Film Reviews by NP

… or ‘Black Mountain Side’ as it is sometimes known, is a story that has much in common with John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing (1982)’, but made with a fraction of the budget. For an independent film, it boasts great cinematography, convincing acting and good sound design. The occasional effects are believable, but there are really too few of them.

Or perhaps I should say, there is too much of everything else. Even shorn of twenty minutes, this would still be a slow-burner, saved to a certain extent by the characters (all men), who are believable and share a sense of chemistry with each other. But it is just too dull, I’m sorry to say. There’s little pace, momentum or even atmosphere which is surprising given the excellent location. The views of the wonderfully crisp snowy backdrop of are fairly static and often looks like the same shot repeated.

Things happen, certain characters become affected – there is a terrific moment when one of them, apparently randomly, cuts off his hand – all powerfully staged. But there’s no build up from that. The slow reveal of the evil spirit is nicely restrained, and represents a high point.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. In its favour, it has a Lovecraftian ‘vibe’ to it, but that’s never much more than a vague suggestion. Even the ending is decidedly perfunctory and after nearly two hours, that is a shame.

Sometimes, when there is a lack of budget, infusing a film with a sense of dark humour can compensate. It seems to me that director/writer Rene Perez embraces this and never lets his production take itself too seriously. This filters through to the actors too, who may not be truly convincing, but seem to be enjoying themselves, and that enjoyment is somewhat infectious.

The storyline is also suitably odd. A group of four financially embarrassed wannabes are brought together to take part in a reality television show in an expansive shack in the middle of a deep forest with no internet, and no signal for cell phones. As the gravel-voiced hostess announces, it is best not to set fire to the house, as there will be no-one remotely near to put it out. What would health and safety say? And yet, there is someone watching, a chain-smoking, well-dressed millionaire type (played by Richard Tyson), who observes all from a variety of cameras dotted about the place.

This is the sequel to ‘Playing with Dolls (2015)’, also spearheaded by Perez and starring Tyson alongside Natasha Blasick. A further instalment, ‘Playing with Dolls: Havoc’ was released in 2017.

Back to this, and the two star-struck females Stina (Karin Brauns) and Nico (Elonda Seawood) are quite clearly hired for their physical (and surgically enhanced) looks, but then, if this really was a reality show, then that would be true to form. The girls are empty-headed but quite likeable. The killer, who appears not be an actor, but a real murderer – in which case, do the producers know this? – pops up from time to time and dispatches people and bizarrely, remains unseen by the rest.

The further we get into this, the less I understand it. Here’s a spoiler: Trina, the last survivor, is told she has won the prize of a million dollars. What does she think has happened to the others? Clearly she’s not bothered! Sadly, no-one seems to have told the killer, who ties her up and begins to torture her in some pretty grisly scenes – after which, he gives her a hearty pat on the shoulder!

Colin Bryant, who is hugely built, plays Magnus, the hero. In another spoiler, he hasn’t perished after all and he and Stina elect to fight the masked killer. A couple of minutes into the scrap, watched by Tyson … the end credits roll! Is this a cliff-hanger or did they just run out of money?

Despite the head-melting incomprehensibility of it all, I really rather enjoyed this. The direction is good, the masked killer looks formidable and there are some very gory moments. The weirdness of it all convinced me to keep watching to see what would happen next. A project that relishes its own oddness.

Uncle Jess Franco’s itchy camera zooms away from an austere, guarded prison building to the sound of a young woman, naked and chained as it turns out, screaming for mercy. This will be one of a collection of Franco/Erwin C. Dietrich collaboration then, a ‘women in prison’ drama.

Lucky Lina Romay (as Maria da Guerra) is a new inmate. “The crime you are guilty of could not have been committed by a normal woman,” she is told, and is soon sent by duplicitous ‘doctor’ Carlos Costa (Paul Muller) for electro-shock therapy. The torture is suitably graphic and convincingly played, as are subsequent indignities, both sexual and ‘therapeutic’. Mostly, this is conducted accompanied by the inappropriately cheery jazz score from regular composers Daniel White and Walter Baumgartner. And while I’m listing familiar elements from other ‘WIP’ films, yes, the locations are excellent and the director makes very good use of them.

On one hand, this is a series of scenes featuring pretty, dubbed women in various sexual situations. On the other, if you find it possible to look beyond that – and it’s not always easy – you have a thin tale of Maria, a mentally delicate girl, being abused in a vile manner in a film only Franco could make. The ‘doctor’ played by Muller has been dubbed with a very camp voice, which makes his sexual manipulation of Maria unlikely. After sharing with us all the dubious sight of his hirsute back whilst rutting with Soledad Miranda in 1970’s ‘Eugenie De Sade’, here similar treats are in store for Lina Romay – lucky Paul Muller! By this time, Maria’s so forlorn, she can barely smoke a cigarette.

Maria’s crime is told in flashback, and in the telling, provides one of the strangest moments in a Franco film – which says a lot. A slow motion scene of incest and violence between her and daddy (Jess Franco) – although it is acted in slow-motion, but filmed at normal speed – demonstrates Maria’s current predicament. This is followed up with some almost penetrative shots of various inmates’ genitalia (one with inserted cigarette) and a close-up of a dead mouse in Maria’s breakfast. Whilst the story is an overall mish-mash and is leanly spread out, there is no denying the set-pieces are guaranteed to disturb, one way or another.

Romay is excellent, as is Martine Stedil as Bertha and Beni Cardoso as deranged Rosaria. Monica Swinn plays the monocle-wearing, trouser-less chief wardress. She’s very good, even given the usual wall of dubbing that compromises any performance. Why does she do what she does? Because she can. Just why she reserves special treatment for poor Maria, well …

This opens with two soldiers, an officer and his prisoner, slowly smoking cigarettes with such elongated silent intensity, you wonder if they intend ever to speak at all. When they do, it is simply to invite the telling of a story that started at the beginning of their last mission …

‘Nazi Zombies’ or ‘Maplewood’ as it has been known, is directed by David B Stewart III, who also writes it, provides the evocative music (with great use made of the relentless chimes of a funereal church bell); he is a film editor, production designer, set decorator, costume designer and camera operator. He also plays Brig. Gen. Abrams. He’s not credited as ‘cigarette financier’, which is probably just as well because throughout, characters are puffing thoughtfully on a smoke. The grainy images and relentless close-ups betray a lower than low budget, and with little reason to care for the characters in the first place, by half way through, we don’t know who is who or what is what. Helpfully, we keep cutting back to the officer and prisoner who try and patch the story together story for us.

Events take place at a sluggish pace and the production tries to take itself far too seriously. Angsty, square-jawed, testosterone filled men strut around in a confined secret military base infiltrated by badly lit zombies. I feel awkward in finding it so dull, because some effort has clearly gone into it – the setting is claustrophobic, some of the acting is good and the zombies are a lot more impressive than the realisation of others in such low-financed productions. But the lack of budget stifles it, robs it of tension and pace, and the characters are simply ultra-serious military men (and Lt Meyer played by Elissa Mullen). The night-time scenes are under-lit to the point of obscurity and there are sound problems typical with films of this type. Recorded in 1999, this project failed to see the light of day for almost four years.

With a title like that, and a director like Jess Franco, it’s fairly sure that there will be a certain amount of sleaze in this film. I didn’t realise how much – in many ways this is his most perverse project. 15 year-old Maria Rosalea Coutinho (Sarah Hemmingway) is spied enjoying a playful kiss and cuddle with a local lad by Father Vincente (William Berger), who then manipulates Mariah’s terrified mother into forcing her into life at a convent. Vincente then brings himself to orgasm at the confessional booth after coercing Maria into telling of her mild sexual fumblings.

Many raised eyebrows were caused by the casting of Hemmingway, who looks extremely young, and who is tricked, coerced, tortured and humiliated by the hordes of liars, sycophants, perverts and manipulators around her, most of whom cloak their blatant indiscretions behind the veil of their perception of religion.

As you might well imagine, there are lesbian scenes between the nuns, complete with dialogue like “You have served the prince of darkness, now I will perform the ritual.” These are restrained for Franco, and frankly rather too long. It is the treatment of young Maria which is most effective – a pure innocent who has been cast amongst this nest of vipers because of what they consider to be HER bad attitude! It’s not nice at all. Especially as the unpleasant events are conveyed without spectacle, either by Franco, or the benign choral score from Walter Baumgartner.

As with all Franco/Erwin C. Dietrich collaborations, this is crisply shot and appears to have been provided with a decent budget. As always, the locations are incredible. An exercise in ‘nunsploitation’, the use of religion as a veneer of respectability is effective, and Hemmingway appears so naive with her character offering barely any resistance to the horror she finds herself in (excepting her pleas to a mother too stupid/timorous to help). Even Satan appears to join in with the black mass being practiced. Berger is highly convincing as Father Vincente, effortlessly bending others unto his will and gleefully taking advantage of Maria. You get the distinct impression he and others like him are used to getting away with these kind of atrocities and bare them no thought. Even through the barrier of dubbing, it is very easy to despise this rotter. Of all Franco’s output, I find this film one of the most difficult to watch.

Back in 2001, the original ‘Jeepers Creepers’ presented us with a kind of slasher film, but with enough eccentric twists that ensured it provided something different. Two years later, the sequel undid all the good that was done and gave us a generic runaround peopled with stock characters. It has taken 14 years for this third instalment to appear (set between 1 and 2), and sadly the results are unremarkable.

A selection of characters are introduced, the less tolerable of which thankfully emerge simply as ciphers. Other than that group of brattish teen motorcyclists, we have two grizzled old cops: the bejewelled Sheriff Dan Tashtego (Stan Shaw) and Sgt. Davis Tubbs (Brandon Smith); farmer granny Gaylen Brandon (Meg Foster) and her casually stunning grand-daughter Addison (Gabrielle Haugh). Addison’s suitor is naturally called Buddy (Chester Rushing), and he is last seen departing for a basketball game in the van that was attacked in Jeepers Creepers 2.

The first time we see the Creeper here, he is as we remember him. This time, he is posturing on top of the roof of his van as it slowly drives away into woodlands. You dearly want a low-hung branch to nobble him. His powers have reached a new level, leading to some improbable/ridiculous over-the-top deaths (the double impaling of two of the motor-cycle gang springs to mind). The Creeper somehow lacks the spectacle he did in the first film. Perhaps it is unfair of me to hope for more, but when he spends so much time despatching the motor-cyclists to prove how nasty he is, it’s hard to be particularly impressed.

His truck is the star of the show here. It’s equipped with a CGI-enhanced box of death-dealing tricks Batman himself would be envious of. Instead of making the audience wince, however, the plethora of spikes and lasso mechanisms produce groans.

We don’t really have time to get to know anyone, each character is fairly generic. This is a real shame as again, the bickering, likeable brother and sister from the original helped make it so enjoyable, because they were real and their dialogue didn’t consist solely of ‘goddam’ and ‘son of a bitch’ (these are the words that even usher out the film). Events don’t flow particularly well, instead they seem cobbled together as if from separate productions. As the running time rolls on, this becomes particularly evident as tone skips from one thing to another with sinking, increasingly dull rapidity. Goodwill on behalf of the audience soon gives way to bafflement and the dawning realisation that this really isn’t very good. Director, writer and co-producer Victor Salva must take the blame for much of this – TV movie production standards and most of it occurring during bright sunshine. No real sense of atmosphere, no convincing jeopardy, nothing.

Gina Phillips, Trish from the first film, is mentioned at the beginning of this, but doesn’t turn up until the very end here.

Pretty new nurse Lizzie (Vanessa Grasse) is left to patrol a mental institution for deranged and violent children on her own, with no security to or senior staff to protect her. All on her first day. So being attacked and threatened is something she gets used to rather quickly. Even in 1955, surely this a serious security lapse. Ah well, it allows Lizzie, and us, to get to know patient Jackson (Sam Strike, formerly an actor on UK soap EastEnders). Jackson, a seemingly wholesome young fellow, isn’t his real name however – his real name is Jedidiah.

A furious Verna Sawyer (Lili Taylor) enters the institution and, on her own, incites a riot. She’s come to rescue Jedidiah, her son. Soon, they are both taken hostage by patients Ike (James Bloor), Bud (Sam Coleman) and Clarice (Jessica Madsen), who are escaping. This story follows their murderous rampage and the various events that lead to the birth of the legendary Leatherface.

I suppose whether you view this enterprise as a success or not depends on whether you feel Leatherface’s early life needs chronicling, if it is necessary (if you forgive the word-play) to put meat on the bones of a mindless, rampaging killer who became a horror icon back in 18974’s ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. It’s up to the viewer to enjoy, or otherwise, a series of bloody events that carefully put all the pieces into place directly before the original story was told. Is the lead character better as a faceless lunatic killer, or a person with a past and an identity? Again, it’s for the individual to decide.

This individual had a great time with this. Terrific cast, no bubble-headed girls or vacuous boys. A strong, fast paced story full of eye-watering moments and genuine thrills. A decent budget, strong enough to stage a convincing 1950s setting, but not so generous as to be a slave to CGI that would add an unwanted cartoon element to proceedings. Sense is even made of Leatherface’s transvestite tendencies, which met with such disdain in 1994’s ‘Next Generation’ project.

Turnbotham Round is the envy of Britain. The absence of crime there is such that the BBC themselves have come to make a programme about the place, specifically Sergeant Dudfoot (English comedian, actor, author, film director and amateur astronomer Will Hay). 10 years have passed since any crime was reported, and while Dudfoot is being congratulated for lack of poaching activity in the area, his two colleagues march past the window laden with game. Such unfortunate coincidences are the backbone of Hay’s comedy. His colleagues are Hay regulars, precocious schoolboy type Albert Brown (Graham Moffatt) and diminutive, wittering old man Jerry Harbottle (Moore Marriot).

The turn-side to their crime-free village is that the authorities begin to feel that three policemen are unnecessary. Wary of losing their jobs, which comprise of doing nothing in particular except arguing in quick-fire chatter, the trio go about inventing crimes, unaware that a smuggling caper is going on right under their noses. As a cover for their nefarious activities, the gang exploit the local legend of the headless horseman. Conveniently – and hilariously - a rhyme regarding the horseman contains a reference, in its elusive last line, to a cave where the smuggling activities are taking place.

It’s the headless horseman that earns this dated cavalcade of squeaky chit-chat, comedy sniffs and funny walks any connection to the world of horror. It is surprisingly well realised, and the first of its fleeting appearances are steadily built up by whispered forebodings of the nature of its curse, and the blazing ‘phantom hearse’ it travels around the night in. (“Look at the driver’s head.” “What’s wrong with his head?” “He hasn’t got one!”)

Hay is best known for being the head of this particular team: in real life, the private and serious man didn’t want to be part of an ensemble, and dumped them when he moved from his prolific phase with Gainsborough films, with future side-kicks including John Mills and Charles Hawtrey.

The comedy seems very stagey today, very pantomime-esque and too ‘large’ for the small screen. It is silly rather than sophisticated, and not without a large degree of charm, even a few laugh-out-loud moments – mainly due to the dialogue between the three leads, in a finely timed barrage of misunderstandings.

Harbottle: Help! Help! Police!

Dudfoot: Shut up, you old idiot. We are the police.

This Jess Franco/Erwin C. Dietrich collaboration is sometimes considered a very loose continuation of the ‘Ilsa’ series that began two years earlier with ‘Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS’, also starring Dyanne Thorne in the title role. As you may expect, this is also known as a variety of titles: ‘Greta, the Mad Butcher’, ‘Ilsa: Absolute Power’, and ‘Wanda, the Wicked Warden’. These changes in title, and in the name of the lead character, suggest this film might not have been initially intended as part of the series at all.

So, then – Abbie Philips (Tania Busselier) is admitted into an austere psychiatric hospital for women. Unbeknownst to all, she is here because of false pretences: with the help of Doctor Milton Arcas (Jess Franco), who has long suspected foul play at the establishment but been unable to do anything about it, Abbie, or ‘No 41’, is a ‘plant’, here to find out what happened to her sister and possibly rescue her. She comes across perverse Juan (played by the always excellent Lina Romay, as cute as a button in a bob cut), ostensibly the ‘top dog’ amongst the women, and secretly the lesbian lover of terrifying chief warden Isla (or Wanda, or Greta, of course).

This follows very much the pattern of other Franco ‘women in prison’ fantasies I have seen. The very effective – even restrained – scenes of torture are few and far between but pretty shockingly realised. For all his invasive camera techniques, Jess rarely lingers on gore, and that is the case here (although the abrupt ending is a pleasing exception), although what there is, is realistically (and painfully) conveyed. The dubbing is a lot better than on non-Dietrich collaborations, and Jess’s direction is deceptively straightforward, happy to let the acting and circumstances speak for themselves without frantic zooms, etc. The locations are breath-taking and whenever a gun-shot is fired, it is a dubbed sound effect. The story moves at a fair lick too, and doesn’t meander too much although there are moments of dullness. In short, these films show Franco’s style in an effective, disciplined manner, but still allow him to indulge (and delight) in his non PC eccentricities.

The crashing guitars of prom-rock opens this zombie picture, ushering in some semester-related romance between two pristine teens with teeth like gleaming tombstones. To break the mood somewhat, two more teens arrive, all shorts and perfection and squeaky voiced small-talk, ripe with reversed-baseball-capped diluted attitude. As they drive off to wherever, the family-friendly rock music returns. In the car, all four are shown hollering and having, like, a really good time. It is as tedious and appalling an opening as you can imagine. Rolling up at a big house (the main location for the story), the final couple join the gang. One wears shades and drinks beer from a bottle and his girlfriend looks exactly the same as the other females. There are boastful sex jokes and mock provocation and then the rock music is back. It’s way past time to hit ‘eject’ in the DVD, but purely because I’ve started this review, I decide to persevere.

A suspected terrorist attack threatens to tip this bunch out of their back-slapping reverie. I still don’t know what any of their names are. A CGI missile is seen to explode overhead and it is back to knuckle-punching, sports talk and everyone calling each other dude. “This whole thing has really got me thinking, you know? About, like, life.” Says one gummy hunk. “That’s really deep, man,” says another, bromance twinkling in his eyes. “He’s going to be a great guy some day,” says one pearly white lass to another. And the running time rumbles on.

This is absolutely my least favourite kind of film. Horrible, awful dialogue you’d find on some daytime US soap from the early 1990s, between manicured, characterless beauties you don’t care about enough even to WANT to see them dismembered by the promised living dead (even the zombies, when they eventually arrive, look like they’ve staggered out of a toothpaste commercial). Someone has actually funded this crap, cast a number of grinning, competent non-entities and put together an utterly soulless, vapid, smug environment when anything approaching horror takes distant second place to divine catwalk idiots arguing about jealousy and flirtation.

By the time the zombies, or the ‘demented’, or whatever the heck they are, arrive, nothing they can do could be enough to redeem this respectable, insipid, gore-free, thrill-free, lamentable soap fare. It doesn’t bother me that a corpse lying at the entrance of a pharmacy disappears between scenes; I don’t care that the confusing ending sees them both being rescued and not being rescued. An effort is at least made to make the last ten or so minutes exciting, and the finale does at least trey to do something unexpected: not even perfect people have a happy endings. Aside from that, however, this is just a hugely complacent, unambitious film.

Alongside producer Erwin C Dietrich (who also wrote this), with whom he directed many films from this era, Jess Franco brings us ‘Love Camp’, or ‘Frauen im Liebeslager’ as it was originally known. Part of a ‘women in prison’ series, this involves a group of women from all walks of life, at best only partially clothed, who are kidnapped and taken to an isolated jungle encampment in order to satisfy a group of revolutionaries when they are not otherwise engaged. The chief warder Isla (Nanda Van Bergen) is, as you may imagine, a glamorous and sadistic lesbian, with whose advances the kidnapped girls also have to contend.

As often is the case with Dietrich/Franco collaborations, the locations are beautiful (although we are not given any idea where this is supposed to be set) and this appears to be funded with a decent budget. Franco, so fond throughout the 70s of frantic camera movements and intrusive zooms, seems happy to set up a heady mix of torture and/or sex scenes and simply let the lens capture the action. Although the various predicaments are horrific, they are treated in a very casual, somewhat tame manner and accompanied by cheerful, even romantic, jazz music which helps make the very tone of the film disturbing in a way that ‘of its time’ doesn’t really cover. This, and the fact that there is a compliance, even enjoyment, between many of the women and their captors, fits in very well with the perceived popular view at the time that, on film and television, women are often ‘mad for it.’ Not for me to judge, and who cares what I think anyway? Not me.

Of course, you wouldn’t expect any background on any of the girls or revolutionaries, and the dubbing – decent though it is – robs us of much in the way of character. People here are really cyphers, boobs and bottoms you might say, paraded and presented in the way that exploitation films do – and it would be pointless and unnecessary of me to offer criticism of that. I wouldn’t, after all, criticise a wildlife documentary for containing wildlife.

There is a twisted romance story at play here, between Angela (Ada Tauler), guerrilla Chico (Wal Davis) and Alberto, Angela’s husband, which proves very interesting. And yet what we have here is not the best example of its kind. It comes across as a kind of bawdy, unconvincingly choreographed ‘Confessions’ film, and the desperate situation that could be wrung out of this comes across as a rough template for soft-core pornography.

Lars von Trier’s unofficially titled ‘depression trilogy’ of films begins with this, continues with ‘Melancholia (2011)’ and concludes with the mammoth and quite excellent ‘Nymphomaniac (2013)’. ‘Antichrist’ isn’t easy viewing.

Rutting like animals, He (Williem Defoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) fail to notice their toddler son Nic climb onto the open window ledge and fall from the balcony to his death. Subsequently, understandably consumed by grief, the couple hike to an isolated cabin in Eden woods, far from anywhere. The husband is a therapist and feels he can manage his wife’s at times uncontrollable misery.

What follows is their story in four chapters, each one highlighting different levels of their ‘journey’. This often involves manic sex and masturbation in a bid to escape the pain of sadness, woodland animals in throes of death and various scenes of discomfort (graphically shown), the disembodied cries of a child (possibly Nic), violence, and ultimately terror.

I found this a good deal less engaging than the substantially longer ‘Nymphomaniac’, and approach the final film in the trilogy with an open mind. The story begins on one level of graphic imagery and despair, and remains at that level throughout. There is no real let-up or drifting away from the overwhelming intensity of it all – which becomes less intense because of its ubiquity. Defoe and Gainsbourg are excellent throughout – you really get the impression actors suffered in the creation of these roles. Director Frier has said that ‘the film was finished without much enthusiasm’ due to his fragile mental state at the time, and while the acting betrays no such lack of commitment, the overall effect sadly in accordance with Frier. I should add, the direction here is magical, if perhaps a little heavy-handed.

A group of heavily armoured folk pounce from a vehicle into the path of a group of marauding zombies. The first line of dialogue we hear is, “Come on, you f***ing dummy!” And then, bedlam. A plethora of gunfire, cascading streams of blood, a dash of gore, and many of the walking-dead become quite simply, dead-dead. It isn’t a bad start, and lets you know exactly what film experience you are in for.

Sometimes it’s good to sit back and watch a group of muscle-brained heroes blowing bloody chunks out of a relentless horde of zombies. Except this Australian rollercoaster has an eccentricity that makes it a richer experience than that. There is a thin vein of black humour running through, not entirely unreminiscent of Peter Jackson’s 1992 ‘Braindead’. Here, the grotesque comedy doesn’t get as much of a hold and we are left with a desperate chase through a country suddenly teeming with gas-breathing living cadavers that enjoys moments of madness.

If you are in the mood for this, it delivers in spades. If not, it might come across as a group of characters whose dialogue consists of ‘what the f*** is this,’ and ‘what the f*** is that?’ The occasionally unconventional plot concerns Brooke (Bianca Bradley) who narrowly escapes being devoured by a group of newly formed zombies before being ‘rescued’ by a military group that takes her for experimentation every bit as deadly as her original predicament. Her brother Barry (Jay Gallagher), who has recently ended the lives of his zombie wife and daughter, teams up with a handful of similarly scarred characters, and proceeds to find Brooke and shoot as many marauding, slavering, dead-eyed ‘infected’ as possible.

‘Wyrmwood’ is twisted, fast-moving, brutal, bloody and the effects are very convincing. And it’s an enjoyable rollercoaster.

Events behind the scenes during the production of this Hammer project contain enough tragedy and intrigue to make a film of their own. Andrew Keir plays a role originally written (and partially recorded) for Peter Cushing, who had to abandon the project when his wife’s health took a turn for the worst. Director Seth Holt died on set mid-way through production and Hammer bigwig Michael Carreras took the helm for the remainder (although Holt was still singularly credited).

The result is sadly a bit of a mess, frankly. Much of the initial running time is filled with a flurry of characters experiencing strange and deadly events/coincidences often vaguely connected with a singular star system (‘The Jewel of the Seven Stars’ is the Bram Stoker story on which this is based). A pout-some, voluptuous and fully made-up Margaret is in bed dreaming of a pout-some, voluptuous and fully made-up Egyptian queen Tera (both played by Valerie Leon) having her hand removed by a group of priests. In more wakeful times, Margaret has a father (Keir) and a boyfriend, charmless Tod (Browning, believe it or not – namesake of the man who directed 1931’s ‘Dracula’ and 1932’s notorious ‘Freaks’ among others – played by Mark Edwards). There’s creepy Corbeck (James Villiers), mad old Berigan (George Coulouris) and even madder Doctor Putman (Aubrey Woods). The least interesting Browning commands much of the running time leaving much of the rest of the cast under-written.

‘Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb’ eschews much blood and gore (and a traditional mummy) in favour of a more supernatural tale. That it is rather dull and talky doesn’t help anyone: the most gruesome thing we see is Princess Tera’s disembodied hand creeping around. It is admirable to see Hammer attempting a different telling of the story, but sadly this fails to deliver much in the way of horror.

‘The Company of Wolves’ is an extraordinary dream-like series of set-pieces crammed with haunting detail and imagery. Young crimson-lipped Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson, impressive here and yet this is one of only a handful of film credits) sleeps – or sulks, as her spoilt sister Alice (Georgie Slow) would have it –in a glorious but ramshackle mansion that appears to get more untended the closer we get to her bedroom. She dreams of her precocious sister running through a haunted forest, fighting off giant teddy-bears, doll-houses and sinister grandfather clocks. It is a heady nightmare, with Rosaleen’s disturbed sleep ‘watched’ by a Mrs Tiggy-Winkle doll strongly reminiscent of her eccentric granny, whom we meet later. Wolves are, of course, prevalent in her dream, just as they are throughout the film.

Further into reverie we go, with mourners at the picturesque village burying Alice, with others played by such luminaries as Brian Glover, Graham Crowden, Stephen Rea, David Warner and magnificently eccentric singer/songwriter Daniella Dax as an unnamed wolf-girl.

“Once you stray from the path, you’re lost entirely,” warns Granny (top-billed Angela Lansbury). And that seems to be the metaphor for the film, which appears to be staged for the most part via tremendous studio sets. I mention this because such an arrangement allows for the world in which we inhabit to be entirely controlled by the film-makers – a village straight out of fairy-tale, a snowy-landscape made from every Christmas nightmare, and an autumnal air of folk-horror. Granny’s stories/warnings permeate the narrative – Stephen Rea’s travelling man marries Kathryn Podgson’s young bride but disappears, only to return years later as a werewolf. In a second cautionary tale, the Devil (Terence Stamp) offers a young man a lethal potion. The third features a heavily pregnant enchantress ‘done a terrible wrong’ who arrives at (the child’s father) an aristocrat’s wedding party and transforms everyone into wolves. The final tale features a she-wolf (Dax), who ascends from ‘the world below to the world above’ meaning no harm, yet is shot by ignorant villagers.

The stories are potent, haunting, mesmerising. The effects and transformations are excellent (particularly Rea’s character – his werewolf alter-ego is beheaded, which lands in a vat of milk, only to surface as his human head once more) and the atmosphere absorbing. But what does it all mean? “(Men) are as nice as pie until they’ve had their way with you; once the bloom is gone, the Devil comes out,” warns Granny. So, anti-men then? A coming of age parable? Certainly the Hammer-style horror-trappings and Red Riding Hood motifs seem only a convincing canvas on which to broadcast other things – a fear of adulthood, perhaps? Or maybe, given her ultimate fate, Granny’s warnings are proven to be worthless? Whatever, Angela Carter and Neil Jordan’s screenplay is an unspecific nightmare world of mindfulness and possibilities and remains not only one of the most original takes on the werewolf myth, but one of the most artistically successful too. Wonderful and extraordinary. An adult fairy-tale indeed.