GODZILLA vs DESTOROYAH (1995) more new Godzilla DVDs

GODZILLA vs KING GHIDORAH (1991)
GODZILLA vs MOTHRA (1992)
GODZILLA vs SPACE GODZILLA (1994)
GODZILLA vs DESTOROYAH (1995)

Region 3 Hong Kong NTSC DVDs (Universe Video)

Godzilla vs the blog monster


After the long inital run of Godzilla movies ground to a halt in 1975 while aiming increasingly for the kiddie market, a more adult, action-based breed Godzilla was tried for the comeback in 1984. This cycle lasted until the character was practically killed off in 1995 to make way for America's flawed remake in 1998. The 1984-1995 Godzillas were very difficult to see, emerging as a mish-mash of english-dubbed VHS, VideoCDs and laserdiscs.

Universe Video in Hong Kong are making available these pre-DVD era movies with six new DVDs. These are the first home video releases with the original Japanese audio, as well as english subtitles. They are all presented in the original widescreen.

Having already released The Return of Godzilla (1984) and Godzilla vs Biollante (1989), Universe Video's Hong Kong DVDs should fill a considerable gap in G-fans' collections. These are not definitive releases though, as you'll see below, but they are still very welcome. I'll remind you that the missing film from this era is Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (1993) - the best release is the region 1 NTSC DVD. (For the full list of Godzilla moves, see my updated checklist.)

These next four films are also available on Sony Pictures/Columbia Tristar region 1 DVDs, in two double-bills with English audio only. Some viewers may prefer this, but I'll warn you that the Godzilla vs King Ghidorah and Godzilla vs Mothra have been brutally cropped from 1.85 to a very tight 1.33 pan and scan fullscreen. While the Godzilla vs Space Godzilla and Godzilla vs Destoroyah set is widescreen anamorphic.

Here are the four new Universe Video releases...

GODZILLA vs KING GHIDORAH (1991)
is presented letterboxed widescreen (not anamorphic).

Remember that this isn't a great film to introduce your friends to Godzilla. King Ghidorah is a great monster and the fight scenes around Shinjuku are spectacular, but the human plot is a nutty, low-rent Terminator 2 riff, with ginger megalomaniacs in a UFO from the future playing around with Godzilla's origins by using time travel and teleportation!

There's a cyborg trying to do Terminator stunts but using Bionic Man special effects, and some stupid-looking Dorats (imagine Care Bears crossbred with rattle snakes). This is offset by good footage of real tanks and real fighter jets (rather than the usual models). The cityscape modelwork and explosions are all exciting enough, it's the optical animation effects (light rays and time travel effects) that look dated.

GODZILLA vs MOTHRA (1992)
is presented anamorphic widescreen.

GODZILLA vs SPACE GODZILLA (1994)
is also letterboxed (not anamorphic).

The return of the son of Godzilla.

GODZILLA vs DESTOROYAH (1995)
is anamorphic widescreen.

The Japanese cut slightly differs from the American release. Several scenes are moved around, especially at the beginning. Also, the US version left off the end montage sequence (under the Japanese end credits) which was a wonderful round up of classic Godzilla moments. These Hong Kong releases are also a way of getting a copy of the original Japanese prints, with original title sequences intact.

These new Universe releases all have Japanese stereo audio, even when the box art says mono. The English subtitles are well-translated, but annoyingly share the screen with traditional Chinese subtitles. But this isn't as obtrusive as it sounds and I didn't find it distracting.

The picture quality looks a little soft in places and could certainly be improved in the future - I don't think these are digitally remastered versions. But for the exceedingly reasonably prices, this is a good way to enjoy these rare titles.

If you register with HK Flix, you can scrutizize the cover art and back cover scans online. It's the site where I bought all these discs.

I've done a Massive Update on my Godzilla Checklist.
You can always check back to my Godzilla DVD checklist, whilst pursuing your own perfect Godzilla movie collection this side of Japan! While it's an older entry on this blog, I keep it updated without changing the address, so that you can keep it bookmarked in your favourites.

Looking through the list again, it reminds me that many releases still aren't anamorphic widescreen, or on DVD at all! Only in Japan are all the films owned by one studio, Toho. Everywhere else, the series will continue to get released piecemeal, and will never be consistently presented.

Next update, I'll try and add small scans of DVD artwork of the releases worth chasing.

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THE FOG (1980) old cult titles on HD-DVD

THE FOG (USA, 1980)

Available from France on HD-DVD (Studio Canal)

Good to see that among the mixed bag of movies fresh from the cinemas, there are some interesting older titles being released on the new HD-DVD format.

For several years, most films have been digitally mastered onto High Definition master tapes. These masters were used to make the regular 'standard definition' DVD releases. But now, HD-DVDs can use the same master tapes without the need for remastering. This should instantly give movie studios a very wide choice of potential HD releases.

The increased storage capacity of the HD-DVD format means that it can now hold the same sized pictures as HDTV, 1080 picture lines, and full-width 1920 pixels per line (without having to squeeze the picture anamorphically). Uncompressed audio tracks are now also a possibility, dependent on how many different audio tracks and supplement material is also being stored on the same disc.

I think the increased quality of the image is of most benefit to anyone with a very large screen. I'm not sure there'll be a noticeable difference on a standard sized TV, widescreen or not.

John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) is an upcoming release on HD-DVD, presumably to 'complement' the recent remake. The picture quality is suitably impressive, and is especially necessary for a film shot in the 2.35 widescreen format - though it seems to have been slightly cropped at the sides, down to something resembling a ratio of 1:2.0. Hopefully in the future, when everyone's TVs are bigger, 2.35 aspected movies will actually be released in full width 2.35!

As an example of older titles to be released by Studio Canal, my only gripe is that there are absolutely no extras, meaning that I'll have to hang onto my old DVDs because they have all the extras on! Most supplemental features on HD DVDs seem to be included at standard definition, and shouldn't take up much space. It's always a trade-off between extras, picture quality, and a wide variety of alternate audio tracks, all vying for storage capacity on each disc.

Still, I'll be looking forward to David Lynch's The Elephant Man and the 1976 version of King Kong, from the same range, which are also both 2.35 widescreen films. These discs are designed to be released in several different language territories and are not regionally coded like standard DVDs.

Do you want to know more?
Full audio specs and more details about The Fog and The Elephant Man from Xploited Cinema website.

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Finally on DVD: ARABESQUE (1966) sixties spy chic

ARABESQUE
(1966, USA)

Back when all action films had helicopter chase scenes
I got very used to watching this on Saturday Night at the Movies on TV in the seventies. It's a lively Hitchcockian riff - an innocent man finds himself in the middle of an undercover spy feud.

Rather, this is filmed like Hitchcock informed by psychedelic cinema, which means that the camera shoots through spectacles and glass tables, and looks in mirrors wherever possible. Hitch himself would do this for a reason - to emphasise drama or psychological states – rather than simply messing around with the image. But hey, style over substance is exactly what this piece of fluff deserves. It's a big summer action spy movie - big stars, big stunts.

One chase scene goes as far as to paraphrase the cropduster scene from North by Northwest, (for some reason a Holy Grail of action cinema for many years). It also predates a scene from Michael Ritchie's Prime Cut (1972) where very similar farm machinery is also used to menace Lee Marvin and a young Sissy Spacek as they get cornered in a cornfield.

Highlights include an night-time fight staged behind the scenes in London Zoo, there's snooping and sniping at Ascot horse races, and a horse and helicopter chase finale.

But the cast are the real reason to watch - Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in their prime. Loren exudes glamorous star quality every time she's onscreen. Both stars' witty performances compensate for the sometimes trite dialogue and the overly convoluted plot. As in Modesty Blaise, the startling designer costumes still look striking today.
Alan Badel plays a suitably sinister baddie, hiding behind a pair of severe sunglasses, though he only just manages to convince us that he's at all interested in Loren sexually. He played another ambivalent character as a schoolteacher trying to control the Children of the Damned.

His faithful henchman is played by John Merivale, the star of Italian monster movie Caltiki the Immortal Monster. There's some interesting trivia on this British actor over on IMDB - with a story of his relationship with Vivien Leigh after her divorce from Laurence Olivier. I'm surprised that this is listed as his last film role.

Kieron Moore is the only sore thumb in the cast, who fails to convince us why on earth he's talking like a beatnik, daddi-o. Moore's fierce acting style was in demand in lower-budget movies at the time. He had leading parts in Crack in the World, Doctor Blood's Coffin and Day of the Triffids.

The Arabic Prime Minister that everyone is trying to assassinate is played by German actor Carl Duering - though for decades I have watched this thinking it was Donald Pleasence! It looks just like him.

Director Stanley Donen made his name with classic fifties musicals Singing in the Rain and On the Town, but my favourites of his are Arabesque and the original Bedazzled. In both films he successfully captured the sixties London vibe.

The master of James Bond title sequences, Maurice Binder, designed the opening credits, using vivid colours and electronic video feedback. Wild!

So, if you can get past all the Arabs being played by European actors wearing tan make-up, Kieron Moore’s daft dialogue and a couple of unnecessarily violent murders, this could be for you. Don’t bother trying to follow the plot, or work out which double-agents are working for who - it’ll make your head hurt. Just enjoy the company, the fashion and the ride.

For the first time on DVD, the 2.35 widescreen cinematography looks splendid, (presented anamorphically) and the crisp mono soundtrack showcases Henry Mancini's lush, catchy soundtrack, which is also available on CD.

THE GRUDGE (2004) Extended Director's Cut comparison

THE GRUDGE (2004, US) Extended Director's Cut
Region 2 PAL DVD (Universal)

Another Grudge DVD - bring it on!

I've been reviewing the Japanese Ju-on and Grudge movies over the months and it's overkill to recap them all here for newcomers, so here's some links. I've previously made out a list of the series and reviewed the first Ju-on films. There are also my reviews of the Japanese films called The Grudge and The Grudge 2 (number 3 is reportedly on the way). I was also very impressed by director Takashi Shimizu's Reincarnation recently.

Timed with the cinema release of the American remake of The Grudge 2, comes the DVD release of the cut of the first US Grudge that I always wanted to see. The ‘Extended Director’s Cut’ of The Grudge was originally only released to Japanese cinema audiences. Only now do the rest of us get to see it. This DVD also has a completely new batch of extras.

Bill Pullman is the third actor to play the teacher in this familiar scene from the series!

Sam Raimi’s production company bravely tried to do something different with this remake of a Japanese horror – instead of totally rewriting and recasting it, he hired the original Japanese director, some of the original cast and actually shot it in Japan. The main difference being to deliver an English language version with American stars. It helps that director Takashi Shimizu is an expert on US horror films, and reckoned he knew how to tweak his film towards a western audience.

On first seeing the US version in the cinema, I was immediately disappointed with the muted versions of the scare scenes that I’d enjoyed in the original Japanese films. The Grudge seemed to be a round up of the best bits, but not as scary. I jumped a few times because of the pumped-up volume of the soundtrack, but I wasn’t creeped out at all. Where was the ghastly croaking sound?

Crucially, new audiences to the story would have been pretty confused by the first scare scene with the huge computer-generated ‘hair swarm monster’, because it looks more like a monster than a ghost.

I was sad that Shimizu didn’t use the original house location any more ('the star' of the first four films), electing instead to rebuild a new slightly altered version entirely on a soundstage. The exterior shots of the house aren’t convincing enough.

I was also bemused that a Japanese director would choose to portray Tokyo as noisy, unfriendly, unhelpful, and with such overcast weather. Not my experience of the city at all.

The American cast were likeable and I enjoyed seeing the original Kayako and her husband being played by the same actors from all the previous Japanese versions. The Christopher Young soundtrack was suitably haunting. But it wasn’t a scary film, and didn’t add to The Grudge mythos, which had been growing with every film.

KaDee Strickland recreates the lift scene with the Toshios

Now I've had a chance to compare this US cut with the Japanese cut. There's a few interesting results. Apart from a few minor tweaks to some scenes, a line of dialogue here and there, these are the main extra scenes in the Director’s Cut that I noticed (fairly spoiler-free):

- there are extra shots in the first major special effects scene, to extend the shock value of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s first fright

- as Bill Pullman’s character and his family move into the house, his sister discovers a cat statue upstairs and some childish drawings in the cupboard

- Clea DuVall wakes up in the middle of the night and hears noises in the house

- Ted Raimi’s awful discovery on the staircase culminates in a longer, ghastlier effects shot

- Sarah Michelle Gellar has to plead with a disinterested Rosa Blasi, before she agrees to help

- the climactic flashbacks are much longer, more violent, and actually show, for the first time in any film, the original murders, explaining why Kayako crawls down the stairs and why she croaks… So many crucial scenes, I’m surprised it was cut so much

- finally, as the ambulance leaves the house, we get a flashback to Kayako, husband, son and cat moving in on their first day in the house – it’s a welcome change to see them together as a family and see her smiling for once!

So is the director aiming his scares at an American audience by using less explicit horror? Almost all the major scary set-pieces have been diluted. Was this to appease the censor, or to appeal to western audiences?

If you haven’t got The Grudge already, I’d fully recommend getting the director’s cut – it doesn’t pull its punches, and it makes more sense!

The DVD also has new extras, most importantly Shimizu’s two short films, 4444444444 and In A Corner, that first got him noticed – they also feature characters from The Grudge and can easily be considered part of the series – one is even back-referenced in the first ever Ju-on.

Other extras include video diaries – Sarah Michelle Gellar good-naturedly complaining about her long shooting days, and KaDee Strickland’s engaging and enthusiastic tour of Tokyo. There are also over thirty minutes of deleted scenes! These look good enough to have been part of the film – presumably a two-hour running time was once a possibility.

In other Grudge news, there is now a novel based on Shimizu's original stories. Written by Kei Ohishi, it's just been released in a translated paperback version.

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Finally on DVD: POLICE SQUAD! (1982) prime TV spoof

POLICE SQUAD! (1982, US TV)
6 x 25 minutes
Region 1 and Region 2 DVD (Paramount)

Norberg or Nordberg?

Six years before The Naked Gun movies made Leslie Nielsen a film star (again), the creators had already used the characters of Frank Drebin, Ed Hocken and Norberg, as well as most of the gags, in a short-lived but much loved TV series. Police Squad! has finally been released on DVD in the US and UK.

Like the sixties TV series of Batman, the actors have to play ridiculous characters with straight faces, while sending up the genre of police detective shows. I'm sure episode director Joe Dante (Gremlins) added some in-jokes and movie references of his own.

If you've seen The Naked Gun or Airplane films, you'll know what humour to expect, but Police Squad! also spoofs various TV conventions of the seventies, particularly those produced by Quinn Martin. Shows like The Invaders and The FBI insisted on titling every single section as an Act, alluding to scenes from a Shakespearean play, including the Epilogue. QM Productions also had voiceovers read out the opening titles to the viewers, the names of the episode and the guest stars. Very useful for the under-5s.

All six episodes of Police Squad! are on this release, together with a recent interview with Nielsen, who explains that while the cast and crew thought they were working on a sure-fire hit, the ratings reflected that TV audiences weren't interested in paying enough attention to the action to get the gags. Without a laugh track (again like Batman), viewers weren't cued into the deadpan humour and the series was dropped.

Luckily, the producers knew the characters were worth another shot, and The Naked Gun movies revived the format, but with Drebin's boss and assistant recast with the better known George Kennedy and O.J. Simpson. Kennedy is just as good at deadpan as Alan North, but O.J.'s slapstick Nordberg is no substitute for Peter Lupus's enjoyably dim Norberg from the TV series.

Movie send-up kings Jim Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker, first worked on a movie together with Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) a must-see collection of sketches which they co-wrote and appeared in. The film launched director John Landis into his big hits, National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and then The Blues Brothers (1980).

Abrahams and the Zucker brothers took on the directing of their next film Airplane! (1980), spoofing Airport disaster movies around the framework of an old Arthur Hailey thriller Zero Hour (1957) (a review in which I talk about their later careers and more about how Airplane was dreamt up).

Police Squad! is the link between Airplane! and The Naked Gun, continuing the brand of humour and especially Leslie Nielsen's priceless character, spoofing his seventies TV and fifties film star personas.

I've enjoyed watching these essential TV episodes again, now remastered with a clear audio track and crisp film transfers, so you can't miss a single gag, if you're paying attention, that is.

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News: DORM and SHUTTER rights bought by US

News from Screen International, confirmed on Kaiju Shakedown, is that my two favourite Thai horror films have had their rights picked up in the US, by Tartan Video.

Creepy ghost-photography shock horror film Shutter is also currently being remade, but it's good news that the original film will get a release in America too.

Beautifully made, school ghost story Dorm will hopefully get a Region 3 DVD soon, but again it well deserves a wide release in the west too.

Do you want to know more?
Kaiji Shakedown has details on these and other interesting Tartan acquisitions, as well as daily Asian fantasy/horror cinema news and reviews.

Links here for my Dorm Thai DVD special edition guide and my full review on TwitchFilm.

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IMPRINT (2006) Takashi Miike's MASTERS OF HORROR episode

MASTERS OF HORROR (2006)
'IMPRINT'
NTSC region 1 DVD (from Anchor Bay)

Bloody hell – why did Showtime commission Takashi Miike to direct an episode of Masters of Horror and then not air the episode? Were they expecting him to censor himself?

His episode, Imprint, doesn’t pull its punches, and includes not one contentious scene at odds with television sensitivities, but several.

Miike reprises the grim excesses of Audition in this grisly hour intended for cable TV. Again there’s a slow set-up before he gets his gloves off with several excruciating and shocking scenes.

Billy Drago plays a drifter looking for a woman he left behind, Komomo. His search has brought him to a remote island whore-house in a Japanese swamp, where he confides his story to an unpopular and facially scarred young prostitute. Unfortunately she also has a tragic tale to tell, all about the lost love he’s looking for.

Not scary at all, but quite horrible, perfect for fans of Saw and Hostel (which featured Miike in a cameo appearance as one of the hostel's clients) who want to go one step further. That’s if you really want to see an abortion scene out of the middle ages, floating foetuses, and a needle torture to set your teeth on edge. I’m glad I’ve seen it, but I won’t be going back in a hurry.

It’s a beautifully shot drama, and has many moments of poignancy, particularly the grassy riverbank covered in paper windmills. But the excess isn’t as sophisticated as Audition.

Also, the acting is very distracting. Billy Drago, an actor in danger of being typecast as a frequent visitor of prostitutes (like in Mysterious Skin), gives an overly mannered and unconvincing performance. However he doesn’t look too bad because he’s surrounded by Japanese actresses who can’t speak English dialogue too clearly. There are a couple of exceptions, like actress Michie Ito as Komomo, who balances the film up dramatically.

It’s certainly one of the best stories of this variable series, (Joe Dante’s and John Carpenter's entries were my favourites) and it’s a better than average Miike for that matter – it’s really a pity that he couldn’t film it in Japanese language.

Credit is due to Showtime for not showing it at all, rather than censoring it, but I bet that this situation doesn’t happen again in season two.

Imprint is available on DVD in the US and also aired in the UK on pay-TV station Bravo.

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STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING (1972) psycho thriller

STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING (1972)
NTSC region 1 DVD (from Anchor Bay)

Be careful what you wish for...

I've been watching Hammer films for over 30 years, usually on TV, and have tried to watch all of their horror output. Initially lead by the photos and posters from a book I bought in the seventies, The House of Horror, the titles all looked interesting and they seemed to be fairly consistent in delivering the goods. Today, I still haven't seen them all, and have only recently seen Night Creatures and Straight on Till Morning because of their scarcity on home video.

I bought this DVD a few months ago, and was reminded to watch it while reading The Making of the Italian Job. The director of that classic British car chase/heist/comedy was Peter Collinson. Looking at his filmography, I hadn't realised until now, that he was often a horror movie director.

Collinson directed And Then There Were None (1974 - the Harry Alan Towers version of the Agatha Christie tale, with an unusual cast), The Spiral Staircase (1975 - another remake) and Fright (1971 - a gritty, claustrophobic babysitter-in-peril story with Susan George from Straw Dogs as the lead).

His Straight On Till Morning was billed as a Hammer Love Story in the publicity, the implication is of a romantic drama with a dark side. That’s putting it lightly.

Brenda, a young woman with romantic notions of finding the perfect man to marry, leaves Mum alone in the family home in the north of England and moves to London, which is still swinging, despite the end of the sixties.

Unfortunately she contrives to meet Peter, (one of several irrelevant references to the story of Peter Pan), not knowing that he's a psychopathic serial killer with a knack of stabbing the things he loves with a stanley knife (a box cutter)…

A solid cast and interesting direction make this an enjoyable watch, especially with the eclectic fashions and furniture on display.

Rita Tushingham, obviously cast as Brenda because of her famous role as an outcast single mother in one of the earliest ‘kitchen sink dramas’ A Taste of Honey (1961), is a charming lead as the ‘ugly duckling’. She was like a sixties Molly Ringwald – playing engaging leading roles, without having movie-star looks. The actress is still working in TV drama.

Her psychotic love interest, Peter, is played by Shane Briant. He was then being groomed by Hammer as a younger version of Peter Cushing, possibly to even become Frankenstein's successor (he later played the good Doctor’s assistant in Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell). He could also appear in younger groovier roles like this.

Like Cushing, Briant also looked good in period costume, like in Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter. In the seventies, his Austin Powers hairstyle suited him and, not surprisingly, he was cast as the lead in Dan Curtis' TV adaption of The Picture of Dorian Gray. He still works internationally in TV dramas, guesting recently on Farscape.

An actress I was surprised to see here is singer Annie Ross, as Peter’s previous ‘affair’. I remembered her as the fantastic Granny Ruth from Basket Case 2 and 3! Where, again, she managed to get a couple of songs in. Coincidentally, like Basket Case 2, her role involves a scary attic...

There are also small parts for Likely Lads James Bolam, and the villainous Tom Bell who’s almost entirely covered in hair and sideburns – a change from his usual neatly-groomed tough detective roles.

But it’s the editing that’s the star of the show for me. Obviously influenced by the almost revolutionary Performance (eventually released in 1970), from directors Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell. Using inter-cutting between scenes, flash frames, flashbacks (without sound) and disorientating close-ups, all makes for an absorbing and current method of actively involving some concentration from the audience, with several scenes unfolding at once. No surprise then that editor Alan Pattillo had just worked with Roeg on Walkabout (1971).

As the cross-cutting calms down, so does the story, as the characters converge. But the tension continues, because we still haven't seen inside Peter's room in the attic, where women enter, but are never seen again.

The film relies on the sound of murder to be terrifying, with short ‘flash’ visual cuts to give the impression of violence, still leaving much to the imagination. Like the Psycho shower scene and the trowel murder in Night of the Living Dead (1968), it's mostly implied with editing, but still strong stuff.

The King’s Road, West London setting related to the trendy in-crowd of the ‘Chelsea set’. Another shooting location is the concrete clad South Bank Centre, which at the time looked remarkably clean - it still houses the National Film Theatre, one of the only major retrospective cinemas in the country.

The story is suspenseful right up to the end, but is let down by a sudden, unsatisfactory ending, which leaves some major plotlines unresolved. But it was good while it lasted.

This is available in the US and has just been released in the UK as part of The Ultimate Hammer Collection Box Set, a mixed selection of titles in an unwieldy 21 DVD batch.

Do you want to know more?

Here's another DVD review on DVD Maniacs with full plot spoilers and screengrabs.

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THE NORLISS TAPES (1973) and more TV Movie horrors

Where did all the TV horror movies go?

In the seventies there was a rash of made-for-TV movies that tried their best to scare audiences. Now they’re fondly remembered programmes that used to scare teenagers despite their (just) acceptable-for-TV limitations.

I’d recommend the following:

The same year as he made Halloween, John Carpenter directed a high-rise twist on Rear Window, called Someone’s Watching Me (1978), recently released on DVD.




Gargoyles (1972) is a really bizarre tale of winged beasts in the desert, with monster make-ups by Tom Burman and an early gig for the late Stan Winston. This is currently available on DVD in Australia but is out of print in the US.

Killdozer (1974) - perhaps inspired by the success of Duel, this was an adaption of Theodore Sturgeon's story - a rock from outer space infects a huge bulldozer with a killer intelligence! Clint Walker (The Dirty Dozen) is the stolid construction manager trapped with his crew on an island with killer machinery. Robert Urich (Vegas, 1978) and Neville Brand (Eaten Alive, The Ninth Configuration) co-star. It's a short jump from this plot to Stephen King's poorer Maximum Overdrive. Killdozer is on DVD in the Universal Vault Series, and here's the comic adaption!




Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) - a bizarre and creepy ‘old house with a secret’ starring Kim Darby. Like Gargoyles, the plot is far out enough to have freaked out a generation. This was available on VHS a long time ago. The only film remotely like it, I guess, is The Gate (1987), that starred a very young Stephen Dorff. Update November 2009 - Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is now available on DVD as part of the Warner Archives Collection.

The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) stars Elizabeth Montgomery as the infamous daughter accused of axing her family to death. This account of the real life 1893 court case is ingeniously constructed, even if you think you know what happened. Ed Flanders (Exorcist III, St Elsewhere), Fritz Weaver (Creepshow) and Katherine Helmond (Time Bandits, Brazil, Soap) all add considerable support to Montgomery's exceptional performance. 

It's interesting to see how far the actress was willing to go to distance herself from her lovable witch character, Samantha, from the enduring Bewitched TV series. Lizzie Borden isn't on DVD.

The Possessed (1977) was the TV movie answer to The Exorcist (which they certainly couldn't show on TV for years to come) - it features a hot pre-Star Wars Harrison Ford. James Farentino and Joan Hackett starred. On DVD from Warner Archive - full review here.



Most famously, Steven Spielberg’s first features were made for TV – notably Duel (1971), with its tail-gating trucker from hell so effective that it was released around the rest of the world into cinemas.




My other favourite TV movies were from writer/producer/director Dan Curtis. He proved that, with a budget, he could deliver the goods. Without a budget he made the infamously cheap daytime soap opera Dark Shadows, its ratings saved by the introduction of a vampire into the gothic romance. The success of the show even spawned two feature films, both of which are better representations of what Curtis was capable of. I wish he’d made more movies for the cinema - Burnt Offerings (1976) was scary in the way Japanese horror is today - as creepy as it was bloody.

But mostly he made TV movies, adapting classic horror stories like Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. More successfully, he worked with writer Richard Matheson with the intention to scare. His infamous Trilogy of Terror starred Karen Black in three tales, one of which infiltrated the nightmares of a generation – a puppet-sized wooden idol, the Zuni doll, brandishing a kitchen knife and scuttling around a darkened apartment.

Dan Curtis’s biggest hits were The Night Stalker which gained such great ratings that another TV movie followed, as well as Kolchak: The Night Stalker series. I suspect his next TV movie was supposed to spawn more movies or another series – it was certainly strong enough…

THE NORLISS TAPES
(1973, USA TV)

The Norliss Tapes, just released on DVD (by Anchor Bay in the US), doles out the undead, vampirism and satanism all in one action-packed 72 minutes. Shot almost completely on location in San Francisco and around Carmel, this was more fun than many movie movies at the time. The same mix of police investigation, horror and stunt work that made The Night Stalker work so well.

Like his two Dark Shadows feature films, Curtis successfully transplanted gothic horror into modern day settings, combining Van Helsing monster-hunting with present-day detective work. The Night Stalker and The Norliss Tapes are the seventies equivalent to The X-Files. Series creator Chris Carter even featured actors Darren McGavin (Kolchak) and Roy Thinnes (Norliss) in important episodes. Of course, Thinnes had also starred as paranoid UFO hunter David Vincent in The Invaders TV series.

In The Norliss Tapes, David Norliss is writing a book to debunk the supernatural. A friend calls him in to help a widow who is convinced that she was attacked by her late husband. She says that he was grey, incoherent and survived a shotgun blast in the chest. Could this be the supernatural at work? Is it a coincidence that the walking dead was seen in an old studio where he used to make bizarre sculptures…

Because it’s for TV, the film has to get you interested quickly, and keep you hooked before each ad break. Curtis, also directing here, ensures there’s action or scares at regular intervals – the non-stop highlights that play under the end credits would make a great trailer. The atmosphere is thickened by Robert Cobert's eerie soundtrack, making great use of sawing strings.

Glamorous Angie Dickinson is reduced to the role of damsel in distress, screaming her head off. She had a stronger role in Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (1980) which is saying something. Smaller parts go to an ageing Hurd Hatfield (thirty years after he starred in The Picture of Dorian Gray), and the lovely Vonetta McGee from Blacula.

If you wished there were more Night Stalker episodes, or if you’re into seventies horror, this is for you.

So, I guess now it’s more lucrative to make a scary TV series like Buffy, than just a stand-alone story. New TV movies now have to fill out family-friendly daytime schedules, and are less likely to even be fictional, mostly being “based on a true story”.

TV horror movies, R.I.P.



(Article updated in September 2013, for updates on DVD releases)

SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN (1998) hypnotic web anime

SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN (1998, Japan)
13 x 25 minutes, anime series
Available in Region 1 and Region 2 DVD boxsets

Weird on the wired

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks revisiting Lain.

There are many reviews and descriptions of the series out there. Anime News Network has a good one. I’d just like to add my thoughts on one of my favourite anime series.

Lain is a withdrawn young schoolgirl who gets an e-mail from a classmate who has committed suicide. The message was sent after the girl's death, claiming that she is still alive in the net, no longer in need of her physical form. Intrigued by the message, Lain gets her father, a computer designer, to set her up with his experimental internet navigation equipment. Then Lain gets complicated...

Watching the series induces a sort of hypnotic effect, that I’m very in tune with. It certainly captures the immersive effect of spending a long time on the net.

The story looks forward to people being actually recreated online, and able to exist without their physical beings. Only last month, I saw a BBC Horizon documentary about scientists and theorists already trying to make that work!

Lain is one of the first anime series I got into. I was surprised at how adult and cerebral anime could get. There’s very little action, but it’s rich with ideas and atmosphere, and the plot is hard to follow – it makes you think. I get the drift, but I’ll probably never fully understand everything that’s going on. Which again makes it intriguing and rewatchable. As it stands, this series will remain ahead of it's time for a while yet!

Of course, the producers were trying hard for this to be a different kind of anime – but just the fact that they were able to complete the series (and not get cancelled halfway, for instance) impressed me with the genre. That there was a medium out there that could allow experimental and intelligent products.

The look of the animation also impressed me. It had impact without using much motion, a technique perfected in anime, usually constrained by budgets. But the effort and technique that go into the fairly static shots is impressive. For example, in the opening of every episode – there’s a shot of out of focus traffic – car lights are recognisable as blobs of color, and abstract lens flares. Easier to film than to draw. Beautiful and interesting to watch.

The sound design is also extremely well done – like the indistinct murmur of traffic and crowds in the opening shots, or the ominous sound of power in the overhead wires. I hope that an even more immersive audio mix will be made in 5.1 surround, perhaps for a future video release.

The series spawned three official soundtrack CDs, confusingly one of them is called Bootleg. There are still new books and merchandise being produced. There was even a video game.

Like Lain’s worshippers in the series, I’m almost hypnotised by watching the series. In the future, I know I’ll have to return and gaze at her again.

Do you want to know more?
There's an in-depth site on the ideas in the series, called thought experiments Lain.

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Korea's THE HOST on release around the UK

THE HOST (2006)

South Korea's huge summer hit is in UK cinemas from today, including 17 screens in London.

It's had very good reviews and I was bowled over by it - it's my film of the year!

But, as usual with Asian releases, I haven't seen much publicity for it around town, and the UK poster art (not pictured) is pretty poor.

So please don't miss this rare chance to see some great Korean cinema, er, in a cinema.

Strong as a family drama and a political thriller, as well as a monster movie, I took a longer look at The Host in my previous post just after seeing it at Frightfest earlier this year...

See you in there!

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REINCARNATION (2005) Takashi Shimizu's best horror yet

REINCARNATION (2005, Japan, aka Rinne)
J-HORROR THEATER #3
Region 2 PAL DVD (from Tartan Asia Extreme)

A marvellous scary new horror film

What is it about Takashi Shimizu’s films that frighten me so much? I’m glad they do – there’s so little else that does. Watching Reincarnation, I was already creeped out before the opening titles had run.

During a wave of hauntings, a movie director begins making a film about a real-life mass-murder from 35 years before. He takes his cast and crew to the abandoned hotel where it all happened. One of the actresses he has cast seems all too familiar with the case…

Again using his uncanny sense of location, that heavily influences the story, Shimizu has used a rundown hotel, and rebuilt it as a studio set as it must have looked thirty years ago. Cleverly, this is also what the director in the story does, an example of how Reincarnation works on several levels, much as Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) did. We’re seeing events as seen by the actual director, the character of the director, and through the eyes of the killer, who was filming his victims on the day.

Shimizu manages to successfully combine key elements from many of his favourite classic horror films, such as The Shining, Psycho and even Dawn of the Dead (hurrah!).

But it’s still an impressively original scenario in many ways. The nature of the haunting is interesting and the appearance of ghosts as a group is effectively done. The narrative shifting between time-frames and between hotel and studio set is effectively done.

Shimizu reuses his device of disconnected strangers slowly linking up, and also uses familiar methods from Ju-on to show ghosts appearing, but he builds on his old methods to portray a harrowing descent into a time and place we’d rather not be… smack bang in the middle of a spree-killing in progress. I was reminded of the atmosphere of dread that director Gus Van Sant elicited in Elephant - a powerful evocation of the day of the Columbine High School shootings.

There are many startling scenes, brilliantly staged and filmed. A clever and ghastly nightmare – this is easily the best of the J-Horror Theater films, and at the moment I’ll say it’s the best Takashi Shimizu film yet. I’m saying that speaking as a big fan of The Grudge/Ju-on movies too.

Once again, the UK DVD art is unimpressive (at top). With cover art this vague, the film won’t sell on the title alone, given the weak and unscary films that have dealt with reincarnation in the past. The creepy covers and posters used in South East Asia may have shifted a few extra copies.

The Tartan DVD release in the UK has no extras except a couple of trailers. But the 5.1 and DTS audio tracks are very welcome, and the picture quality is super.

Do you want to know more?
TwitchFilm has a bevy of trailers and more stills...

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