Film Reviews by NP

Greece, 1912. It must be pretty miserable to hear that a spreading plague necessitates strict confinement to your home; when one of your house-guests is Boris Karloff, that misery takes on a new dimension.

‘Isle of the Dead’ is an RKO horror film, one of a series produced by Val Lewton. Whereas Universal had cornered the monster market, with increasingly exploitative meet-ups between Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and The Wolfman, Lewton specialised in less obvious, more psychological dramas. The horror here is more prevalent in what you don’t see. Whereas 1942’s ‘Cat People’ may be the most successful example of this approach, Lewton produced a hugely impressive body of work, among which this production stands tall.

When the shadow of Gen. Nikolas Pherides (Karloff) falls across a scene, there is an instant atmosphere of jeopardy, of cruelty, disease and fear. Pherides has a reputation for cruel efficiency, and he brings this to his authority when dealing with the house-full of potential plague carriers, himself amongst their number.

The stand-out scene for me is when Katherine Emery as Mrs. Mary St. Aubyn (Katherine Emery) falls into a cataleptic trance, is subsequently buried, and wakes screaming in her casket. We hear her fear and desperate scratching as the camera lingers on her incarcerated wooden tomb, the shadow of blowing branches fallen across it, relentless drip-dripping of the damp stonework upon it. The box splinters and is pushed open as the camera maddeningly pulls away to another scene. Her friend Thea (Ellen Drew) goes in search of the escapee in a perfect studio-set nightmare, her white nightdress blowing in the wind – St. Aubyn has seemingly been driven out of her mind by the experience and parades the house and its surrounding grounds like a vengeful ghost. No-one is safe it seems, especially Pherides, who, for all his sins emerges as a kind of misunderstood anti-hero …

Melodramatic it may be, there’s no denying the intensity brings with it a true spirit of dread.

Baroness Varga was put to death 400 years ago for her Bathory-style attraction to human blood, and she put a curse on the place. She promised to return one day, and it appears that time has come.

Hungarian actress Nadja Henkowa plays Frau Wanda Krock, the housekeeper, who bears a passing resemblance to singer/songwriter PJ Harvey. She is is head of a coven of stern eye-browed maidservants who ‘welcome’ a disparate crew of travellers forced to seek refuge in her castle due to stormy weather (Henkowa’s performance is my favourite in the film – a fine balance of brooding menace, fearsome rage and passionate sensuality). The characters address each other with exquisite politeness, but a tone of condescension and abhorrence. In the great cellars of the castle, you see, erotic rituals are taking place that imply the maidservants are not so straight-laced after all.

Apart from Henkowa, who steals every scene she is in, Marie Forså is very good as Helga. Her transformation from seemingly ‘innocent’ to something far more provocative is well played.

Everything you need for a typical Euro-horror is here – much stilted acting, bare-breasted erotica, unconvincing day-for-night shots and a genuine crumbling castle set in spacious, beautiful locations.

This Swedish/Swiss/German collaboration is directed by Joseph W. Sarno, who began his pioneering work in the sexploitation genre in 1961 with ‘Nude in Charcoal’, before venturing into more explicit territory.

The story is regularly padded out/interrupted/enlivened (the choice is yours) with lingering sex scenes of varied persuasion. The resulting film is vastly overlong and has a disappointingly low-key ending, but nevertheless, is a very enjoyable example of its genre. The physical and mental connection between vampire-like curses and sensuality has always been a selling point, and is portrayed quite explicitly and very effectively here. Although it could be argued that the whole venture is just an excuse for lots of heaving breasts and softcore activity, and that the performances (from a cast who are not speaking in their native tongues) are typically ‘Euro trashy’, this is a powerful meeting of sexuality and dark rituals - complete with phallus-shaped candles and a tribal drum-beat that will stay with you long after the film has ended!

Of all films I have seen helmed by Spanish Director Jess Franco, this is far and away my favourite. It may lack the exotic juxtaposition of horrific incident occurring in beautiful sun-kissed arenas, but what we have here is a satisfactorily recreated Victorian London, with a talented cast, and a consistent story that doesn’t meander.

Many events take place in the spacious ‘Pike’s Hole’ tavern, a convincingly cockney meeting ground, where ‘Jack’ finds many of his victims. The death of Marika (Lina Romay) is the most gratuitous of all, with a protracted scene suggesting Orloff has violent sex with his victims as the life fades from them. Inspector Selby (Andreas Mannkopff) proves to be a very effective foil for Orloff. Hans Gaugler is also excellent as Breidger, the blind man. In fact, the cast as a whole is very good, and a lot better than usual with Franco projects. Probably this is because he is working with a larger budget here – and it shows in other ways too. Beams of smoky light casting shadows through the branches of trees. Apart from a few panoramic shots of Big Ben and various London buildings, the bulk of this is shot in Zuerich Switzerland, and there is much genuine night-time filming, a very expensive procedure.

The storyline is a good one. There’s no point in trying to do a ‘whodunit’ – when you cast Klaus Kinski in a film about Jack the Ripper, he could hardly be playing a peripheral character. The intrigue is why he commits his atrocities, why does he appear to carve chunks off his victims while they are still (barely) alive? Inspector Selby’s girlfriend Cynthia (played by Charlie’s daughter Josephine Chaplin) appears to have the answer due to her resemblance to his mother. With his final victim finally degraded, it is apt in a way that he be captured and taken away in a finale that is disappointingly tame compared to the effective macabre nature of the rest of the picture.

Back in 1999 we were all a lot younger. Then, the found-footage genre was virtually unknown, and ‘The Blair Witch Project’ all but introduced it to us. Meeting with critical acclaim and box office success upon its release (albeit helped by a carefully orchestrated internet build-up), it was a phenomena that spawned countless other found-footage productions of variable merit. Now 17 years later, does this second sequel emerge as Daddy to the genre, or is it just another shaky webcam outing? The answer is pretty much both – it would be grossly unfair to expect it to provide the same level of hype or impact as the original, and indeed it does not. But it is very enjoyable.

James (James Allen McCune) leads an expedition into the legendry woods to locate Heather, his sister, who went missing in the original. Of the group, poor Ashley (Corbin Reid), more than most, has reason to regret her decision to partake in this venture. Her spreading foot wound provides the goriest moments this film has to offer, and yet ultimately, nothing really comes of this, other than to make us wince.

Why does James wait 16 years before trying to find his sister, and what reason would he have to think that she is still alive and in the woodlands after all this time? He was 4 when she disappeared, so perhaps his parents insisted he waited until maturity hits him before he embarked on the mission, but a word explaining this would have been appreciated.

The group are a fairly agreeable bunch – certainly they are fairly attractive, which is a concession for mainstream films now, but they are not the catwalk fodder we have been ‘treated to’ in other productions. And yet, where we got to know only three of them in the original, and they were all fairly strong characters, here there are more of them and naturally they have to share the screen time which means we care less about them as individuals. Perhaps Peter (Brandon Scott) stands out the most: initially heavily sceptical of the mission (and understandably, because local boy Lane’s (Wes Robinson) sincerity is sometimes a little intense – although Peter is equally flawed in being so blatantly scorning of him) he nevertheless succumbs to growing fear.

Of the original, the most effective element was knowing that each subsequent night the lost teens spent in the forest would provide terrors ever worse than before. Here, that is not an issue, because frighteningly, the night never ends, throwing the characters into disorientation. Something achieved very effectively here is their hopeless situation – for all they try and do to escape events, we know they may as well just lay down and die. The poor sods.

Towards the end, once they find the abandoned building (that according to investigations, does not actually exist), everything is thrown at the production: the haunted house, disembodied screams, a thunderstorm and manic confusion.

The subtlety that made the original so terrifying is sadly not in evidence here. Instead of the distant rustling in the trees and the possibility of human cries, everything is turned up to eleven – the creepy effects and the hysteria are all loud and all-surrounding. By the end, we are treated to some almost organic sounds suggesting the Blair Witch is all-encompassing, the house’s corridors comprised of ‘her’ innards. This and the endless night scenario expands on the hallucinogenic supernatural events prevalent in the unfairly lamented ‘Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows (2000’). Here, the climactic maelstrom is chaotic yet nicely frightening and leaves the story over for now but not disallowing the idea of a sequel. I hope we see one. This may be flawed, but it could have been one heck of a lot worse.

1971. No wonder so many horror films released at this time sank without trace. No DVDs, no VHS releases. The only time to catch these films was by seeing them at the cinema (or waiting for a possible television showing years later) – and there were so many. 1971 was like an Indian summer for horror – something of a last gasp, but a hugely prolific one.

This Belgian/Italian offering is directed by Jean Brismée and also known as ‘La Terrificante Notte del Demonio’. It boasts a terrific soundtrack composed by Alessandro Alessandroni (with mesmerising vocals from his sister Giulia.) Following a harrowing scene were, during a World War 2 air-raid, a woman dies delivering a child which is then stabbed to death by Baron von Rhoneberg (Jean Servais), we are brought up to date when a bus load of lost tourists arrives at the Baron’s castle, in search of somewhere to stay for the night. He is an alchemist in the grip of a curse involving a deal with the Devil, who has demanded the eldest daughter of each generation becomes a succubus.

As the tourists are shown to their rooms, the sinister butler Hans (Maurice De Groote) gives them a gruesome history of each room – such morbid, relentless tales become somewhat ludicrous in the telling; there is barely a curtain or a slab of stone that doesn’t hold some macabre secret – and each time, a claw-like pattern is left at the scene.

Into this classic setting, the tourists – including a feuding husband and wife, two attractive young women who discover they are lesbians (leading to inevitable softcore scenes), and a Richard Chamberlain-like priest – then meet a new guest. Lisa Müller (Erika Blanc) immediately attracts attention from the men and a certain jealousy from the women. Blanc’s sultry, pout-some presence and typically exotic, revealing clothing – as well as the way she moves lizard-like amongst them – sets her apart from the ordinary. Could she be the legendary succubus?

Her transformation from lithe, mysterious seductress into a mad-eyed, chiselled malignant spirit is hugely effective, a triumph of minimalist make-up and a powerhouse performance. Scary and deadly as she is, she isn’t quite the main monster here, for Satan himself appears. Another supremely frightening performance, this time from the skeletal (Daniel Emilfork) ensures we don’t forget the appearance of the Devil in any hurry – it is he who orchestrates events that land the tourists into the castle in the first place, and then to a more permanent state in a twist ending.

Ironically, only Müller and the priest (Jacques Monseau) remain at the end. Only after reading a synopsis of ‘The Devil’s Nightmare’ did I realise a further detail to this excellent, underrated euro-film – each death represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins, with the Priest volunteering to sacrifice his soul to save the others, representing Pride. A highly recommended low budget frightener.

This is another found footage film, where a convincing, likeable young couple stay in a remote house, hear noises at night, get up to investigate and find nothing. It is familiar territory and the frights are sparse, but it’s done so well, making such good use of what is a genuinely creepy Dartmoor location, it provides some good chills.

Tam Burke (Lachlan Nieboer) is a fledgling psychic investigator, and his cheerful, silly girlfriend Rose Ellis (Lisa Kerr) becomes increasingly unnerved by his insistence to stay in the remote country house – and understandably so: when Rose, with tears in her eyes, tells Tam that she wants to go home, we are all with her. To such an extent that we resent both Tam and Harvey Waller (Nick Julian) – a friend who shows up and is initially thought to have caused sinister damage in the kitchen (cutlery attaching itself to the ceiling and walls) – for ensuring that they all stay ‘just another night.’

As events threaten to overwhelm them, experts Professor Chessman (Robert Daws) and medium Muriel Roy (Kitty McGeever, in her last role) open up a dialogue with the spirit, or spirits. Once we have reached this plateau of tension, the film doesn’t quite know how to proceed, it seems to me. And so it stumbles slightly, falling back on shaky camera/screaming/blurring of events to cause familiar audience unease. Also familiar is Rose distancing herself from her friends as she seems to develop a ‘bond’ with whatever spirits are in the house.

I was not sure of the relevance of the seemingly imminent nuclear war, which is broadcast in radio snippets throughout, other than to give the owners of the house a reason to leave (to see their families). Ultimately, it is this background threat that envelopes them all, which somehow over-eggs the plot, and side-lines the carefully built-up supernatural element.

In a celebrated opening scene, two grave-robbers scamper over an impressive night-time cemetery scene, into the tomb of the Talbots. They plan to steal valuables from the corpse of Laurence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr), four years dead – and see the plaque bearing the rhyme: ‘Even a man who’s pure of heart, and says his prayers at night, may become a wolf when the wolfs bane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.’

As the camera reveals, that night boasts a full moon. Not only that, but removing the wolfs bane appears to bring Talbot back to life.

It doesn’t matter that Talbot’s left hand reaches out of the tomb for one of the grave robbers, Freddy (Cyril Delevanti), and yet the hand that grabs him is revealed to be his right. It doesn’t matter that the Welsh village of Llanwelly is peopled with Scots, cockneys and Americans, but no Welsh. It doesn’t even matter that Talbot, in his white nightwear, changes into a black shirt and trousers-sporting Wolfman and then back again. Because, despite the first two Universal Frankenstein films being my favourite movies ever, this is the most ‘fun’ of all the entries. And yet, the finished picture could have been so much different.

As at the end of the previous ‘Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)’, The Monster has Ygor’s (Bela Lugosi) brain in his head, and speaks with his voice. After considering using Chaney to play both Wolfman and Monster (both roles he had played before), it was decided subsequently to use Lugosi. Scriptwriter Curt Siodmak wrote dialogue for the Monster (“Help me to get up ... Once I had the strength of a hundred men … it's gone ... I'm sick …”), but at a premier, studio executives found a talking Monster hilarious (displaying a lack of memory and imagination, it seems) and all dialogue, and scenes including it, was cut. There’s a POV that says the Monster’s dialogue was removed because it sounded too much like the rantings of Hitler. Siodmak says Lugosi’s accent made the words too ‘Hungarian funny’. A little ungenerous of him. Also cut were references to the Monster’s blindness, and the restoration of sight and strength at the film’s climax.

Lugosi, who was over 60, suffered from exhaustion during filming, and reportedly collapsed on set at one point. This is the main reason extensive use was made of stuntmen to double for him.

So, does Frankenstein actually meet the Wolf Man? Yes, she does. Ilona Massey, lovely as Baroness Elsa Frankenstein, is visited by Talbot, who is desperate to find her father’s books, believing they can help rid him of his lycanthropic curse. Talbot is a morose, moody figure, a far cry from the buoyant flirt from his first outing. Lugosi’s much criticised Monster, is a spitting, snarling thing. His uncertain stretch-armed stiffness seems over-the-top with all explanation for his blind groping removed – none of which is Lugosi’s fault. He is the wrong shape for the Monster, and Jack Pierce’s make-up (a make-up designed for more slender features) but is performance does not deserve the criticism it gets; he breathes life into the creature, more so than Chaney did in the previous instalment.

Lon Chaney is excellent as Talbot, in what is essentially his film (with the Monster’s role sadly reduced). He is intense and brought low by his predicament, and Chaney does a good job of some exposition-heavy lines.

The rest of the cast comprise of stalwarts Lionel Atwill, Dwight Frye and Patric Knowles as all-rounder Doctor Mannering. Beginning the picture as the doctor tending to Talbot, he then becomes an investigator who follows him to Vaseria and finally, for no particular reason, the mad scientist who cannot resist bringing the Monster to full strength before the tremendous and hugely entertaining final battle.

Beth Riesgraf is excellent as agoraphobic Anna, who has spent years looking after her dying brother Conrad. On the day of his funeral, three men forcibly enter her home, believing her to be away. They intend to rob Anna of the money she has stashed away in the house, a detail revealed to them by Dan (Rory Culkin – MaCauley’s brother), who delivered food to Anna.

Toying with her and her illness, Perry (Martin Starr) throws her outside the house, where she panics and almost has a seizure. Little gestures like Anna self-consciously pulling her skirt over her knees after she has involuntarily wet herself really endear her plight to us. The thugs are hateful, as is the duplicitous Dan, but it isn’t until Perry casually bludgeons Anna’s pet canary to death that we are really clamouring for his suffering.

We are given plenty of reasons to spur Anna on to kill these low-lives. Apart from Perry and the slimy Dan, the ‘leader’ is convincing hard-man JP (Jack Kesy) and right hand Vance (Joshua Mikel). Bad enough they strive to rob someone who is at the funeral (they think) of the long-suffering brother they have cared for, but the powerful acting gives them an extra edge of nastiness. Their inevitable demises are, if anything, not horrible enough.

The house, in which the whole thing is set, provides an effective maze-like prison for them all as they begin to realise that Anna’s intimate knowledge of the place has its advantages, and the building, it seems, has secrets of its own.

This is another ‘home invasion’ project, where the comforts of a familiar environment are turned on their head upon the arrival of uninvited ‘others’. Although the format itself may be limiting, it clearly works if used well and interspersed with interesting, well-defined and finely acted characters and sinister dilemmas. Happily, this is one such film.

Bela Lugosi, second billed, plays Doctor Vollin, a genius surgeon, accomplished musician and devotee of Edgar Allan Poe. He seems to be held in high esteem, is charming and talented. However, when he’s wearing his surgeon’s mask, the camera focusses on those sinister eyes, and we really don’t know quite what is going on inside the old scoundrel’s head.

He seems besotted with Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware), whose life he has just saved in a delicate operation. And yet she is promised to ultra-suave, moustachioed Jerry (Lester Matthews – fresh from playing a similarly disapproving, debonair gent in ‘Werewolf of London’ earlier that year). We then meet Bateman (Boris Karloff), bearded and shadier than a factory full of umbrellas. Every movement, stance and rolling of the eyes tells us Bateman is a villain through and through, and here he is on Vollin’s doorstep, asking the surgeon to ‘change his face’. Bateman has had a lifetime of rebuttal; “Maybe if a man is ugly, he does ugly things.” Karloff, billed first, is not well cast here. His lisping English lilt doesn’t convince when given lines like “I don’t want to do bad things no more.” There was always a studio-managed rivalry between him and Lugosi, but here, Lugosi’s theatricals are far more impressive.

Vollin does as he is asked and changes Bateman’s face, but the result is a grotesque deformity. Bateman is promised another new face if he accedes to Vollin’s villainous wishes – which begin with Bateman assuming the role of unsightly butler for a dinner party Vollin is hosting. Being such a fan of Poe, it’s not entirely surprising Vollin has a torture room filled with devices taken from Poe’s tales, chiefly ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’. Vollin doesn’t just torture people, he takes time to describe exactly the agonies his victims are facing, with Bateman as his henchman.

If this were released today, it would surely fall under the category of ‘torture porn’. Seen that way, ‘The Raven’ was ahead of its time; possibly this proved to be its downfall. Following disappointing returns and heavy criticism, it hastened the premature ending of horror film production (the feint hearts of the UK critics fuelled this too), at least until 1939, when ‘Son of Frankenstein’ proved there was still an audience for the macabre.

To say that Lugosi fails to resist the temptation to go wonderfully over the top towards the film’s close is an understatement, whereas Karloff’s villain becomes a Monster-esque misunderstood, maligned good guy - and too quickly after the villains have received their just desserts, ‘The Raven’ comes to an end with a briskly light-hearted ending.

Outrageous, but glorying in its outrageousness, this is not Universal’s best horror, but possibly it is their best vehicle for Lugosi, who owns every scene he is in. Were it not for the gleeful ham on display, the subject matter could have been deeply unsettling. The censors and critics who were appalled by Vollin’s vow to be "the sanest man who ever lived" took it all far too seriously, with dire consequences for Lugosi and horror films in general.

Corey (Robin Dunne) and his new wife Sarah (Katharine Isabelle) move into a fairly isolated house, with Corey’s son Liam. Sadly, little Liam (Peter DaCunha) resents Sarah because he misses his mother, which is understandable. However, as is so very often the case, scenes with a minor acting in a brattish and petulant fashion immediately causes audience rankles to rise. Corey’s endeavours to ‘understand’ the child make me wish he’d just wallop the little sod and cause me to become irritated by his ineffectuality (“Promise me you’ll give her a chance, boss,” he implores more than once). From the very beginnings of ‘Torment’ I find this a big hurdle to overcome.

One night, after hearing some noises around the house, they find Liam is missing. Instead of celebrating, they call the police. Thus begins another in the sub-genre known as ‘home invasion’, where the calm and comfort of home is forcibly interrupted by some nightmarish killer or other. As a sub-genre, its immediate limitations mean any film to fall under this category is virtually guaranteed to be surprise-free.

This doesn’t mean such projects cannot succeed as horror films if they are well done. And thankfully when the often silent invaders strike, dressed in tatty animal head-pieces things liven up. For even though their features are masked, they are more interesting than the remaining two bastions of ‘family’.

As the opening quote indicates (“When one has not had a good father, one must create one” – Nietzsche), it is the concept of ‘family’ that tries to propel this story. Just as Sarah is given the thrilling prospect of adding further children to Corey’s litter, the barely-glimpsed mutants are looking for their own ‘new’ mothers and fathers to add to their clan. That such a perfunctory thriller results from this, should we then be heart-warmed when, (spoiler) after Corey has been killed and Sarah has been repeatedly beaten, munchkin Liam finally ‘forgives’ his new mother and decides she isn’t so bad after all? Personally, I would have been more satisfied if the little twerp had somehow been behind the horrific events.

Buoyed by his film ‘Vampyros Lesbos’, Director Jess Franco quickly employed a very similar cast and crew for this typically leery-titled horror/drama.

The mighty Soledad Miranda plays the wife of Doctor Johnson, whose experiments with embryos has caused him to be vilified by his peers and banned from continuing his work. Taking care to wear a series of tight shirts unbuttoned to reveal some handsome jewellery, he then goes through spiralling turmoil ending in suicide. His wife determines to get revenge on those who drove him to this.

As with just about all Franco films, scenes of tension are accompanied by exotic and jaunty jazz music that sometimes works because it is so inappropriate and sometimes doesn’t. The former Mrs Johnson’s subsequent seductions-prior-to-murder are scored with grimly fitting incidentals, and together with Franco’s obsession with close-ups and zoom-outs, concoct a heady, disorientating nightmare. Surprisingly, Franco regular Howard Vernon is the first person to cop it.

Apart from making her name in ‘exploitation’ films, there’s no denying Miranda’s power as an actress. She is tremendous throughout despite (on the DVD I am watching), she is buried beneath unbefitting dubbing and subtitles, and has a genuine sense of presence that makes the routine seduction/death plotline far more interesting than it would have otherwise been. Her early death on the eve of what looked like global stardom remains a great tragedy.

‘I’m your Princi-pal!’ screams the poster on the school wall. Next to it, Santa flashes a winning cardboard smile. Such cheeriness is in otherwise woefully short supply in the ‘small American town’ where Dr. Jenniffer Stillman has started her job as school therapist. Stillman is played by Nastassja Kinski, who is utterly wonderful – and very patient, for most of her new co-workers appear, on first meetings, to be ignorant bullies.

The local town doctor’s son Benjamin James McCann (Bobby Edner) is the victim of frequent mistreatment from both pupils and teachers. He’s transfixed by sci-fi and horror and appears top exhibit increasing telepathic powers. An adopted child, the impression given is that Ben is waiting for his real ‘alien’ father to come and take him away.

When the more boisterous idiots that make up the town end up being killed by a dripping, tentacle creature, it seems likely that what Ben is saying just may be true. In true ‘Salems Lot’ style, we are treated to the indiscretions of otherwise ‘respectable’ townsfolk that are paled into insignificance when compared to the new threat. Inevitably, those same respectable townsfolk rise up, furious, and take their guns, comb the land, shouting, ‘find this thing … and kill it!’

It is hard not to side with the alien in the woods, dripping and tentacled though he is. Possibly the film-makers thought so too because the ending is a satisfying one. ‘The Day the World Ended’ is an ambitious title for what is a TV movie whose style could slot easily into the schedules at any time since the mid-1980’s. Whilst Kinski is rather better than the material given her, this is enjoyable, if mainly mild stuff, with the very occasional expletive or moment of gore thrown in.

The title of this says it all, and the fact it is directed by prolific Spanish Director Jess Franco lets the audience know exactly what it is in for. Soledad Miranda’s mesmerising Countess Nadine Carody is a powerfully erotic force of nature, and she has set her sights on American Linda (Ewa Strömberg). Catching Linda’s attention during an erotic dance display at a local club, she then haunts her through dreams. It is a convincing dream-like entrapment, made more so by the beautiful and well-directed Turkish locations. Of all the Jess Franco films I’ve seen, this is his most effectively directed – there is less reliance on endless zooms in and out of the action than usual, and the legendary psychedelic music score, especially with its occasional weirdly distorted vocals, adds to the delirious atmosphere.

Swirling red lined stairways, sun drenched castles and ornate buildings are all filmed beautifully, and yet as always with Franco, the storyline meanders into the inconsequential. Only when Dennis Price’s Doctor Seward has a stand-off with Carody is a real kind of tension invoked (Price, who was nearing the end of his life by this time, looks healthier than he does in other films he made during this period).

Whilst this never descends into an endless parade of soft-core ‘action’ like ‘Female Vampire (1973)’ and there is actually an element of supernatural horror here, things tend to drag, especially in the middle portion of the film. And yet ultimately, this is my favourite Franco film (so far). The wraith-like presence of the sensuous Miranda combined with the more tangible acting chops of people like Dennis Price lends a definite nobility to the trance-like, vaguely erotic horror.

There’s something faintly disorientating about seeing the ‘end’ of a horror film at the beginning: already traumatised teens are dying/have died in a series of gorily extravagant ways by what appears to be a killer in a mask before he too is despatched in a moment that might have been more effective if we’d had substantial running time leading up to that point. Although incongruous, such scenes are necessary for this exploration of what happens after the horror is over for the last girl standing – in this case, Camryn (Akasha Villalobos).

The notion of someone trying to rebuild their life after a horrific sequence is usually featured in the first sequel to any slasher film, but here the adjustment provides the thrust of the story. Having awkwardness and insecurities heaped upon her could make for tedious, patience-stretching viewing, but Camryn’s subsequent trials prove to be full of sufficient incident to remain interesting. Writing, acting and direction are all very much to be praised for this.

The group’s murder, which made the newspaper headlines (according to the clippings Camryn keeps) would, you’d think, have led to the sole survivor being under some sort of ongoing after-care. Therapy or medical monitoring don’t seem to be part of Camryn’s life. When she meets friendly co-worker Nick (Brian Villalobos), she is very much isolated and on her own. But when Nick’s friends become her friends, she is saved from self-pity by the revelation that one of the group, Danielle (Danielle Evon Ploeger) has also suffered her own personal traumas – and it is she who convinces Camryn to revisit the site of her friends’ killings, as a form of closure.

There’s a tragic inevitability about the final twist. In horror, there is no closure, and while the climactic events are not a massive surprise, they are all the more effective because of the truly persuasive warmth and closeness of the characters. ‘The Last Girl Standing’ becomes more of a slasher film in its own right rather than an exploration of what happens after one, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Part financed by the ‘Kickstarter’ scheme, this is a very impressive debut for Director/Writer Benjamin R Moody.

Watching a clean shaven, unblemished young man behaving like a new-born baby can be a disconcerting thing; watching the early scenes of this, I was very much put in mind of Nicholas Roeg’s ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth (1973)’. Whereas David Bowie’s John Newton was an alien, Xavier Samuel’s ‘Adam’ is very much a construct from Earth technology, namely that of Viktor Frankenstein. ‘This is not what I intended,’ he admits when his attractive creation quickly begins to sprout lesions and decomposing skin, and is driven to end his progeny’s short life.

Adam’s strength, however, prevents him from an early death and soon he is roaming the outside world, uncertain and physically powerful, meeting resentment and misunderstandings along the way. The police officer who interrogates him speaks as ignorant people speak to foreigners; the thought being ‘if I shout loud enough he will understand’.

The problem with adaptions of Mary Shelly’s story is that it has been done so many times, it must be a huge challenge to still make the tale relevant and involving without criticisms of re-treading the same ground’. The other option is to add new layers and tweak the narrative so that it is laid open to criticisms that it strays so far from the original and that it is ‘Frankenstein’ in name only. By moving events into the present, and creating a version of the monster so entrenched in modern times, this version manages to be both faithful to the original, as well as adding a new dimension to it.

A tremendous central performance from Samuel ensures the audience is on ‘Monster’s side at all times, even when he kills his only true friend, blind Eddie (Tony Todd), with whom there are scenes that even inject an affectionate humour into the proceedings.

Directed by Bernard Rose, who, amongst other things is responsible for 1988’s dream/horror ‘Paperhouse’, this is a thoroughly enjoyable, intelligent and refreshing adaptation of the well-known story, its release coinciding with that of ‘Victor Frankenstein’, starring bankable names Daniel Radcliffe and McAvoy.