GUNHED (1989) - Japanese robot wars

GUNHED
(1989, Japan, Ganheddo)

Uh-oh – it’s an Alan Smithee film…

Great miniatures, great visuals, great sets and a video game scenario that was well ahead of its time – why is Gunhed so frustrating to watch?

I was excited by a 1992 pop video for a track called Mindphaser by Frontline Assembly (or FLA), a Canadian heavy electro band. The visuals seemed to work perfectly with the music. The band members are seen in a futuristic cockpit driving a huge robot-tank, capable of changing configuration as it rolls along. The modelwork looked intricate, but there was live action and futuristic military costumes – surely this wasn’t all built for a pop promo?

The promo director had been given the Japanese film Ganheddo to cut down for the video clip. I looked out for the original film and it arrived in the UK on VHS soon after, as Gunhed. But the music wasn’t as good in the film, and the English dub of the film was terrible. I even sold my VHS thinking I never wanted to see it again. Now on DVD, I wanted to give it a second chance, in widescreen and in the original languages.


It begins well, with a quick recap of a future war between humans and machines, then a huge dropship approaches a vast fogbound island/city, entirely defended by robots who have successfully taken over the valuable refining complex. The action kicks in straight away, as a wireframe computer animation shows the extent of the island complex, reminding me of a similar story device in the far more recent Resident Evil movie.

The ship is full of bandits prepared to fight their way in, to retrieve valuable computer chips. But once inside, mechanical booby traps hack down the raiders one by one. As the survivors struggle to avoid robot sentries both big and small, their best hope is to reconstruct their own robot in a vast graveyard of machine parts a legendary, heavily-armed Gunhed tank of their own. Some of the scenes of the actors with this tank are realised with a full-sized prop, but it’s only glimpsed in the film, and used extensively in publicity.


The film looks good for its age – though the animated electrical effects date it. The modelwork would still look good in a modern Japanese sci-fi, and is often spectacular. The complex Gunhed miniature, with lots of missile launchers and robot arms hanging off it, sometimes wobbles a bit too much as it trundles along.

But it’s the humans that really let the film down. There’s initially some fun to be had with Brooklyn the bandit (Masahiro Takashima) and a female Texas Ranger (Brenda Bakke) developing a love/hate relationship. The script then makes the mistake of splitting them up for the rest of the story. Brooklyn is then left to talk to the humourless Gunhed computer, which isn’t nearly enough of a character, considering he has so much to say.

As Gunhed rolls into action, it displays some really neat tricks, with a barrage of grappling hooks, riding up walls and spouting a variety of missiles. But during it’s debut action scene, the complete lack of music makes it a far less exciting spectacle than it should have been. Again, the same scenes in the pop promo were far more effective because of better music. The camera is so tightly framed, it's hard to see what's going on. Gunhed gets out of some really tight corners unexplained, and the robot wrestling goes on for far too long.

The story and the action get more confusing as it progresses and towards the end the editing is almost shoddy, as if everyone had given up and wanted to go home.

The director of the US version has declined to keep his name on it, hence the generic replacement Alan Smithee name. It looked avoidable too - the film seems to have been sabotaged in the editing stage. It could have been salvaged, with some clarification from the onboard computer about what the hell is going on, tighter editing and more and better music.

Gunhed stands as a huge effects showreel for a missed opportunity. almost a glimpse of what an 'Aliens vs T2' scenario might have looked like. There is a substantial budget on show, especially with the huge cyber-sets and inventive design work. Good matte paintings add to the feeling of scale. If only as much effort had been lavished on the post-production.


A DVD has finally appeared in the US, from ADV, with an English-only option (with poor dubbing filling in what little Japanese dialogue there was) as well as an original language option with subtitles. The picture is non-anamorphic widescreen, and a couple of analogue video faults indicate that it's not been digitally remastered yet. It’s a rare chance to see it, if those posters still tantalise you.

A murky copy of the Frontline Assembly video is also on YouTube at the moment, pity it’s not on the DVD.

Gunhed is not without it's admirers, especially this guy on SFF World.

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KRAKATOA - EAST OF JAVA (1969) - or is it west?

KRAKATOA - EAST OF JAVA
(1969, USA)

Nice visual effects, shame about the songs

After reading Eugene Lourie's book 'My Work In Films' (1985, Harvest/HBJ) and how his methods for recreating volcanic special effects for Crack In The World (1965) were later reused in Krakatoa - East of Java, I thought it was about time to see it in widescreen. It's also just been released on DVD in the UK.

Lourie worked as a production designer for Jean Renoir in France, then fled the Nazi invasion to live in the USA, where he also designed special effects and started to direct (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Behemoth the Sea Monster, and of course Gorgo). He later returned to Europe, often favouring Spain for both studio and location filming – just as he did for Krakatoa – East of Java.

According to Lourie it was shot in 70mm, but the credits call it Cinerama (a process of filming with three cameras line up next to each other), which indicates that the film was destined for gigantic screens. Specifically for Cinerama theatres, (you could think of it as an IMAX for the fifties), extra long point-of-view shots are included to add to a rollercoaster feeling. On a huge screen, when the camera spins around, or tilts like a boat in the rough seas, the audience are going to get more than a movie but an experience, possibly of nausea.


While the bulk of the action is a grim adventure, the Cinerama label demands something more of a family film, resulting in an unlikely triple volley of songs at the start! These are in addition to the three-way splitscreen musical montage of spoilers behind the opening titles, again trying to look like true three-camera Cinerama.

There’s then a bizarre schoolsong, coaxed along by two sweaty nuns, trying to distract a class of frightened children from a volcanic eruption. This mystifying scene doesn't gain significance for nearly two hours of screen time! After a dollop of dockside exposition, there's a rather modern ‘west coast’ pop ballad as the steamship 'Batavia Queen' sets sail. After more introductions to the key characters onboard, there's a third song, staged like a screen musical, as over-the-hill chorus girl Charley dances and ickily vamps her ageing boyfriend. Considering the duration, these songs feel like inappropriate padding, and a disastrous way to start a catastrophe.

Thankfully it settles down to a more even keel, with grittier dramatic conflict and the eerie signs that a huge eruption is imminent. Little do the crew realise, it'll be the hugest Earthly explosion in recorded history! But this is no documentary, more like a Jules Vernean adventure.


The Captain is more interested in a fortune in pearls and has recruited a diverse A-Team of experts. To scout for the wreck, there are two balloonists and a guy with a diving bell. To retrieve the booty, there’s a deep sea diver aided by Japanese pearl divers, with very impressive lungs.

The script pushes hard some unusually liberal sixties amoralising, considering it’s supposed to be 1883, with some strident messages about relationships outside of marriage, judgemental attitudes about murderers, forgiveness... All this and an opium drug dream montage too.

There's so much going on onboard, no wonder everyone isn’t bothered about the pumice mortars flying overhead, and the endless volcanic explosions. As they get closer to their goal, the story contrives to take the audience down inside the crater just as it’s warming up, right past the lava flows as it starts to erupt (in a marvellously hellish scene reminiscent of the climax of The Black Hole), and hangs around to experience both the final explosion and subsequent tsunami.


The visual effects range from silly to spectacular. The balloon looks like a small model, as does the master shot of Krakatoa (stupidly, this shot is on the cover of the Anchor Bay DVD). As the action moves closer in, the huge tenth-scale model of the steamship set against the exploding lava is a hugely complex setpiece, that makes for a convincing and exciting scene, the deck getting pummelled by flaming debris. Basically the special effects get more impressive as the film progresses.

Lourie’s special effects help carry the film, along with the solid cast. Maximilian Schell (who had command of a spaceship in The Black Hole) is convincing as the single-minded Captain, sparring with junkie diver Brian Keith (The Wind and the Lion, The Zoo Gang, Meteor) and a hold full of convicts, lead by J.D. Cannon (the angry Police Chief in McCloud). The father and son balloonists are played by Rossano Brazzi (The Italian Job, Omen III: The Final Conflict) and Sal Mineo (Rebel Without a Cause, Escape from the Planet of the Apes). Geoffrey Holder (Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die) appears imposingly, but doesn’t get a single line of dialogue. Also keep your eyes peeled if you want to see Eugene Lourie himself, in a brief appearance as a lighthouse keeper.

It’s a mad example of a catastrophe movie, the link between the old historical epics of the fifties and the disaster movies of the seventies. But even The Towering Inferno had a song in it…


The Anchor Bay disc had a sharp picture and a generous anamorphic widescreen presentation (with a full-frame option on the flipside). Since then, it's been re-released on DVD by MGM in the US, and last month by Fremantle in the UK.

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BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (1971) - still shocking today

BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW
(1970, UK)

A classic British horror, also known as Satan's Skin for good reason...
Listening to the recent release of the CD soundtrack (that I bought off Movie Grooves) prompted me to revisit this unusual British frightener from Tigon Productions, a lesser known studio that also gave us The Haunted House of Horror, Doomwatch and Curse of the Crimson Altar. Seeing it on late-night ITV, years (decades) ago as a teenager, was unforgettable because of the shock moments and daring nudity.


Set in the 15th century English countryside, a farmer unearths a weird skull, unleashing an ancient evil on his village. Something scary in an attic sends a local girl mad and drives her fiance to self-mutilation. The evil spreads to the local youngsters as they begin to worship something nasty in the ruins of an old church, sacrificing anyone found to be cursed with Satan's skin...

In terms of atmosphere, this is the next best movie to Witchfinder General. The difference being that in this story, witchcraft works. There are more than a few similarities between the two films, like the extensive use of location filming in the English countryside, and the beautiful but menacing soundtracks. Patrick Wymark appears in both, getting top billing as the local judge in Satan's Skin, he had a cameo as Oliver Cromwell in Witchfinder.

It isn't as swashbuckling or murderous as Witchfinder, but is often just as shocking. There's also that scene that I get confused with The Wicker Man (1973), when a young woman strips naked to seduce her victim. Evil teenagers doing the devil's work, using murder and seduction, seemed very unlikely back in the seventies. Leading the cultists is the deliciously monstrous character of Angel Blake.


Linda Hayden imbues Angel with a devilish malevolence. Her career includes a remarkable list of horror roles, including Taste The Blood Of Dracula (1970) and Madhouse (1974). An excellent, recent interview is included on the DVD, as Linda talks about her sudden stardom, horror films and famous co-stars.

While the rest of the young cast are convincing, it's hard to forget some of their TV alter-egos. Michele Dotrice was soon to become a sitcom legend in Some Mothers Do Ave Em (opposite Michael Crawford), but had just appeared in the dark thriller And Soon The Darkness. Wendy Padbury had been a popular assistant to TV's Doctor Who in the sixties, making the fate of her character all the more gruelling. Rebecca Tovey had starred in both the Peter Cushing Dr Who films as his granddaughter, but isn't even given a screen credit. Robin Davies had been one of the many schoolboys of the rebellious if.... (1968) and starred opposite Geoffrey Bayldon (Asylum, Tales From The Crypt) in the children's TV fantasy Catweazle.



Among the adult cast is Anthony Ainley (The Land That Time Forgot) who gets a rare chance to play a goodie, as a priest - he was about to become the second actor to play The Master in TV's Doctor Who. The unlucky farmer is Barry Andrews, previously the star of Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968).

The script was originally envisaged as three short stories, but director Piers Haggard helped remould the structure into a continuous narrative. He succeeded, but the plot is still faintly episodic. His only other noteworthy credit was the last original adventure of Nigel Kneale's Professor Quatermass, starring John Mills in TV’s The Quatermass Conclusion (1979).

The nudity and sexual violence are still shocking today, the cast is convincing, and the only real downfall is the finale, which is an anticlimax. But the director agrees, he simply didn't have any budget left to fix it! But the low budget doen't show, except maybe for the barely-seen monster itself. Everything else about the film, atmosphere, locale, cast are almost perfect.



The Anchor Bay DVD was released in the UK but not the US. Even though the picture is clean and crisp, the widescreen DVD isn't anamorphic, yet the documentary is. There was a reversible cover with a choice of modern or original artwork. It was also available as part of the coffin-shaped Tigon boxset, and as another single DVD release in Australia.

VIRUS (1980) - whoops apocalypse

VIRUS
(1980, Japan)

Slow, grim, apocalyptic disaster that might eventually haunt…

I tried to upgrade my tatty old VHS copy of Virus by buying a recent DVD release, only to find that while it’s called 'The Director's Cut', it’s shorter than my VHS copy, and it isn’t widescreen, while the VHS was!

Both the UK and US DVD releases are listed as 1.33 – which means they are severely cropped down from the original widescreen, an injustice to the spectacular location cinematography, one of the few saving graces that Virus has to offer.

The running time of 100 minutes represents the international cut (which failed to get a cinema release in the UK or US, back in 1980), a whole hour shorter than the original version released in Japan.

One of the US DVD releases

The UK DVD starts with a long explanatory build up as the deadly MM88 virus is stolen and then accidentally exposed. The introductory scenes are full of badly disguised exposition, using unknown actors, giving the wrong impression of the film that is about to unfold. Only when the virus begins to kill large numbers of people around the world, does the story take off. Some horrifying scenes of riots breaking out around the world are taken from actual news footage, including a very nasty incident where a protester catches on fire.

As recognisable actors appear, they are lumbered with embarrassing dialogue and melodramatic conflicts. Unlike more recent apocalypse stories which ground the story among the public, this is very Japanese in structure – where huge disasters are only dealt with by the authorities. Politicians, military, scientists receive the latest news and use cold, hard logic.

Some of the Japanese scenes are the most involving – where a hospital is overrun with people needing treatment, and the police have to burn piles of bodies in the streets, unable to cope with the mounting death toll. But these scenes are just illustrations, aside from the main drive of the story in the Oval Office. Glenn Ford plays the US President, aided by Robert Vaughn, whose lumbered with some very awkward direction...

This DVD cover illustrates the missing prologue scene

As the board meetings continue among the last people on Earth – in Antarctica, where the virus can’t survive the low temperatures. The new World Council includes a young Edward James Olmos. Even a case of rape is coldly discussed in a meeting. The ratio of 855 men to 8 women is simply unfortunate. The women will have to have babies with new multiple partners. Well at least condemn the rapist, guys!

Many different countries are represented reasonably well, but casting Chuck Connors as a British submarine captain is bizarre. The actor normally plays cowboys. Two cheeky cockneys represent the British crew in yet another example of the Mary Poppins/Dick Van Dyke stereotype.

The overall story is realistic, doomladen and slowly paced. The vision of a world decimated by a biological warfare accident, and a climactic plot twist may haunt anyone who stays awake to the very end of the movie.

The worldwide locations are impressive, especially among the polar icebergs. Though there are unusual choices of establishing shots for various capital cities. Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) directs, favouring the Japanese scenes and actors. But without their back-stories, and without a fluent command of English, it’s hard to know why they are the only civilians at the centre of the action.

The prologue on my old Intervision VHS seems to be taken from the climax of the longer Japanese version, which is supposed to be a superior experience all round. As it stands, this is another example of the Japanese spending a huge budget aiming at international success, and floundering badly. The tedious Sayonara Jupiter also springs to mind - a huge budgeted, internationally cast, botched, sci-fi catastrophe...

Gotterdammerung has a host of screengrabs and plot spoilers if you want to investigate Virus further...

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GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA (2002) - monstrous entertainment

GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA

(2002, Japan)

I'll watch any movie with Godzilla in it. But for a Black Hole review, I have to consider if I can recommend it to you. Godzilla films can be very uneven - the monster action is always fun, but the plots can sometimes drag, or even be embarrassingly bad.

From the last wave (1999-2004), I rewatched Godzilla x Mechagodzilla, while thinking of an audience who may be new to the franchise.

Mechagodzilla first appeared in two films in the seventies, and resurfaced in the early 1990's. This time around it's a more agile giant robot cyborg monster, with more built-in missile launchers than ever, and a few titanium tricks up its sleeve...

After the stupendous Gamera trilogy of the late nineties, from rival studio Daiei, the annual Godzilla movie franchise had to modernise its approach. Godzilla Millennium relaunched the series (after the American Emmerich/Devlin remake of 1997), and these were all stand-alone stories, spinning off from the original premise.

A grittier Godzilla emerged. He's back to being a problem of mass destruction, rather than a children's hero. Once more he’s threatening Tokyo and the Japanese government have to find a way to stop him. They remember that the original Godzilla skeleton still lies at the bottom of Tokyo Bay (where he was defeated in the very first film in 1954). Using a Jurassic Park ruse, scientists propose to use the skeleton as a framework, combined with the Godzilla DNA in the bones, to create a duplicate monster. Enhanced with a robot exoskeleton and under military control, it should defeat the oncoming threat.

Chosen to operate Mechagodzilla's controls, is a young pilot, (Yumiko Shaku, the star of Princess Blade and Sky High), who isn't trusted by her team-mates after a disastrous incident while trying to kill Godzilla using maser cannons, several years earlier. Having a female action hero is a twist in Godzilla films. Add to this her tragic backstory and she has reason to look perpetually grumpy.

The producers still can't resist adding a cute little girl and her klutzy father for extra pathos and comedy relief, but these are far less painful than they sound.

The realism is greatly enhanced by the use of actual full-size tanks - toy tanks bouncing towards Godzilla are traditionally a funny, guilty pleasure in the series. But here the modelwork and explosions are bigger than ever, and they even use a little CGI, though the look of this has dated already, the suitmation less so.


Men in monster suits wrestling, is the mainstay of the special effects. Albeit fantastically designed and constructed suits, surrounded by intricate and extensive cityscape models. But as the action scenes wear on, there's no actual build in the excitement or the story. Mechagodzilla has very few tricks up its sleeve after its first fight, and ends up repeating itself. For once it's launched by VTOL aircraft, rather than by the unlikely rocket jets in the soles of its feet.

The movie is good, solid spectacle, above average for a G-movie, and the action kicks off early with a quick appearance of the big G right at the start. The plot is fairly old-fashioned, as are characters and the overall feel - you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for a film ten years earlier.

The Maser cannon weapons are a welcome blast from the past, and there are some surprising flashbacks to lesser-known monster attacks from classic Toho films. This is a good example to showcase the latest generation of G-films, while we wait for Godzilla to endure his eight-year hiatus, self-imposed by Toho Studios after Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004.

Columbia Tristar released a good DVD of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla in the US, correctly aspected in 2.35 anamorphic, with English or Japanese language options.

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CHOSEN SURVIVORS (1974) - bats and bombs

CHOSEN SURVIVORS
(USA, 1974)

All I knew about this was that it was post-apocalyptic and had vampire bats in it! As it was on the DVD double-bill release with The Earth Dies Screaming, which I simply had to have, I finally got a chance to see it. Earth is a black/white sixties British space invasion, Chosen Survivors is seventies US sci-fi with a TV look and a TV cast. But its adult approach and grim plot elevates it to filmic status. Both films have been hard to see until now.

Chosen Survivors starts with a dozen drugged civilians being dragged from a military helicopter into a cave in the middle of the desert. Down deep inside is a huge, futuristic, self-contained bunker. As the drugs wear off, they get shown a presentation video informing them that the world has just been obliterated in a nuclear war, and they were all pre-selected as experts most likely to help humanity re-populate.

They try to grasp the fact that everyone else in the world is dead (apart from those in other bunkers) and settle down to life together for a few years, until the radiation levels are tolerable again. But if life wasn't tough enough, they discover a problem with their underground sanctuary - killer vampire bats...

It’s not as corny as it sounds. Intelligent plotting, sexual and psychological drama and an offbeat directorial approach make this quite a unique little movie. Director Sutton Roley was obviously trying to break out of TV with this one, though he was a master of top TV shows for decades.

Skewed camera angles are effectively used to show the disorientation of the survivors as they arrive, wide-angle lenses to accent their claustrophobia. There’s also an impressive, experimental, electronic soundtrack by Fred Karlin, just after he scored another downbeat sci-fi, Westworld.

While the cast aren't A-list, there are a few familiar faces – like, Alex Cord (Archangel in Airwolf), Jackie Cooper (Perry White in Superman – The Movie), Barbara Babcock (Hill Street Blues) and Richard Jaeckal (Grizzly and The Green Slime). And once again, Lincoln Kilpatrick gets a tricky climbing assignment, like he did as one of the night-people in The Omega Man.

I’m very glad to have seen this. Now where's the CD release?

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LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS (1977) legendarily bad

LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS

(1977, Japan, Kyôryuu: Kaichô no densetsu)

More like... the legend of one dinosaur and one monster bird…

I'm really impressed with DVDs from Media Blasters - spectacular presentations of classic Japanese fantasy films. They’ve released many classic giant monster movies… but this isn't one of them. Instead, this is a perplexingly bad riff on Jaws, with a dinosaur instead of a shark.

Worse still, it seems to have been influenced by other Jaws rip-offs, like Tentacles (as a victim is lifted clean out of the water screaming her lungs out). Jaws also prompts the use of a little more blood and gore than is usual with Japanese monsters.

The premise is that a sort of Loch Ness monster has been found in one of the lakes round Mount Fuji, and it’s killing local people and holiday-makers. Unfortunately Toei Studios isn't known for its giant monster movies and the resulting special effects, despite the use of some full-size props, are totally laughable. The rhamphorynchus is even stiffer than the pterodactyl in The Land That Time Forgot (1975), the plesiosaurus is inexpressive and less frightening than the puppet 'Space Monster' in the children’s series Fireball XL5 (1962), which it closely resembles.

Add to this a completely inept explanation as to why it’s all happening, plus the worst use of music I can recall (using only a few tracks, none suitable for monster action, though the disco track sort of works) and you've got one of the worst ever Japanese monster movies.

By the end of the film, the producers seem to have given up on anything approaching convincing - the wire work, back projection and editing all get even worse. However, for fans of bad movies that are so consistently bad they become enjoyable, this could be for you.

Like Media Blasters' other Japanese movies, this has both the original Japanese and English language options. The few extras include trailers and posters that amusingly promised a worldwide release (in 40 countries) and boast it was Toei Studios' most expensive film to date. Yikes. I prefer it when they stuck to a low budget. Having seen it, I now know why this movie was so rare.

For a selection of other, better movies about giant monsters, see the 'Giant Monsters' links in the sidebar...

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CRACK IN THE WORLD (1965) - apocalypse then

CRACK IN THE WORLD

(US, 1965)

Science-free, disaster movie, now on DVD and Blu-ray! 

This was a regular Saturday night action film on TV in the seventies and it horrified me when I first saw it. The offscreen body-count quickly runs into tens of thousands, and a scene showing a nasty train wreck gave me an early experience of death in the movies. A recent viewing was much more fun. It's a well-made sci-fi adventure, where science and logic take a backseat to unsubtle melodrama.

(Screengrab from VHS)

'Project Inner Space' is an ambitious scheme to harness molten magma for unlimited energy. Why they don't just relocate to a volcano isn't explained. After glossing over the potential dangers, Dr Sorenson gets the go-ahead to fire a nuclear missile (!) downwards into the Earth, in order to break through a troublesome mantle of superhard rock. Unfortunately for the Earth, dozens of underground nuclear tests (in Africa?) have already weakened the tectonic plate. A crack in the Earth’s crust rips open and keeps on cracking (whoops). A growing death toll of those killed by earthquakes and tidal waves (all offscreen) weigh heavily on Dr Sorenson’s conscience - he needs an almighty quick fix. As the rift starts ‘travelling’ along the ocean floor, there’s even some submarine action as is usual in tectonic thrillers, also evident in The Submersion of Japan movies.

(Screengrab from VHS)

The scientists’ solution to stopping the crack is to head it off at the volcano, by dropping a second atomic bomb... by hand! In a scene reminiscent of the ‘Pit of Peril’ episode of Thunderbirds (coincidentally from the same year), two men lower themselves into the volcano with a nuclear device. Surprisingly, this only makes matters worse, and our heroes face the apocalypse (like the rest of the world) as well as a troublesome love triangle.

Dr Sorenson (played by Dana Andrews, again looking through large lucite maps, just like he does in The Satan Bug) is married to Maggie, an exceedingly young bombshell played by Janette Scott. Maggie soon starts flitting between her husband and her ex-lover, (Kieron Moore) like a glamorous ping pong ball. The usually restrained Dana Andrews is encouraged way outside his usual acting range in an attempt to match Moore’s usual, surly, overloud style. Janette gets to let rip her impressive Triffid scream, and displays an Earth-shattering amount of thigh during the climax.

This movie surely inspired the moment in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks, when little cute animals emerged from hiding after the Martians were defeated. This is an entertaining example of sixties ‘apocalypse movies’, following the thrills of When Worlds Collide and Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Before the localised catastrophes of the disaster movies of the seventies, B-movie sci-fi aimed high by promising global chaos on a low budget. Other apocalypses are the more serious The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and of course The Day of the Triffids, which is closely related to this production.

Crack in the World manages some excellent special effects, courtesy of Eugene Lourie (director of the similarly colourful Gorgo). In his autobiography, Lourie describes his effects work, particularly the large-scale models of the project HQ and a flawless hanging miniature used to make the underground laboratory look even more impresive - it bears a striking resemblance to Hugo Drax’s underground mission control in the James Bond movie Moonraker (1979). I can’t remember seeing such a striking use of sloping walls that wasn't designed by Ken Adam! Lourie also mentions that the glowing lava effects he developed for this film, he later used again in Krakatoa, East of Java (1969).

Crack in the World was entirely shot in Spain, where much of Day of the Triffids took place. Triffids also starred Janette Scott and Kieron Moore together. Moore, who passed away last year, could only ever muster leading roles in lower budget movies, and supporting roles in bigger movies. But despite, and because of, his surly acting, he is always a highlight. A trilogy of his leading roles, Crack in the World, Day of the Triffids and Dr Blood’s Coffin, make an enjoyable cross-section of sixties genre movies.

The bombastic soundtrack by Johnny Douglas strengthens the mood of impending doom, certainly for a ten-year old. The wall-to-wall background music also over-emphasises every single possible emotional corner of the already unsubtle acting.

Thankfully, this has now made it to DVD and Blu-ray (!) in the US.

There's no trailer on YouTube, but there's a brief clip (from VHS)...

(This article was last updated October 2011, originally posted in April 2008).

Charlton Heston - goodbye to THE OMEGA MAN

It had to happen eventually, but I was hoping to write this tribute before Charlton Heston passed away.

Before Star Wars came along, he was my sci-fi hero of the seventies. While he'd made a name headlining the hugest of Hollywood epics (Ben Hur, El Cid, The Ten Commandments), I was far more interested in his futuristic/apocalyptic films, all still re-running in cinemas. Towards the end of his A-list career, he bravely entered the genre that was rarely taken seriously. But with Heston starring, it helped persuade audiences to take a new look at sci-fi.

His gravitas helped make Planet of the Apes (1968) a hit with critics and audiences. Rod Serling's brilliant script illuminated the parallels between a fantasy world of intelligent animals, and the problems of real-life America, as well as providing a compelling futuristic adventure. Heston returned to reprise his role as Taylor in the gritty sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, which is just as good.


He then hit a sci-fi groove, first starring in The Omega Man (1971), an adaption of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, that's heavily influential on the current Will Smith version. Though if you want better villains, more action and a better ending, you should see Charlton Heston as Robert Neville.

There's also Soylent Green (1973), a reminder that ecological disasters have been on people's minds for decades. Heston plays a detective trying to solve a murder in a massively overpopulated city, stricken with a permanent heatwave. The depiction of metropolitan food riots and voluntary euthanasia are not easily forgotten, as is the ghastly secret of Soylent Green itself.

Heston then went all 'disaster movie' in Earthquake, Airport '75 and Two Minute Warning. Despite chaos, danger, and the dam about to break, with Charlton Heston running around, you knew things were going to be all right.

Seeing these all on the big screen, cemented him in my mind's eye as a cornerstone of essential seventies cinema.

Come back, Chuck...

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HAZEL COURT - horror heroine nevermore

I'd been waiting for the publication of this autobiography for many months now. Sadly, just days before it's release, the author passed away.

Hazel Court was Hammer Horror's first female star. The winning combination of 'Hammer glamour' and acting ability in their leading ladies often proved elusive, but Hazel ably and amply provided both. She starred opposite Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), setting herself up as a 'horror heroine' for the next decade.

Her subsequent horror films, including three in the Roger Corman/Edgar Allen Poe series, are all recommended. For Hammer, she also appeared in The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) opposite Anton Diffring (Circus of Horrors), in which she famously appeared topless for the saucier 'continental' version. Neither version of the film has appeared on DVD yet.

Roger Corman's adaption of The Premature Burial (1962) cast her opposite Ray Milland. The resulting film makes me claustrophobic just thinking about it. In 1963, she starred with Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and a young Jack Nicholson in the comedy-horror The Raven. But her greatest role was in The Masque of the Red Death (1964), where her character is practically Lady Macbeth. Her satanic villainy and masochistic nightmares rival Vincent Price's evildoing in the story. Her altercation with a frenzied falcon is as fierce and frightening as anything in Hitchcock's The Birds.

The book talks about all of her films, even the silly Devil Girl From Mars, and is available online from Tomahawk Press. Beautifully illustrated with rare photos, some in colour, this is a book I've been wanting to read for years, but not with such sad timing.

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EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977) no longer the worst sequel

EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC

(1977, USA)

You’d be mad if you didn’t make a sequel to one of the hugest movie hits ever, but a disastrous critical reaction, and even laughter during the premiere, buried its reputation almost immediately, despite high credentials.

It's not a film I'd heartily recommend, but it's interesting as a direct sequel to the classic, with many of the original cast reappearing. It’s no more misjudged than the recent prequel Exorcist: The Beginning (2004). After years of being the worst of the Exorcist movies, (Exorcist III: Legion was definitely the best sequel), Exorcist II: The Heretic can finally move out of last place.

It takes place four years after the events of The Exorcist. Hardly surprisingly, young Regan (Linda Blair) is still in therapy. A priest (Richard Burton), sent to investigate Father Merrin's conduct during that exorcism, is interested in the psychiatrist’s results. As the Dr (Louise Fletcher) uses an experimental hypnotic device to help Regan remember, it reignites the battle for her soul. Father Merrin's very first exorcism of a possessed boy in Africa, might hold the key to a new demon that starts attacking her…


While Linda Blair returns as Regan, she’s now more of a stroppy teenager than an innocent little girl. Father Merrin is played once more by Max Von sydow. His old age make-up was so convincing in the first film, that it was a shock for many to see him in the flashbacks as a younger man in Africa. Ellen Burstyn, as Regan’s mother, is notably missing from the cast, with her housekeeper Kitty, effectively gets her role.

To bolster the cast, Louise Fletcher plays Regan’s therapist, but she’s miscast here if we’re supposed to trust her. Fletcher is hardly reassuring as a medical professional after her turn as Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest! Her character uses a silly hypnotic device that looked low-tech in 1978, (two flashing lights nailed to a stick), but this electronic approach to metaphysics heavily influenced the climax of the Japanese sequel Ring 2, one of the many interesting revelations in Dennis Meikle’s book, The Ring Companion. Richard Burton is also miscast, with a one-note performance that lends little light to his character's motivations, crucial to understanding the story.

In the story, the combined efforts of both religion and science trigger a vision of the original exorcism. But the scene is flawed in reimagining the world-famous scene by using a different actress and a different voice. Nothing about this ‘replay’ reminds us of the original. It’s a great pity, because technically it's an imaginative special effects scene, inter-connecting the past and the present in a spectacularly lined-up stage effect.


There are further mis-steps throughout the film. Having a demon attack via African locusts seems more to do with director John Boorman's love of ecological subtexts than cinematic logic. They don't appear at all demonic looking, more like clouds of tea leaves, or as a single locust glued in front of a back-projection screen. Boorman’s most successful visual rant against civilisation’s rape of the land is still Deliverance (1972), though that message was similarly buried under a confusing storyline. In fact, several of his films start off exceedingly well and go completely ga-ga by the end. Zardoz, I’ll say no more.

The film isn’t helped by unrealistic studio-bound locations and even more disorientating plotting, mixing up ESP with hypnotism. The far-fetched storyline is completely at odds with the painstaking efforts of the first film, to make supernatural events seem possible, by rooting them firmly in reality. In The Heretic, nothing seems real or realistic. Add to this a supposedly dramatic disaster at a tap-dancing contest and the damage is done - unintentional laughs in a horror film.

And James Earl Jones in a locust hat!



The Making of Exorcist II: The Heretic
The reasons behind many of these shortcomings are partly explained in the 'making of' paperback. It details the optical special effects used – whereas the original made an effort not to use optical effects in order to appear real. The overuse of back-projection in the sequel is nasty and noticeable, with silly model shots, insect close-ups and studio sets representing all of the African scenes. Everything is intricately mounted, but still unconvincing.

The technical process of producing a huge studio film is described and supplemented by minor showbiz gossip. Richard Burton was completing one of his many divorces during his time on the film. His role was nearly played by a pre Deer Hunter Christopher Walken. Actress Ellen Burstyn didn't return to the sequel because she definitely didn’t want to be in it. The director also had to talk round Max Von Sydow to get him to return.

The spectacular rooftop apartment where Regan lives was actually purpose-built on top of a Manhattan skyscraper. Linda Blair even does a dangerous stunt on the roof edge with no safety harness. But New York was the only location outside of Hollywood, not for the want of trying. The African locations they wanted were either inaccessible or a war zone. Even a return to the original house in Washington D.C. was nixed by the owner. So the house, inside and out, also had to be constructed as sets, right down to the iconic stone steps.

Effects make-up genius Dick Smith returned to the crew, but apart from one spectacularly nasty effect, basically just recreates his make-ups from the original. His skills would have been better used in the originally envisaged climax, (supposedly never filmed, rather than scrapped and reshot). Originally the ending was to be another intimate exorcism, with a multitude of make-up effects to represent the demons identities. The book mentions a locust mask, a kabuki mask and an effect of flesh falling away from a skull. But unfortunately we get a flashy, stunt-heavy disaster-movie ending.

The book wisely ends with the night of the US premiere – the precise point at which a happy ending didn’t happen. Since then The Heretic has had the usual rough ride enjoyed by studio embarassments – they are lucky to get to home video at all, and certainly don’t get love lavished on them as special editions. My VHS of the UK release has almost every scene in a completely different order to the US DVD - each scene is cut differently and there are many additional scenes, plus a longer climax. So, like the recent prequel, there are two versions out there. If either one was markedly better, I might list the differences, but it’s not really worth the effort. Like many last-minute re-edits, it rarely improves the mistakes of the original.

Lastly, several elements reminded me of Holocaust 2000 (1977), which also has a glass-walled asylum and a beautiful Ennio Morricone score.


Exorcist II: The Heretic was released in the US and UK as a single DVD several years ago, that may be hard to find now. I don't know which version was released in the UK, but I presume it's the same as the US release, rather than the alternate UK cut. It's also currently part of an anthology DVD boxset of all the Exorcist films, available in the UK and US.

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GHOST STORY (1974) a haunting tale of madness

GHOST STORY
(1974, UK, aka Madhouse Mansion)

A bizarre British chiller, from the director of I, Monster

News Update, November 2009
- a marvellous 2-disc Special Edition of Ghost Story has been released in the UK

Please note: all the following screengrabs are from an old VHS, NOT the new DVD!!!

One of several films with this name, this may strike a chord with those who caught it on late-night TV in the UK in the early 1980s. The cast is unique and there’s enough atmosphere emanating from the quirky music and parallel plotting to make this noteworthy. I keep revisiting it, mainly for Ron Geesin’s soundtrack. Stephen Weeks earlier directed the Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I, Monster, for Amicus Films, partly filmed in an experimental 3-D process.

As Ghost Story begins, the period setting is hard to place, further unsettling viewers trying to gain their bearings. It opens with a young man, travelling on the London Underground, but everyone is in turn of the century outfits. This takes advantage of the fact that the oldest branches of ‘The Tube’ are over 140 years old. The man is met at a station and driven deep into the countryside.


The rather dapper MacFayden has invited two school friends, Talbot and Duller, to a huge country mansion on the pretence of a shooting weekend. But when Talbot gets spooked by a Victorian doll in his room and starts to dream of dirty deeds at a local derelict asylum, he realises that his school chums haven't told him everything, as his dreams keep getting more and more real...


The scenes on the Underground were of course shot in London, or rather under it. But the mansion and asylum are supposed to be in the middle of the British countryside, except that there is exceptionally bright sunshine. I’d always assumed that this was because it was shot in Australia, though the architecture and gardens looked too grand. Only an article about the director’s films published in 2000, in Video Watchdog issue 59, revealed that Ghost Story was mostly shot in India, doubling for rural Southern England!


The British cast further conceals this audacious deceit. In the 'present' scenes are Ken Russell favourite Murray Melvin (The Boyfriend, The Devils) and a snide Vivian MacKerrell (pictured here) who was the original inspiration for the character Withnail of Bruce Robinson’s legendary Withnail and I, see more here.


In the flashback/dreams are singer and occasional actress Marianne Faithfull (Girl on a Motorbike), sitcom queen Penelope Keith, typecast bounder Leigh Lawson, and one of Hammer Film’s shining stars Barbara Shelley (Quatermass and the Pit, Dracula - Prince of Darkness and Village of the Damned) in her last horror role to date.


Their ‘past’ scenes in Borden's asylum are far more tense than the three friends rattling around in an old dark house. The madhouse, and the way the inmates are treated, feels all too real. But when the tables are turned, the lunatics really do take over the asylum.


The film is slightly let down by the basic lighting and camerawork, and some clumsy comedy at the expense of sensitive twit, Talbot (Larry Dann). But the slack opening builds slowly and steadily as the parallel stories develop, and it’s cleverly unclear as to where reality starts and second-sight begins.


This a real curio, worth wider exposure, and only hitherto available on an eighties NTSC VHS, released in the US under the unsubtle title of Madhouse Mansion. (November 2009, the film finally got a DVD release in the UK, with a whole second disc of extras).