an obvious theme, a la Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but split into two different characters, with the light and dark sister, yin and yang, or, given their high social standing and nobility, a possible black queen and red queen in what could be compared to a game of chess.

Scenes with Viki in the attic reflect her paranoia and unease but are also an exemplification of her vanity and conceit, reveling in ancestral garments and jewels, without the slightest bit of remorse for her sister she’s poisoned. She is a psychopath. These scenes in the attic, though detached a little from the central story, are some of the best, very chilling and beautiful.

An odd and creepy part where Viki takes off her luscious black wig reveals a more accurate appearance that resembles her tainted soul, unveiling the grime beneath the grandeur. It reminds me of when Captain Hook lost his wig in Hook.

The plot rides on a simple yet effective idea, and at the same time the stylistic flair is top notch. I love the visual of the gothic noble lady, holding her cat, walking through the country house sectors with her loyal house servants following in a kind of single file. Another stylistic treat, which would have Argento applauding, is the roaming cat cam point-of-view shots.

Disorienting camera prism effects are used to give a subjective point-of-view from Klára as her central nervous system seems to be deteriorating from the slow-acting poison. It’s nothing too technically spectacular, but it gets the point across and translates her exhaustion into the viewer a little. Hallucinations of herself, or maybe a kind of nonexistent third sister in red, are creepy and surreal but are nonetheless a little inconclusive as to its significance. Perhaps a suggestion of schizophrenia?

Morgiana shares a similar aesthetic to another Czechoslovak New Wave film, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, but the story is so much more straightforward, here. It’s a little more theatre dramatic than Herz’ previous disturbing political thriller The Cremator. The ending is good, if perhaps not the most climactic; I like the way the cat was involved, but it probably could have been a little more twisty and shocking.

There are a number of additional characters to supplement the central story, such as a persistent blackmailer (Nina Divisková) throwing a wrench into Viki’s plans, as well as a love interest for Klára, Marek (Josef Abrhám), in what does amount to an authentic love connection. While Morgiana may not be the most exciting at times, it is very well made, with an imaginative yet convincing Victorian era setting and beautiful gothic ambiance. It may roll heavy on the melodrama side, but this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

Down to the Cellar is a short film from Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer that I’ve grown fond of. I remember feeling a little underwhelmed when I first watched it, but it stayed with me, for some reason, and now it’s one of my favorite short films (I wonder if there’s a name for that kind of art). It was the same with Svankmajer’sAlice (Neco Z Alenky), a creepy vision of Lewis Carroll’sAlice in Wonderland complete with Svankmajer’sdisturbing but fascinating characteristics. For me, the last quarter of Alicebecame a battle to stay awake. I thought Alicejust wasn’t the film for me, but that couldn’t have been more untrue. Alice ended up planting itself in my mind before slowly taking its hold on me, and, as if a bug had just bit me, I spontaneously ordered off for the DVD and, on a whim, read for the first time Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. As those of you that follow my At the Mansion of Madness fan page on Facebook might have noticed, I have endeavored to watch as many AIW movies as I can slowly but surely come across. This is all primarily thanks to Jan Svankmajer’s vision of AIW. Not bad for a movie that I struggled to stay awake during on first viewing.

Down to the Cellar feels a lot like a precursor to Svankmajer’sAlice, for superficial reasons, and is most certainly recommended to fans of that movie. It features a little girl’s (Monika Belo-Cabanová) apprehensive journey into a deep, dark cellar to load her basket with potatoes from a crate in a certain room 37. This would’ve been a simple task, had the story been set in reality, but in Svankmajer’s world, it’s an odd adventure into an underground nightmare, where whatever tricks descending a stairway into an old, dark, spooky cellar plays on the imagination manifest and take form.

The entire story is told in a dialogue-free fashion, not counting the cat meows or the usual exaggerated oral sounds, which are a nuance of Svankmajer’sthat seem related to his frequent obsession with focusing on food. The little girl’s responses to the situations and characters she meets are translated mainly through facial expressions and silent gestures, most notably her head shaking, denoting her fearful apprehension to the beckoning gestures and offerings of the old man (Aleksandr Letko) and old woman (Ol’ga Vronská), who despite possessing a weird unease, don’t seem to pose any kind of definite threat, but a feeling of mistrust still pervades.

A nice avant-garde approach to exploring imagined fears, paranoia, anxieties, and mistrust, Down to the Cellar could be thought of as a possible Cold War allegory. I think the use of coal (the woman using coal as a primary ingredient to bake cakes and the old man using coal to blanket himself in bed) in this film was saying something about coal pollution and its health concerns, as coal was a primary source of heating as well as a power source for industrial plants in communist Eastern Europe during the Cold War, and the result was a toxic pollution that even contaminated the tap water and was a major health hazard.

Of course, being a Svankmajer film, there’s puppetry and stop motion animation (although less than usual in this case) to make this dark journey a fun and perplexing one. It won’t blow any one’s socks off, but it does somehow lay dormant in the memory for a while before being fondly recalled and revisited.

A reviewer (Timothy Damon) on the IMDB very aptly described the little girl’s task in this movie as being Sisyphean. My abnormally lengthy time in college, for both undergrad and grad school, has felt very Sisyphean, and although it is finally coming to a close this semester, I had many times felt like the little girl at the end of Down to the Cellar, descending the dark stairs once again, having to do it all over again.

Jess Franco could film movies faster than I can write reviews for them. His films can sometimes have an overwhelming low quality feel to them, making them difficult to digest for the majority. The natural location shots, haunting tone, memorable and well-chosen female actors (Franco definitely had an eye for female leads that just seemed to resonate with the camera lens), and Franco’sbrand of bizarre surrealism and eroticism don’t seem to be enough to save the films for many, but they are nonetheless a huge hit for others. Al otro lado del espejo contains all of the aforementioned elements and yet has a higher-than-usual quality feel to it, most likely due to the terrific acting and screen presence from its leading lady (Emma Cohen of Horror Rises from the Tomb and Night of the Walking Dead) and a believable tragic story.

Jazz pianist/singer Ana (Cohen) is profoundly affected by her father’s (Howard Vernon) suicide shortly after her engagement. After calling off the wedding, Ana leaves her homeland on Madeira Island only to undergo several failed relations when she intermittently becomes hypnotically driven to kill any man that becomes close to her.

It isn’t just enough to say that Ana is haunted by images of her dead father in the mirror. She doesn’t just see him, but she finds herself at times in the mirror, in Franco’s looking glass world. It can also be viewed as Ana’s mental reflection on her emotional trauma. The memory of her father’s suicide driven by his stubborn disapproval of her marrying and leaving him is intertwined with Ana’s psyche, manifesting itself when she murders any man that shows any sexual interest in her. Ana’s traumatization, spurned the moment of her outcry into the mirror, yields a malediction that could either be viewed as some sort of curse or spell from her father’s ghost or played off as the result of a kind of posttraumatic stress disorder. If taken at face value, the goose bumps inducing ending, made more dramatic with church bells signifying the wedding that never was, reveals which one happens to be the case.

The story is versatile and multilayered. Each time Ana stabs and kills a love interest, it usually feels like the end of an act or episode. After murdering her jazz friend, Bill (Robert Woods), someone seemingly new, a stage play director Miguel (Ramiro Oliveros), who Ana appears to already be acquainted with, is sporadically mixed into the story. Likewise, an impeded attempt at Ana killing herself yields the introduction of a new female friend, Carla (the majestic Alice Arno). With Miguel and Carla, we don’t see when or how they were introduced to Ana, yielding the notorious “who’s-this-person-all-of-a-sudden?” feeling. It makes it seem a little fragmented but not necessarily disjointed, as the story does maintain continuity with leitmotifs and staying focused on its eye catching lead character and her tragic journey that stems from her past trauma.

The characters of Pipo (Philippe Lemaire) and Tina (Franςoise Brion), a vacationing couple in Madeira, are introduced late in the story, the start of a new act (act 3 maybe?), when Ana goes back to Madeira Island for the first time since her father died. The tone shifts and the story seems like it might be a little distracted from its initial focus. This is not necessarily an offense because it corresponds to Ana going through personal changes and new developments after surviving suicide, as she claims to want to rediscover Madeira as a tourist, suggesting a fresh start, which is what the film is starting to feel like at this point. Pipo’s immediate interest in her, despite the fact he’s supposed to be with Tina, is consistent with Cohen’sattention grabbing screen presence.

I couldn’t help noticing that Pipo’s enthusiasm for the Brisa beverage he raves about to Ana, Tina, and Carla seems too exaggerated to not be an advertisement for Brisa, a tropical soft drink found only in Madeira. “Brissas, cooler than ice!” This forty-one year old product placement still works, because I’ve found myself interested in obtaining some. (here’s a place where you can order it: http://www.madeiratoyou.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=42)

Some of the extended Jazz numbers might take some out of the movie, but I came to appreciate them a lot more on subsequent viewings, especially after realizing how downplayed they are in the French and Italian versions of this film. It helps to be a fan of ‘70s era Euro club scenes and jazz music because it’s one of this film’s major focuses. Like Franco’sVenus in Furs,the lead is a cool jazz musician, and the musical performances feel like nifty music videos, which, although superfluous to the story, manage to be essential to the viewing experience.

What fascinates me most with Al otro lado del espejo is the way it integrates a poppy jazz song “Madeira Love”, written by, I’m assuming, the film’s soundtrack composer Adolfo Waitzman, into the story. The song is conceived, born, and eventually realized in the film, coming from the mind of its lead. It has two dominant melodies, a solemn downbeat passage (the verse) and a joyful upbeat melody (the chorus), that act as leitmotifs, emerging at different times under different guises. The song is also performed in full by Ana and her band at a turning point in the story. Just as a recurring melody can create an identity all its own for a story/world created for an opera, musical, film, TV series, or video game, the recognizable phrases in “Madeira Love” are a memorable thematic characterization of the film.

Cohen’seyes have a natural sadness to them, attributed to a slight exaggerated outer downward slant in her upper eyelids, which lends a somber tone that compliments Ana’s tragedy. The movie’s occasional melancholic tone does, nonetheless, feel nicely balanced with some of the more colorful and upbeat aspects of the film, Alice Arno’s poolside dancing, to give an example; and Ana even has a few chipper moments.

It should be mentioned that Emma Cohen won the Best Actress Award from the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos for her performance in Al otro lado del espejo; and the full version of “Madeira Love”, performed by Ana and her band is a treat. However, in the French version, the voice is different during this song and doesn’t sound as good, and, sadly, this entire song performance is entirely cut out in the Italian version.

I’ve seen all three versions of this film, and I think the Spanish version (the one being reviewed) should be considered the definitive version, as it is the director’s cut. The alternate French, Le miroir obscéne, and Italian, Lo specchio del piacere, versions of this film seem to be the most viewed on account of usually being the easiest to come across. They differ significantly from the Spanish version, with the biggest difference being that they do away with Ana’s father committing suicide, replacing that aspect with Ana’s sister, played by Lina Romay, killing herself. Ana is instead haunted by images of her dead sister, who doesn’t exist in the Spanish version, in the mirror, committing obscene, explicit acts of sexual intercourse. As much as I don’t disagree with seeing Lina Romay, I don’t think this works as well and seems more like an excuse to insert hardcore porn shots into the film, cheapening it and being a possible reason for why this film hasn’t been more widely discovered and praised until more recently. I would recommend seeing the Spanish version, more than once, and only watch the other two out of curiosity (the DVD containing both Spanish and French versions can be bought here: http://www.artusfilms.com/le-miroir-obscene).

This film does have some parallels to A Virgin Among the Living Dead, most noticeable the spiritual connection between father and daughter, yet Al otro lado del espejo feels surprisingly down to Earth in comparison, likely attributed to the heavier focus on realistic relations between the characters. Howard Vernon, like Paul Muller in AVATLD, appears in the guise of his hanged self before his daughter, to creepy effect. An interesting difference is Vernon’s protruding tongue, which does happen sometimes in the case of strangulation by suspension hanging, as opposed to the instant death caused by cervical spine fracture with drop hanging, a method used more for execution that is less common in suicide.

Anyone feeling content with having only seen the French or Italian version should revisit this film by watching the restored Spanish version. The former versions really short change viewers both musically and conceptually and likely won’t strike a chord with harder critics. I wouldn’t call the alternate versions terrible in comparison, because I had felt pretty satisfied with what I experienced with Lo specchio del piacere and couldn’t quite understand why it was insisted that I watch Al otro lado del espejo as well, but after viewing it I realized it’s because the original intention is diluted with the alternate storyline, and to say the Spanish version works a lot better is not an overstatement.

Lightning, angry mobs, grave robbing, and a criminal’s brain, like so many Frankenstein offshoots / spinoffs / parodies, Lady Frankenstein owes more to James Whale’s classic 1931 horror film than Mary Shelley’s 1818 literary masterpiece. Despite its many fitting references to, and retreading to an extent, some of the plot points to its trendsetting predecessor, Lady Frankenstein is far from feeling like a gory, colored remake, primarily thanks to the addition of Frankenstein’s biological daughter, Tania (Rosalba Neri), a little novelty with a lot of potential, like reimagining the classic 1931 movie with the doctor’s attractive but even more ambitious daughter written into the story.

In a time when females were grossly underrepresented in science, Tania Frankenstein shatters what must’ve been a prominent stereotype, enduring her pursuit as a surgeon, even when faced with sexist instructors at the University; as she puts it, “the professors have a lot of old fashioned ideas about a woman’s place.” When she returns home from the University after becoming a licensed surgeon, her father, Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotten), expresses admiration for her accomplishments, and yet he and his assistant, Dr. Charles Marshall (Paul Müller), still treat her as if their work involving cadavers is too much for her delicate senses to fathom. They seem to not want to involve her in their gruesome work, but, to their surprise, she’s all for it. They attempt to make her think they are working with animals, but she has been thinking along the same lines as her father the entire time, being more interested in human transplants; “I am my father’s daughter.” Not only does she thoroughly understand her father’s work, she ends up refining it.

The movie’s featured Creature (Peter Whiteman) is admittedly silly looking, one of the film’s few flaws, but still gross and gruesome to look at. It does not become a hostile killer on account of being abused, misunderstood, physically abhorred, or shunned by its creator, as the more traditional Frankenstein myths dictate. The Creature is instead pissed from the get go, killing onsite its creator, Baron Frankenstein, before fleeing the castle to wreak havoc on the countryside. The idea is that the Creature is out to destroy those who’ve had some involvement in its creation, but, because it has the brain of a killer, it does happen to kill anyone it comes across, slasher movie style, barring a familiar incident when it spares a helpless child, a type of reimagined reference to the memorable scene from Frankenstein(1931), involving the Creature and the little girl by the lake, suggesting the idea that the monster would not intentionally harm a child (it did purposely kill a child in the book, though).

The Creature Tanya’s father created is damaged, flawed, an out-of-control experiment that needs to be taken care of. She takes it upon herself to create the perfect “manmade” life form to stop her father’s creation, not only, in her mind, to right a wrong but to protect and honor her father’s good name, correct the defects in his work, salvage his credibility, procure him his due fame, and create for herself an exceptional lover.

In order to do this, she plans to create the perfect being with the brain and heart of her newlywed husband, Charles, and the body she desires from Thomas (Marino Masé), the moronic servant with a childlike innocence that’s easily corrupted by the dynamic curves of Rosalba Neri, in one of the movie’s more naughty murder scenes.

Knowing of his unconditional love for her, Tania is able to manipulate and corrupt her husband, Charles, in aiding her misdeeds. His voice of reason is crushed under the weight of his lust for Tania, twisting Charles into one of Müller’s best villainous roles since Nightmare Castle. Despite their tainted romance, his feelings for her do come off as very sincere: “I’d rather give my life to you than to the hangman.” I can’t say the same for her feelings towards him, which are more on the sociopathic side. It all culminates into the type of monster-meets-monster final battle in the vein of the Universal monster mash movies.

There are so many notable actors to mention here that it would result in an overly lengthy article to do them all justice.

Joseph Cotten and Paul Müllerare exceptional as Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant Charles, respectively; their dramatic arguments work, their relation and acquaintanceship as colleagues is convincing, and their scientific jargon manages to avoid being corny, to an extent, and is actually believable; “the hypothalamus is damaged.” I’m not sure if I understood all of the technical details, but the surgical scenes are without a doubt terrific and some of the best any Frankenstein fans could ask for.

Other supporting characters include grave robber Lynch (Herbert Fux) and police captain Harris (Mickey Hargitay), who has it out for Lynch in what is an entertaining cat-and-mouse game between the two. The way Lynch is always taking swigs of booze is a little annoying, but he is supposed to be an obnoxious and vulgar man.

I loved him as a charismatic sadist in both Delirium and The Bloody Pit of Horror, and although this is not his most memorable role, Hargitay does carry over his usual charisma as the police captain, the only one able to make sense of the madness going on, talking in a humoring, condescending tone to those he knows are guilty and lying to him. He seems to always be just slightly shy of the evidence he needs to prove their guilt. Like many of the films Hargitay is in, Lady Frankenstein does feature The Balsorano Castle, a filming location featured in many European movies, and it makes a great Frankenstein castle, here. I am curious to know why Mickey Hargitaywas in so many movies that featured the Balsorano Castle. Whenever I see this castle in any film, I think of Mickey Hargitay and whenever I see Mickey Hargitay, I think of Balsorano Castle. I came across a DVD of The Jane Mansfield Story the other day, and (Hargitay having been married to Mansfield) that castle was the first thing I thought of.

What’s most important is that the film is a lot of fun, watchable, and impressively gory for its time. Not a gory effect seems fake or unimpressive. The elaborate antique sets and era costumes that usually accompany the gothic horror piece are fabulous, especially Neri’s plethora of gothic maiden fashions, as well as her exquisite spiral curl hairdo.

(In this film, Rosalba Neri was dubbed by Linda Gary, of He-Man and theMasters of the Universe fame, who was a prominent voice actress. This is an interesting delight for me, being a MOU fan, especially since I recognize Evil-Lyn’s voice anytime Tania gets excitable or angry.)

Lady Frankenstein is not as campy as Elvira would have you believe, and it’s recommended to fans of Frankenstein movies in general, Hammer Horror, Universal monster movies, and ‘60s and ‘70s gothic Italian horror. Many have probably already seen it at one point or another, being that Lady Frankenstein was included in so many horror DVD bargain sets. There’s a great looking restored version of Lady Frankenstein that’s included in Roger Corman’s Cult Classics – All-Night Marathon: Vampires, Mummies & Monsters two-disc DVD set that also features The Velvet Vampire, Time Walker, and Grotesque. At first, I wasn’t too sure what connection Roger Corman had to Lady Frankenstein other than it was directed by Mel Welles, who starred in Roger Corman’sThe Little Shop of Horrors, but apparently Corman’s company at the time, New World Pictures, provided the additional financial backing the film neededin order to be made.

© At the Mansion of Madness

My good friend, and fan of this site, Terence, has a cool Eurocult Tumblr I just found out about yesterday, Chicks with Candles! Not only does it live up to its title, celebrating the beloved gothic film trope of beautiful maidens with candelabras from movies like Tragic Ceremony and Baba Yaga, the page also features posters, cover art, deleted scenes, trivia, interesting but concise observations on Eurocult films like Jess Franco’sLorna the Exorcist, and, most importantly, a lot of attractive films I’ve never heard of but really want to look at. I believe that me and Terence share an affinity for the use of lit candles as a mood enhancing aesthetic on film sets, and it's an elegant idea for a Tumblr page.

Check it out by clicking the delectable image of Rosalba Neri below, and be prepared to stay a while!

“Do you hear the clarion call? It’s calling out to one and all.” –Falconer

The horror blogging clarion call sounds again! That’s right; it’s almost time for Blood Sucking Geek’s second annual Ultimate Gore-a-thon 2014 -- Another Splatterific Extravaganza! I hope a fraction of you fantabulously awesome readers remember this event from last year, when nine sites came together to embark on an ultimate gore-centric blog-a-thon! The event will run from June 15th to the 21st. Including At the Mansion of Madness, there are, so far, twelve sites. The other blogs/sites taking part in the upcoming Gore-a-thon are as follows:

90s Horror Movies

Blood Sucking Geek

Candy-Coated Razor Blades

Craft Fear

The Info Zombie

Love Horror

Midnight Cinephile

Movies at Dog Farm

Slasher Studios

Terrorphoria

Wide Weird World of Cult Films

The last film Lucio Fulci ever worked on, The Wax Mask,was supposed to have been the grand collaboration between Fulci and Dario Argento, had it not been for Fulci’s tragic death some few weeks before filming was to begin. The project came about after Argento had approached Fulci at a 1994 film festival in Rome and suggested they work together on a new film. This was more of a sympathetic gesture from Argento who had intentions of reviving the spirits of an ailing Fulci in a wheelchair, who, at the time, had not worked on a new film in years. The two were never the best of friends, as Argento always thought Fulci imitated his filmmaking style (the separate camps weren’t only with the fan base it would seem).

Differences aside, they mutually agreed upon recreating House of Wax with Fulcidirecting. Along with Daniele Stroppa(The House of Clocks), they wrote the script for The Wax Mask, an alternate take on the wax museum myth that doesn’t necessarily feel like a remake of House of Wax (1953), even if it is.

With Fulci’s death occuring shortly before filming (out of respect, Argento paid for the funeral arrangements), the project was temporarily put on hold before Argento offered the directorial duties to effects maestro Sergio Stivaletti, who had already been working on special effects for the film. Stivaletti, actually having long been hoping for a directorial debut, accepted the position with only two weeks to work out pre-production (casting, locations, etc.) before shooting began.

According to the book Profondo Argento: The Man, the Myths, & the Magic by Alan Jones, Stivaletti did somewhat revise Fulci and Stroppa’s original screenplay, giving it more of an alchemy theme. The exhibited wax-encapsulated corpses, as seen previously in House of Wax (1953), were replaced with wax victims with an even more disturbing state of being, a nice edgy alternate take.

The Wax Maskwas intended to be an extremely modern film with a classic gothic horror style, and to this end it succeeds. It is often, and understandably so, compared to Hammer horror films, due to its period gothic style, but with its gratuitous but still essential heavy gore FX and use of colorful, contrasting lighting on dark sets, a laSuspiria and Inferno, there ends up being something a lot more Italian about it.

I wasn’t too crazy about the digital effects, which were considered highly modern for the time, but they appear dated today, and not in a charming way. The practical effects still hold up, though. As an Italian horror film in the ‘90s, not only are the gore elements satisfying and imaginative, Stivaletti’sapplication of practical effects is impressive and more technically accomplished in comparison to some of the film's more schlocky Italian horror predecessors in the ‘80s.

The symphonic soundtrack is total ‘90s Hollywood, which does fit with the material, but I wouldn’t have minded something that stood out more, something a little catchier, with a familiar theme I can recall and hum. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, but at this moment, I can’t remember any themes to the soundtrack.

What harms the film the most is the unfortunate dubbing, which makes certain actors unfairly appear terrible, more so since they can get rather loquacious. This is nothing new with a dubbed Italian film, of course, and I’ve become a huge fan of dubbing, particularly from the legendary, recognizable voices in Nick Alexander’s dubbing team, but here it’s a big distraction, especially to those who are not used to it and will likely find themselves snickering.

The film’s moody, gothic ambiance and style does shine through as a superficial attraction, and yet the dynamic story and its continuity do succeed rather well (at least I thought so), barring some pacing problems. Viewers are left in the dark for a large portion of running time with regards to the opening flashback crime scene of a violent murder aftermath in Paris and its connection to characters in present day Rome: Sonia Lafont (Romina Mondello), who witnessed the brutal murders as a little girl from a killer with a mechanical hand, and Boris Volkoff (Robert Hossein) the wax museum curator, an elegant gentleman who’s also a monster on the inside, both literally and figuratively. The pieces of the puzzle do come together coherently, and somewhat predictably, before leading into an entertaining and dramatic fiery climax that’s like Argento’sInferno meets The Terminator. As much as I love twists, there is a last minute twist that doesn’t make much sense and probably shouldn’t have been included, because it ends up making it very difficult to draw a conclusion. It was almost as if it was trying to meet some kind of twist quota, which can be counterproductive if every twist does not add to the experience.

Fortunately, the set pieces in the wax museum and the secret basement do not disappoint and are half the fun. Cinematographer Sergio Salvati revives the classic Italian horror colorful lighting palette, making the inside of the museum look and feel like something out of Suspiria. Being that this is a wax museum movie it shouldn’t be too surprising where the idols in the museum are sourced from, but there is an added disturbing spin to the wax works (A similar idea was used in House of Wax(2005)).

The Wax Mask also has that fetishistic Eurocult sleaze factor that does feel very ‘70s. When the narrative transports from Paris in the past to present day Rome, we end up in a brothel full of lascivious prostitutes entertaining men. The text on the screen reads “Rome, 12 years later” and a voice-over amusingly repeats the text, as if we can’t read; it’s probably for dramatic effect, but it comes off as a little silly and unnecessary, an example of some of the misguided quirks that hurt the viewing experience a little.

I do still love this movie. All in all, The Wax Mask is good, but sometimes slow, fun that’s not without its flaws. However, it seems to have the general label of “recommended to Italian horror fans only.” Is this like saying Italian horror fans are different, and non-Italian horror fans are normal and therefore will most likely not get it and need not bother with such foreign nonsense? Sounds snobbish, but probably...

© At the Mansion of Madness

Today begins the second annual Ultimate Gore-a-thon 2014 – Another Splatterific Extravaganza, hosted by our partner in crime Blood Sucking Geek!!! Follow these awesome sites for a week of gore-centric mayhem:

90s Horror Movies

Blood Sucking Geek

Candy-Coated Razor Blades

Craft Fear

The Info Zombie

Love Horror

Midnight Cinephile

Movies at Dog Farm

Slasher Studios

Terrorphoria

Wide Weird World of Cult Films

I used to not be able to stomach gory zombie films very well. Despite being excited and thoroughly fascinated after watching zombie films in my youth, I suffered from a loss of appetite for a while. Anytime I was trying to eat, my brain would be like “you know what’s a good movie? Dawn of the Dead (1978),” and images from the scene with zombies eating in the cellar would pop into my mind, and I would be turned off to eating meat or anything savory for that matter. Sweets or French fries were fine, but my mind just would not cease to relate the taste and consistency of anything else, especially if it was slimy, to what it was the zombies were chomping on. I was disgusted by zombie carnage but still thought it was so cool.

The zombie film that grossed me out the most, which is really saying something, was Lucio Fulci’sZombie. As a kid, I used to hate looking at the VHS cover with the iconic, rotting, worm eyed, conquistador zombie (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua). I wasn’t scared; I was repulsed. Being a growing boy on the verge of puberty, I didn’t think it wise to be turned off to protein, either. And so, the tape just sat on my movie shelf, after only being watched once, collecting dust, never to be touched again for quite some time.

Needless to say, I eventually overcame this sort of appetite-loss problem and no longer felt sick after watching zombie films. I don’t know if it is enhanced mental discipline or desensitization, but I can now eat pizza while watching movies like Zombie and Burial Ground without getting nauseous.

Anyone who may have read my article for The Beyond during last year’s gore-a-thon may recall that I wasn’t a fan of Zombie for a while. It took seeing The Beyond for me to re-evaluate what was my negative stand on Zombie. I was guilty of hoping for another Dawn of the Dead, ignorantly overlooking every one of the film’s strengths.

The film’s biggest strengths would have to be the gory set pieces, the tropical setting, and the zombies themselves. I like the way Fulci’s zombies appear to be sleepwalking, hardly moving at all, with eyes closed. They’re more like nightmarish monsters rather than a satirical reflection of us, as is the usual reasoning behind the modern fascination with zombies. Makeup artist Giannetto De Rossi utilizes a resourceful method of combining dried mud, blood, slime, and worms to give an elaborately gruesome look to the monsters.

The post edited groans and heavy breathing from the zombies are terrifying and do sound peculiarly inhuman, and the noisy eating sound effects are unnerving. In fact, while re-watching Zombie, I noticed that sound is a major contributing factor to the suspense.

For me, what is being heard is more disturbing than what is being seen during the infamous eye splinter scene with Olga Karlatos. The splinter piercing the eye is very visceral and a wonderfully excessive display of ocular trauma in detail, but what makes it more exciting is the distorted, bloodcurdling scream that’s heard as the splinter pierces the eyeball. After the splinter breaks off the door, we see the victim still alive and very much in agony, and, as some kind of calming contrast, the narrative jumps abruptly from highly intense brutality to a calm visual of a yacht near the shore of the island, possibly to give viewers a chance to comprehend and respond to what they just saw.

Fabio Frizzi’s melodic and haunting zombie waltz is catchy and memorable and does contribute to Zombie’s epic feel, with the thumping beats always popping up at just the right time, particularly when the theme accompanies the rising dead in the conquistador graveyard. With the near-static way the zombies slowly arise during this part they almost seem like they are on display, but it’s still ultra-creepy and would make a nice zombie exhibit for a theme park.

The underwater cinematography is a delightful plus. Some say the unforgettable zombie vs. shark scene is overrated, while others can’t stop talking about it. I thought it was original, well done, and entertaining. Some also feel it’s a little too random, but the zombie appearing underwater has significance because it’s an indication that the characters are close to the island of Matool, and it’s not that unlikely that two carnivorous predators would cross paths and not get along.

Many of the actors in Zombie have made a surprisingly big name for themselves in the underground cult movie world with their roles in this film. Some have a higher pedigree than others, such as Richard Johnson and Al Cliver, but would we still have known Ian McCulloch, Olga Karlatos, and Auretta Gay as well as we do without this movie, or that Mia Farrow has a sister, Tisa Farrow?

I do like all of the actors and the characters they play in this movie, but Johnson, as Dr. Menard, seems to out-act everyone, doing a lot with very little to work with. With some of the conversations on the island, there’s a lot of insinuation of voodoo, zombies, and other odd happenings on the Island, and Johnson’s grave devotion to the role helps make a lot of this believable. There is also a subtle amount of pathos in Dr. Menard having to keep shooting his patients and friends, before or just as they’re coming back, who pass away in his care.

Another disturbing aspect that brought out an ever present threat of disease and death is how convincing the sick patients in Dr. Menard’s hospital/lab were. The ill bed-ridden natives look terribly sick in a way that’s discomforting.

The sunny, sweaty setting on the island that most of the movie takes place on lends an exotic flavor to Zombie that I think is responsible for a lot of the movie’s enjoyment, aside from the gore and zombies. It’s a fun zombie jungle adventure as well as a gross out horror movie with a pretty cool final showdown between humans and zombies in a flimsy wooden church/hospital, with enough Molotov cocktails and flammable zombies to make one hell of a Fourth of July celebration. The only parts that remind me a little of Dawn of the Dead are the opening and closing scenes in New York City, but it’s more like a reminiscence that feels more nostalgic and endearing, rather than an inferior imitation.

Although it was generally flamed by critics at the time of its release, Zombie eventually became a fan favorite and one of the most important and definitive zombie films of the twentieth century. Watch it again and share it with a loved one or that someone special in your life. It’s a great date movie, but you might want to warn them a little before the ocular trauma, and have dinner before not after the movie.

Anyone remember this Windows 7 commercial that features footage of the zombie vs. shark scene from Zombie? I remember the surprise I felt when I first came across this commercial on TV. I was excited but also a little perplexed since I couldn’t help wondering what Fulci had to do with Microsoft. I also can’t tell if they’re making fun or not.

Don’t forget that this article is part of the 2014 Gore-a-thon, and I hope you all find some great splatterific material on the participating sites. Show how great the horror blogging community is and really make the traffic stats to these great sites skyrocket.

90s Horror Movies

Blood Sucking Geek

Candy-Coated Razor Blades

Craft Fear

Disturbing Films

The Info Zombie

Love Horror

Midnight Cinephile

Movies at Dog Farm

Slasher Studios

Terrorphoria

Wide Weird World of Cult Films

“Genre rules” seem to be most common in zombie and vampire films, and it’s with these particular genres that breaking the “rules” ends up being the most controversial. Yet, these so called rules are non-existent, and filmmakers can do whatever they want. Of course, the big risk with breaking too many rules is that so many people will already hate the movie before/without even bothering to see it. On the other hand, sticking with the rules and relying too heavily on clichés is too easy and contributes to oversaturation of a genre. I personally enjoy the best of both worlds, classic and innovative, the best of the old with the best of the new. Give me what I came for, but surprise me too. Clichés are important but more for the sake of maintaining a basis of familiarity.

Harry Kümel’s emblematic, chic, and sensual vampire seduction Daughters of Darkness falls somewhere in the middle ground between familiar and different. It probably isn’t even worth mentioning the many parallels between this movie and The Blood Spattered Bride or The Shiver of the Vampires, other than to note they were made around the same time and manage to be so different from one another, even though they tell similar stories. They all contain a common sapphic vampire story that owes a lot to Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel Carmilla, which was adapted a year earlier with The Vampire Lovers in 1970 and ten years before that with Blood and Roses.

In Daughters of Darknessthe Carmilla figure, an immortal vampiress who mysteriously arrives on the scene with a focus to seduce/destroy a female human, is the Hungarian Countess Elisabeth Báthory (Delphine Seyrig). It’s a nice imagining of what The Blood Countess might’ve been up to had she been able to escape her sentence of being immured in her own castle and managed to stay eternally young. Kümel originally wanted to create a period, costume piece about Elisabeth Báthory, but budget restrictions resulted in the film ending up being what it is, which I'm thankful for, because Countess Dracula was made the same year, and another one probably would've been redundant.

Upping the appeal this time around in this familiar tale is the pairing of the head antagonist vampiress with an almost sidekick-like partner called Ilona (Andrea Rau- her accent is one of the many great things about this movie). Elisabeth and Ilona are supposed to resemble classic actresses Marlene Dietrich and Louise Brooks, respectively. Louise Brooks was also an inspiration to Guido Crepax’s erotic, surreal comic character Valentina, and so, when observing Ilona and Elisabeth together, side by side, Ilona’s jet-black bobbed haircut and Elisabeth’s witchy funeral mourner look, one cannot help being reminded of Baba Yaga, the comic, film, and TV episode (this might be a little farfetched, but I like to see it as Valentina had she not been able to escape Baba Yaga’s influence…).

On the other side of the coin, we have the two main human characters, the newlyweds, Stefan (John Karlen) and Valerie (Danielle Ouimet - one of the earliest adult film stars from French Canada). Their relationship is unsteady, primarily because Stefan is so unstable. His character is ambiguous, and he shows many signs of having an affinity for violence, a violence that he eventually releases on his wife.

The scene where Stefan whips Valerie with a belt is intense and a turning point to the movie. It occurs after a bizarre moment when Stefan, who had been procrastinating calling his "mother," finally calls her, after Valerie’s constant insistence, to tell his “mother” about his new wife. This is one of the weirder parts in the movie, as Stefan’s mother is not what we were expecting. The phone call does not go well, and Stefan “punishes” Valerie for whatever humiliation he just went through. The outburst is filmed from outside the hotel windows, giving it a voyeuristic impression. Most remarkable is the aftermath shot of the couple lying on the bed, in what Kümel described as being emblematic of the ash figures of Pompeii.

The three things I remembered most about this movie after seeing it for the first time was the vivid and prominent use of the color red, Delphine Seyrig’s performance as The Blood Countess, and the “impossible” sex-move Ilona pulls on Stefan during their sex scene together (you have to know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen this – it looks very painful but is still a turn-on).

In most of the scenes there’s usually a central or singular red object, such as Stefan’s robe or Elisabeth’s gown, contrasted against everything else. It’s obviously very emblematic of blood, although the red items are usually brighter than blood, but they always stand out while still feeling properly integrated into the scenes, which frequently have black, white, and red color combinations. The intro and ending credits have a very simple but effective plain red background that goes well with the chills that are prompted by the movie’s creepy yet seductive music theme.

Delphine Seyrig, like Richard Johnson in Fulci’sZombie, out-acts everyone else, but it actually works in favor of the movie, because it parallels her character’s control and manipulation of the other characters and course of events, in favor of her sociopathic objectives. Seyrig’s performance is one-of-a-kind and should be savored. Everything about her, from her soothing voice to her look and personality, is like dark poetry. Pay attention to every syllable she softly utters, her gentle but ominous demeanor, her mannerisms and poses, it’s so very beautifully gothic and evil.

There is something very eerie about how vacant the seaside hotel in this movie is. It only contains the four characters, plus the hotel concierge (Paul Esser), and a retired, suspicious policeman (Georges Jamin). That’s it; there are no other characters at the hotel, unless you count the stairway that plays a major role in the hotel interior, filmed in Brussels at the Hotel Astoria, while the hotel exteriors where shot in Ostend at the Grand Hotel des thermes.

Unusual for a European film at the time, the movie has direct-sound, meaning no dubbing, which should be an interest to those who can't get past dubbing.

One could say the film is light on vampire action, and the blood drinkers are fangless, but this is most certainly beside the point, as it is way more about the enjoyably languid mood, erotic images, and suggestive vampiric iconography. Elisabeth’s relations to Ilona and Valerie are so warm and tender but virulent at the same time. The kills are what one could call unlikely and fabricated, but I do think this was the intention. Recalling what Stefen said to Elisabeth, “Death seems to follow you,” the death scenes seem supernaturally driven as if delivered by The Reaper himself, or, more fitting in this case, herself.

It doesn’t break a whole lot of rules, but Daughters of Darkness still stands out as a wonderful erotic vampire film. While watching it, you might still learn a few new things about vampires. Did you know that vampires are afraid of running water?

I was charmed the other day by a 1915 vintage, almost Victorian looking, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes advertisement poster I spotted amongst the old-fashioned-decor adorned on the walls at a local Cracker Barrel diner. While staring at the ad, for some reason, I became curious as to the origin of Corn Flakes. Where were they invented, and how did they come about? I previously had a stereotypical notion that they may have originated in farming communities, due to the rooster, Cornelius, usually observed on the boxes. After ordering pancakes (not the multigrain or wheat ones but the regular pancakes), I googled “Kellogg’s Corn Flakes history” on my phone, and the results were a little startling.

It appears the invention that brought about Corn Flakes was discovered by accident in 1894, at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan by health reformist Dr.John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will Keith Kellogg as part of a bland diet to keep the patients from having increased passions, i.e. to keep them from masturbating.

One day, the Kellogg brothers left a batch of cooked wheat out to sit, when they were diverted by urgent matters at the sanitarium. Upon their return, they’d found that the wheat had gone stale, but because they were under a strict budget, they decided to salvage the wheat. After pressing the wheat through rollers, it formed, to their surprise, wheat flakes that were subsequently toasted and served to the patients; it ended up being a hit. Later Will Keith Kellogg experimented with flaking corn, which he eventually made into a successful business.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was a pioneer surgeon, who succeeded in having exceptionally low mortality rates with his surgery practice. He was the superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium and pioneered numerous health reform treatments, some of which still hold up today. However, the good doctor sometimes missed the mark.

Although married, Dr. Kellogg was celibate; his marriage was never consummated, and he and his wife adopted children, which was because he abhorred sex and, most of all, masturbation (he published a number of anti-sex books, one of which he supposedly worked on during his honeymoon). When his various treatments, such as hydrotherapy, enemas, and intestine removal, would fail to cure a patient, he would attribute the lack of progress to excessive masturbation, something he believed to be a major cause of physical and mental health problems. Aside from sticking with bland foods, to try and keep his patients refraining from self-satisfaction, he developed questionable remedies to deter masturbation, such as circumcision without anesthesia for males (the pain was supposed to play an important role in the treatment) and administering pure carbolic acid to the clitoris for females.

Of course, when the pancakes arrived and pulled me from this somewhat odd Corn Flakes trivia, being a giallo junkie, the first thing I could think about was a sleazy yet somehow tasteful giallo by Fernando Di Leo: Asylum Erotica (a.k.a Slaughter Hotel and La bestia uccide a sangue freddo). The movie had some strange parallels to my Corn Flakes browsing experience.

It is obvious, Asylum Erotica was made with every intention of creating a commercial product. Sex and violence is what it promises, and sex and violence is what it delivers. There’s really nothing to the story premise, other than: a killer wearing a mask and cape stalks the halls of a castle asylum at night that’s full of attractive female patients – sex, murder, and masturbation scenes ensue. It’s almost like there was some kind of Playboy Mansion-like requisite for the patients, which is absurd, but this is practically half the fun, especially when the inmates consist of Rosalba Neri and Margaret Lee (someone you can usually find me praising in several Eurospy reviews over at Italian Film Review).

The asylum in question is a beautiful isolated mansion in the country side. It looks ancient and almost uninhabitable from the outside (the beautiful, decayed, and rotting mansion – I aspire to own one, some day). The entire story is practically limited to this secluded setting, a trope I like because it makes the rest of the world seem nonexistent and generates a bit of an escapist sense of isolation, kind of like a hotel resort.

A chain smoking, socially awkward Klaus Kinski is the director of the asylum, which apparently specializes in curing the mentally ill of their antisocial, violent, suicidal, and excessive sexual behavior. Kinski suspiciously wanders the halls with an ambiguous demeanor that provides a very obvious red herring that can be quite convincing, just because it’s Klaus Kinski. When I first saw it, I found myself saying, “We know it’s you, Klaus!,” whenever the masked killer would spring into action.

When all is said and done, the killer seems to lack much of a motive, other than being a kind of sex maniac, and just seems to be here because the movie calls for a killer, but despite its shallow premise Asylum Erotica is not without its merits. For one, the murder scenes are brutal and perverse, and the way the killer resourcefully uses the medieval weapons and torture devices on display in the castle asylum is fun; they’re like some kind of medieval killer ninja. The killer wears a cape, which I thought echoed Dracula a little, since they sometimes visit the victims in their rooms while they’re asleep, kind of like Lucy and Dracula. In hindsight, re-watching the movie while knowing who the killer is, it does end up making sense.

Also, the film is stylish (how about that weird, green opening credits sequence?), and Asylum Erotica is probably the hottest giallo I’ve ever seen; this is probably the most uninhibited I’ve seen Rosalba Neri. She plays a sexually out of control character, who’s being treated for her excessive desire to make love. In the greenhouse, she seduces and has sex with the gardener (John Ely), who slaps her when she won’t leave, but she admirably turns that tired cliché of men slapping women right back at him. This is Neri at her sexually best. Some may feel like celebrating after finding out she has a masturbation scene (where’s Dr. Kelloggwhen you need him?).

It’s always great seeing British actress Margaret Lee, who plays a suicidal character and who does appear nude in a few scenes, which I believe is a rare instance for Lee. She also plays a brunette here, something in contrast to her usual blond Marilyn Monroe look. She and Klaus’scharacter provide a bit of uncertain soap opera dramatics, and the two have strange chemistry, which is on purpose since Klausis one big red herring.

The extended dance scene between the antisocial patient, Mara (Jane Garret –sadly her only movie credit) and Nurse Helen (Monica Strebel) is diverting but still an enjoyable highlight. There’s a very innocent and adorable connection that develops between nurse and patient here, and these two characters actually do have chemistry. There’s a very peculiar editing sequence that happens after their dancing scene, and I can’t decide if it’s artistic or sloppy. One of the girls is staring out the window, and we hear a voiceover of the professor (John Karlsen) talking about the aftermath of her death, and frenzied cries from the nurse, before she is shot through the neck by the killer with a crossbow outside. Redundantly we hear the professor’s speech again while they stand over her body. It’s a little disorienting and hard to forget.

I want to say that characters are murdered for committing capital vices, such as lust, being the most common, and gluttony, made apparent after a chauffeur wanders into the empty lounge, late at night after everyone is asleep, and starts to drink every leftover glass of alcohol sitting around before being killed, shortly after, by being pushed into a Virgin of Nuremberg device by the killer. The seven deadly sins are an apparent obsession with the giallo, considering how often the number seven is used in titles (The Red Queen Kills Seven Times), and it’s interesting to compare this to the giallo offspring, the ‘80s American slasher and its stereotype, where characters are killed for having sex and doing drugs.

As usual there’s the obligatory police procedural that is introduced in the last ten minutes of the film, which feels a little late, and the inspectors that arrive on scene are comic book versions.

Soundtrack-wise, we do have some excellent cuts from Silvano Spadaccino, particularly the elegant and pleasant lounge tune that compliments the natural beauty of the countryside and is top-quality and relaxing during a few of the outdoor shots.

Asylum Erotica is one of the more low-key gialli that hasn’t really risen to the top of anyone’s favorite giallo list. There really isn’t much of a brilliant story or shocking reveal, but its strengths lie in a number of memorable sequences, like the epic slow motion gun-down at the end, its cozy, lovely, secluded countryside setting, Klaus Kinski looking suspicious, and an overload of Euro-babes.

© At the Mansion of Madness

Oh, and no need to worry, Corn Flakes do not have a deleterious effect on sex drive.

Holocaust 2000 (1977)

Cthulhu (2007)

Lord of Tears (2013)

Jess Franco's Count Dracula (1970)

Alice / Neco z Alenky (1988)

Top Sensation (1969)

Delirium / Delirio caldo (1972)

News Update: Lord of Tears

Love and Death in the Garden of the Gods (1972)

Sex of the Witch (1973)

Morgiana (1972)

Down to the Cellar / Do pivnice (1983)

The Other Side of the Mirror / Al otro lado del espejo (1973)

Lady Frankenstein (1971)

Chicks with Candles (Tumblr Page)

Announcing the Second Annual Gore-a-thon

The Wax Mask / M.D.C. – Maschera di cera (1997)

Zombie / Zombi 2 (1979)

Daughters of Darkness (1971)

Asylum Erotica / Slaughter Hotel (1971)