THE CASE OF THE MUKKINESE BATTLE HORN (1956) - a missing link in spoof comedy

THE CASE OF THE MUKKINESE BATTLE-HORN
(1956, UK)

Before Airplane, The Naked Gun, and even Monty Python, were The Goons...

Why is this not on DVD? It's like it disappeared completely. Constantly funny and fantastic, hysterical and historical! The roots of popular surrealist British comedy stems from The Goon Show - a hugely popular radio show that combined the talents of Peter Sellers mad knack for comedy voices and the startlingly inventive scripts of Spike Milligan. While several attempts were made to catch their insanity on film, this short feature is by far the most successful. The Goons had to disband when Peter Sellers movie career took off.

Insane comedy, where the actors often sent up their own movie, dates back to the silent genius of Buster Keaton, through The Marx Brothers movies and Olsen and Johnson's live-action looney toon movie Hellzapoppin'. In Britain, it was The Goons that took surreal and satirical comedy to extremes, inspiring the TV comedy of Monty Python's Flying Circus among many others. Hence Spike Milligan's cameo in Life of Brian, an onscreen tribute.

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn takes The Goons brand of comedy an important step further. Not only does it attempt to visualise a few of their famous radio characters, it adapts effortlessly into film. Fast-paced gags, asides to camera, lampoon, and twists on movie conventions. It's a clear forerunner of the straight-faced send-up of movie cliches, later monopolised by Airplane! and The Naked Gun, some of the most successful comedies ever. It hits a fast gag-a-minute pace that every comedy hopes for.

In fogbound London, a priceless but unwieldy antique disappears from a museum. A bumbling detective (Peter Sellers) and his dimwitted assistant (Spike Milligan) eventually investigate ("A robbery? Anything stolen?"). The trail leads to a pawnbrokers shop that has not three but four balls hanging outside ("Business must be good!"). From Scotland Yard to sleazy Soho, which of their suspects would steal this priceless musical monstrosity?

Superintendent Quilt is an obvious forerunner of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau character, who first appeared in The Pink Panther (1963), and then in the even better A Shot In The Dark (1964). The series often featured Sellers' love for heavily disguised characters, buried under wigs, moustaches, humps and hats. These props are also on display in Battle-Horn as Sellers portrays his effete boss Assistant Commissioner Jervis Fruit (in blond wig, above) and the crumbling hunchbacked pawnbroker Henry Crun. While made up as caricatures, his performances aren't overplayed like his co-stars. There's still a sense that these could be real characters, and Sellers is ready for acting them out on the big screen.

Besides playing his enthusiastic but stupid sidekick, writer and lunatic Spike Milligan successfully visualises his beloved character Eccles, an absolute idiot. His star turn in the film is as an unemployed silent movie actor...


Leading Goon member Harry Secombe is notably missing (the producer suggests that he wanted too much money). But he's ably replaced by multiple-personality TV comedian Dick Emery (above left), a big influence on Harry Enfield's TV sketch shows. Emery effortlessly fits into the madness, and it's a great shame he didn't collaborate further in anything else this mad. Harry Secombe had appeared in the previous Goons movie Down Among The Z-Men but it never impressed me as being nearly as successful or funny, strung out to feature-length - wedging Goons characters into a standard formula Brit-com. Secombe's better remembered as a powerful singer, and his role in Oliver! ("You want moooooore?").

The highlight for me is to see Sellers perform onscreen a regular Goon Show character - the very, very deaf and dusty, senile, doddering Henry Crun. While trying to tempt a cat out of a gramophone using a saucer of milk, he fails to communicate with his equally deaf and senile (offscreen) wife Minnie.


Trivia-wise, this short film also marks Michael Deeley's first production credit. He went on to produce, among others, The Italian Job, The Deer Hunter and Blade Runner, no less. In his amusing, recently published autobiography, he mentions Battle-Horn as the first film he ever produced - an unsuccessful attempt to pilot a Goons TV show to the US.

Battle-Horn took its structure and presentation from the Edgar Lustgarten Scotland Yard true-crime short films, which were also being shot at Merton Park Film Studios. More about the horror films also shot at Merton Park here.

The entire script is online here.

Apologies for the poor screengrabs, but I haven't found a better way to illustrate this.


It was a kick to see this in the cinema as a supporting feature when Monty Python and the Holy Grail was first released. Very little else came close to being a suitable second film.

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn used to appear on TV, but has since disappeared from view, surfacing once on home video on VHS (pictured). I'd hope this gem would be enjoying a better showcase by now. Not a broken one with a brick in it.

The British Film Institute have screened it recently, using a print donated by Michael Deeley. Hopefully they will also restore and release it for wider consumption...

There's a short clip on YouTube here...

Finished all your wrapping?

Wishing every visitor to the Black Hole, a very Black Christmas...

THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD (1975) - the first incarnation

THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD
(1975, USA)

Soon to be remade - but not on DVD

I must have just missed this in the cinemas back in 1975, but I caught the paperback (UK edition, pictured above). The photos spread in British monster mag World of Horror #9 (see below) intrigued me enough to want to see it. But I never found it on British TV and so, thirty years later, I look around for a DVD to find it's not been released. This is why I'm still buying VHS! Back to eBay, and I found an 1980s' US release (with really nasty artwork, pictured below).
In recent years, there've been several films about Buddha plus Vincent Ward's spectacular What Dreams May Come, all of which treated reincarnation fairly straightforwardly. But in the 1970s, the only genre interested in 'life after death' was horror. The Reincarnation of Peter Proud wasn't a big hit, so it's a surprise to see that director David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) is currently interested in a remake. it's an odd choice, but could be very interesting if it happens.
Peter Proud is having recurring dreams, of places he's never been, people he doesn't know, and in a time before he was born. Vividly, he also feels that he's been swimming in a lake at night, just before being violently murdered. While he tries to stop the dreams through sleep therapy and psychoanalysis, he starts to recognise elements of these dreams in real life. They're not in his imagination after all. A car, actual landmarks and eventually faces that are all familiar.

Past-life regression was one of many psychic bandwagons that got popular. Hypnotism helped people remember the experiences of their former selves (just before they started remembering alien abduction scenarios). When science fails him, Peter has to seek the advice of less conventional experts... But he quickly (too quickly) decides he's reincarnated and sets off in search of who he was in his previous life...

This is a very seventies, very adult thriller, strong on a sexual theme. It's a good example of just how far you could go in a mainstream film. While the men flashed their chests and bums, the women were expected to go further, more often - while baring their chests was a big deal, full frontal nudity was both encouraged and permitted.

Two of the actresses seem to have been picked for their willingness to get sexual, rather than be able to act. The result is that the film opens rather shakily with some rather flat punny dialogue. Not helped by Corinne O'Neil (Peter's girlfriend, Nora) who exclaims her way through the early scenes. But she looks good in bed, so she got the part I guess. There's a bizarre scene where even a helpful teenager tries to vamp Peter, and seems disappointed that she doesn't get jumped. Her only reason to be in the film is for a car washing scene in cutoff denim shorts - all very seventies. She's useless to the plot, except for making Peter look less like Mr Average and more like James Bond.

The acting settles down when Margot Kidder (inbetween Black Christmas and The Amityville Horror) and Jennifer O'Neill (before Scanners and Cover Up) get involved, though both get compulsory sex scenes. Kidder famously also gets very naked in the bath, during a flashback of a sexual assault. In true 70s style, it's ambiguous whether she's actually enjoying the memory.

But there's also man-flesh. Michael Sarrazin (pictured below on the CD cover) was a body beautiful back then, swanning around in a towel in Eye of the Cat, and being the perfect physical creation for Frankenstein - The True Story. But his physique is outclassed by actor Tony Stephano (also in Tron but nothing else), who reminds me a lot of Joe Dallesandro (Blood for Dracula, Flesh For Frankenstein) who, as far as I'm concerned, looked like raw sex. Stephano was also extremely fit and gets to show it all off, well, almost all. I also think that it's Stephano who's in the 'screaming' movie poster, and not Sarrazin.

From the end of the sixties (They Shoot Horses Don't They?, The Flim-Flam Man) through most of the seventies (For Pete's Sake, The Gumball Rally) Michael Sarrazin was a leading man. But none of his films have endured with any sizable success to keep his career outside of TV work, or ensure any sort of comeback like, say, Burt Reynolds. But at the time he was big and almost always the star. Good in both comedy and drama, he also did mainstream fantasy - Peter Proud, Frankenstein, Eye of the Cat and The Groundstar Conspiracy (where, after he survives a huge explosion, the authorities aren't sure whether or not he's an alien). I last saw him in the two recent Harry Alan Towers adaptions of Harry Palmer novels (Bullet To Beijing, Midnight In Saint Petersburg), the return of Michael Caine's cold war spy.

The excess of swinging sex is matched by 70s visuals, mostly frantic intercutting as the past 'flashes' into the present, when Peter's "pre-natal memories" start catching up on him. Like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he accidentally catches one of his dreamed images on TV. Like Friday the 13th, the trail of clues leads to Crystal Lake... I'm not making this up, see it for yourself!

The film is quite hypnotic. Maybe because it's from a different era (it feels odd to be looking back in time at a film that's looking back in time), but it has plenty to offer as a mystery, as to how it's all going to pan out. Also, it's not coy! I don't think there's nearly as much sex or nudity in mainstream horror (or thrillers) at the moment. There are some surprises from the director J. Lee Thompson (Happy Birthday to Me, Cape Fear (1962), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) as well as the actors. Interesting to see Margot Kidder playing in two different timeframes, old and young - let down slightly by the old-age make-up.

The rather linear, inevitable storyline has only one place to go... I guess An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge (1962, a short film showcased in The Twilight Zone) could've been more of an influence here than any real-life case.

For me the film was also spoilt by most of the publicity shots coming from the closing seconds of the movie! Audrey Rose (1977) also presented reincarnation as horror material and was a much bigger hit, perhaps because Anthony Hopkins was already a bigger star, but it bored me tears at the time and was certainly not as downright dirty.

Once again, the soundtrack was released on CD (pictured) while the film hasn't made it to DVD. Jerry Goldsmith's haunting score helps the film immeasurably, and includes some spooky burbling synthesizers to clue us in that we're on the edge of something strange.
As far as I can tell, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud last surfaced on home video in America on VHS. Hopefully David Fincher's project will revive interest in Max Ehrlich's novel, and inspire a DVD release. But perhaps Margot isn't keen on any more exposure...


This 1975 issue of World of Horror gave me an appetite to see The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Full of cartoons, fiction, movie news and gory colour photos, you can see that Fangoria wasn't the first magazine to have shocking front covers. The cover girl is Sheila Keith in Frightmare! Very eye-catching!

IT! (1967) - the golem from Merton Park Studios

IT!
(1967, UK)

Not the one with the killer clown...

 I wouldn't have bought this on DVD if IT! hadn't been on a double-bill with The Shuttered Room. But seeing a decent presentation of IT! has actually increased my appreciation of IT!. I used to dismiss this as one of my least favourite British horrors, but now IT!'s looking better than ever.

IT!'s still not great, but IT!'s never boring. I'm fascinated that IT! was made close to where I live. IT!'s also the only English-language movie about the golem, the mythical avenger from Jewish legend (more about the golem movies here).



After a warehouse fire, the museum owners are relieved and a little perplexed that a statue has survived completely unscathed. A further surprise is that the statue can be reanimated, follow orders and is virtually indestructible. Knowledge is power, but the only one who knows about it has small dreams, using the golem to get his boss's job and the girl of his dreams.

Quite an ambitious story for Merton Park Film Studios, this also has recognisable locations, by the River Thames at Hammersmith Bridge and in front of the Imperial War Museum. There are even a few visual effects of varying success, though nothing to match the potential scale of the story - especially in the climax. There's some simple modelwork on display and IT! has an impressive monster suit.



An added twist is that the man with the power is a little bit Norman Bates. He still keeps his mummified Mum around the house - a dessicated corpse almost more impressive than the golem outfit. I'd assumed that IT! looked melted because of the warehouse fire, but we soon learn IT!'s indestructible! I'm now guessing that the film-makers couldn't breach any copyrights by using the look from previous golem movies, hence the very different face.



With so much meat for a horror story, the film falls short by lacking in atmosphere and pulling its punches with any action scenes. There's plenty of murder but it's unimaginatively shot and mostly offscreen. It it wasn't for a semi-nude scene by Jill Haworth, IT! could easily pass with the lowest rating.



The fun is in the cast - Roddy McDowall is the main man, the year before he became his most popular screen character - an ape. As Cornelius, then Caesar, then Galen in the Planet of the Apes franchise, where he appeared in four of the original five films, as well as the TV series. He was also no stranger to the horror genre (like The Legend of Hell House, Fright Night) and is as famous for his voice (The Mad Hatter in Batman: The Animated Series and VINCENT in The Black Hole). Here he's at his paranoid best, especially in a nightmare scene that illuminates his character's obsessions far more than his dialogue does.

The obsessional love interest is Jill Haworth, who found fame in Exodus, but soon slipped into genre roles. She was in the classic The Outer Limits ('The Sixth Finger' episode), as well as Tower of Evil, and my favourite of hers The Haunted House Of Horror. In IT! she's less pro-active than her other roles, reduced to the classic 'mummy carrying a girl' cliche that ad-men loved to use in their posters.

Canadian-born Paul Maxwell was getting plenty of work in the sixties, adding an authentic North American accent to movies aimed at the international market. Here he gets some onscreen heroics to match his macho voice, which was so useful for beefing up Gerry Anderson's puppet characters. Maxwell voiced Steve Zodiac, the space-hero of Fireball XL5 and Captain Grey from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Here's a chance to see him in the flesh.

Horror fans may spot a young Ian McCulloch, before he became one of TV's original Survivors and famously battled the Zombie Flesh Eaters, but he barely gets a word in, in this his movie debut.



The movie has been digitally remastered anamorphic widescreen, and definition and Eastmancolour have never looked better. IT! is on a double-bill DVD with the Lovecraftian The Shuttered Room (pictured above).

Now I'm off to look around for the strange castle used in the climax - it's got to be around here somewhere...

Horror in suburbia! The cult films from Merton Park Studios

My local horror film factory...

Merton Park had one of the many small suburban film studios spread around the outer reaches of London. They flourished when there was a demand for different weekly movies with full-length supporting B-movies. The government also had a tax incentive that ensured a regular proportion of films in British cinemas had been produced in Britain.

Operating between 1929 and 1967, Merton Park Studios had a long-running success with adaptions of Edgar Wallace crime dramas. But when I noticed the studios' name also cropping up on horror movies, I was excited that a few world-famous cult films had been made locally. Not necessarily 'cult' because they were any good, though!

Perhaps the best-known movie to be made here is the King Kong knock-off Konga, which used a 'man in a suit' years before Dino De Laurentiis visited Skull Island. It's a cheap monster movie but great fun for Michael Gough's cruel character and shouty performance. The guy in the gorilla suit is continually hilarious.

Of course, it's a different story from King Kong in that a scientist turns a baby chimpanzee into a giant gorilla (!!?). Konga doesn't climb the Empire State Building, he stands next to Big Ben while the army launch rockets past him. Well, actually Croydon High Street stood in for Westminster. I love the fact that places local to where I live have been seen around the world because of these films. (Full review of Konga here).

Low-budget producer Herman Cohen (Berserk!, Black Zoo) also shot Horrors of the Black Museum at Merton Park, also starring Michael Gough. It's infamous for the eye-gouging binoculars which caused a stir in 1959, with accusations of 'sadism' from film critics. The story's finale was filmed in South London's Battersea Funfair, just before Gorgo flattened it.





The other horror films shot at Merton Park Studios may be less familiar...

Ghost Ship (1952) is an early drama made at the studios, but with extensive location work. It's an amateurish suburban mystery which pads out the running time at every opportunity. The saving grace is that this is the earliest film I've seen to star Hazel Court - predating even Devil Girl From Mars. Amazingly, it's on DVD in the UK.

Another B-movie quickie, made to support Horrors of the Black Museum, The Headless Ghost (1959) was also produced by Herman Cohen. Drearily-paced and unfunny, the only saving grace is having a spectral Clive Revill, a twist on his turn as a ghostbuster in The Legend of Hell House. Plus there's an uncredited appearance by Janina Faye (Horror of Dracula, Day of the Triffids). This is also on DVD in the UK!





The Projected Man (1966) and Devil Doll both starred Bryant Haliday, who had a short run of leading horror roles (with Curse of Voodoo and Tower of Evil). On DVD in the UK (but edge-cropped to 16:9 - only the UK VHS has the full 2.35 widescreen Techniscope image)





Devil Doll (1964) will only work if you're freaked out by ventriloquist dummies, but Dead of Night (1945) did it better. This is also inspired by Svengali, but John Barrymore did it better. William Sylvester (2001: A Space Odyssey) and Yvonne Romain (Curse of the Werewolf) in the cast help considerably. On DVD in the UK.

Hopefully the 'hospital' location in Invasion (1965) is still around for me to visit. In the story, the building is cut off from the outside world when two (Japanese?) aliens visit Earth. Invasion is a good example of the 'pub invasion' genre, where Earth-shattering events take place while witnessed from a confined space. 

First contact is made with a handful of humans, as opposed to the whole world like in The Day The Earth Stood Still. This scenario is of course perfect for low budgets (see also The Man From Planet X, Devil Girl From Mars, Target: Earth, Night of the Big Heat, and The Earth Dies Screaming). It stars the late Edward Judd of First Men In the Moon, Island of Terror and The Day the Earth Caught Fire.

While I'd once rated the golem horror IT! (1967) as one of the worst British horrors of this era, I've actually changed my mind since seeing the recent DVD. It stars the ever watchable Roddy McDowall and Jill Haworth. Full review here.

 

But The Frozen Dead (1966) is pretty bad. Plodding action and a complete waste of a good Nazi zombie idea. Bizarre that a young Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal) plays a mute zombie soldier. An extensive use of locations makes me wonder whether this was shot after the studios had closed - the interiors look like they might have been locations too. Maybe not as bad as The Blood Beast Terror (a killer moth) and The Vulture (a were-bird).

Merton Park's best known non-horror film must be The Leather Boys (1963). A 'kitchen sink' drama set in the South of England for a change. Rita Tushingham (from A Taste of Honey) accuses her new young husband that he'd rather hang out with another motorcycle buddy than stay at home with her. 

The original book was a little more explicit at hinting at the relationship between Colin Campbell and Dudley Sutton's characters. The movie is affectionately heralded for its snapshot of many bygone London locations, including bikers' hangout, the Ace Cafe, which is still there today.

Timeslip (aka The Atomic Man, 1955) stars Faith Domergue (This Island Earth) and Peter Arne in a twisty high-tech (for 1955) thriller that makes British B-movies look respectable! Full review here.





The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn (1956) is only twenty minutes long, but deserves a special mention for the blossoming talent that it captured. There's an early multiple role for Peter Sellers (Dr Strangelove, The Pink Panther) as well as an early producer's role for Michael Deeley, long before he made The Italian Job and Blade Runner.  It's also the best visual record of the influential humour of The Goons radio show. This short but very funny film is the rare jewel in Merton Park Studio's filmography. For a full illustrated review, follow the above link.

MERTON PARK FILM STUDIO HORROR FILMS

The Ghost Ship (1952)

Horrors of the Black Museum (1959)

The Headless Ghost (1959)

Konga (1961)

Devil Doll (1964)

Invasion (1965)

The Projected Man (1966)

IT! (1967)

The Frozen Dead (1967)

This week, I visited the only building still standing from the studio complex. The Long Lodge (the long black building near the bottom of the map) was used as the studio's headquarters. The neighbouring Leather Bottle pub, (at the bottom left of the map) is also still around. The lodge can be found on the Kingston Road, opposite a small parade of shops between Raynes Park and Wimbledon, and has two commemorative plaques outside (pictured) which I feel rather sells it short.

For more information, here's a recent article by movie expert Tise Vahimagi, about the Edgar Wallace thrillers that were shot at Merton Park Studios.

The British Movie Forum has a short thread about the studios, through which I found the rare floor plan.

LOFT (2006) Kiyoshi Kurosawa's toys in the attic

LOFT
(2005, Japan, Shi no otome)

A young writer is sent to a remote house to concentrate on her next novel. But she notices some strangeness happening in the house opposite. Like a handsome man carrying what looks like a dead body in a sheet. Intrigued by both him and what he's doing, she investigates the house and discovers a 1000-year old corpse. The mummified body might also be connected to why she's started vomiting up black mud...

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo (Pulse) helped lead the J-horror boom - with even more creepiness than Ring and matching it's shock moments as well. I've kept trying his movies, enjoying Sakebi (Retribution) despite not fully understanding it. Kurosawa's films seem to fit inside the horror genre, but often meander into the world of arthouse, where symbolism and mood are often more important than story. I've enjoyed his films by immersing myself in their atmosphere, without concentrating too much on the intricacies of narrative and character and what he's actually trying to say.

But I'm annoyed with Loft. Spoiling a perfectly fine horror film in the last segment of the film. While slow-moving, there's plenty of scares and creep-outs, but suddenly the characters are acting all, well, out-of-character and the cameraman seems to, well, fall over. It then gets back on track after a strange series of creative freakouts, but the final capper to the whole film hangs on a very poor special effect, that could almost be an intentional joke, and a pratfall. I'm not amused.

You'll have probably seen the leading actors - Miki Nakatani as Reiko the writer, also played Mai in Ring and Ring 2 as well as starring in Memories of Matsuko. Etsushi Toyokawa as the distinctive-looking professor was also the black-clad super-baddie in Yokai Daisenso - The Great Goblin War.

This reviewer for Cinema Strikes Back identifies elements of satire in the film - I wish I'd known beforehand. But even accepting that the director is playing with the genre, there are several sloppy scare moments that simply look mis-timed (like the hand on the corner of the window, featured heavily in the posters).


Unsurprisingly, this hasn't been rushed into a DVD release in the west, despite the director's cult reputation and the intriguing trailer. I found this on DVD in Malaysia (from PMP) which has very good English subtitles, but the picture has been savagely cropped from widescreen to full screen by simply lopping off both sides (a crude 'centre-cut' to adapt the widescreen image to old-style TVs). Not the best way to see a carefully visual film, but the only subtitled DVD I know of.

Loft is one of those films that I'll need to read more about before I stand a chance of appreciating it. In the meantime, I'd better take a break and try out one of Kurosawa's non-horror movies. Tokyo Sonata looks very promising...

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981) - 28 years later...

MY BLOODY VALENTINE
(Canada, 1981)

This beats Friday the 13th, any day of the week!

I'm pretty sure I saw this supporting Friday the 13th - Part 2 in a Bournemouth cinema while Lady Diana and Prince Charles were getting married (July 29th, 1981). The Royal Wedding was on every TV in the country and I wanted to escape somewhere until it was all over...

The original My Bloody Valentine has always been a solid horror movie, but the many shock moments were severely castrated by censor cuts. Practically every kill is cut down so much that you barely know what has actually happened. What was worse is that there were some great colour photos of the make-up effects in Fangoria magazine showing us what we'd missed.

Through the years, each release on home video - VHS, laserdisc, all the way upto the first Paramount DVD release - I was hoping for some cut footage to reappear. But even the DVD was the same censored version.

Then in 2006 came the entertaining and fact-packed documentary about the 80's slasher movie genre, Going to Pieces. In the DVD extras was the tantalising news that the director of My Bloody Valentine, George Mihalka, had held onto the uncut version. Thankfully this has lead to a full restoration.

Now, I've finally watched the Special Edition, released on DVD earlier this year, ending a 28 year wait to see the version that I'd always wanted, with all the scenes promised in those early issues of Fangoria. This new version is a slasher that surpasses the early Friday the 13th movies on almost every level.

In Valentine Bluffs, a Canadian mining town, preparations for a Valentine's Day party are underway. But the Sheriff and the Mayor are getting nervous because the last time they had such a celebration, a lot of folks got killed by an insane miner brandishing a pick-axe. They haven't celebrated the occasion for nearly twenty years, until now. As February 14th gets closer, it looks like the date is indeed cursed. Also, the biggest Valentine's party picked the worst location possible, near the entrance to the town's coal mine...

Near the start of the story, someone gets a rhyming Valentine card and a gory present that feels exactly like the end of the 'Poetic Justice' segment if Tales From The Crypt (1972), in turn based on the EC horror comic story. But after that it's a familiar blend of sexed-up youngsters (miners, not minors) and gory mayhem, right down to the barman who could be a close relation of Friday the 13th's Crazy Ralph. "It could be you!" is his way of saying "You're next" to die horribly, rather than a prophecy of a lottery win.

Like Friday the 13th, I didn't recognise any of the actors, and the atmosphere is helped enormously by extensive location filming, that keeps everything looking real, even though some of the acting isn't. The leads are all very strong, with stern silent hero-type T.J. (Paul Kelman) looking a lot like a young Rufus Sewell. My least favourite is the goof-off character who manages to make all his friends laugh by making the worst jokes possible.

But My Bloody Valentine is very different from Friday the 13th in many ways. The drama actually works, with the older townsfolk looking very nervous about the town's nasty secrets, and two of the miners caught in a painful smalltown love triangle.


While Tom Savini's effects for the first Friday were convincing, they were barely glimpsed. The murders in My Bloody Valentine are more complex and sustained, often with a 'double-whammy'. They take the more realistic take that murder is often prolonged and painful. At the same time they dreamt up some unique kills for the slasher genre. Even the photos of the body being dragged along the ground, a pick-axe skewering the jaw of the victim, look remarkably convincing.

The scene in the showers is famous for its pay-off, but I found the build-up particularly unsettling, with prolonged takes of the victim being carried along, held by her head, shown from the point-of-view of the murderer, shining his helmet-lamp into her terrified face. Yes, it's intense and horrifying - in Friday the 13th it's almost over before it begins.

The FX are remarkably convincing for the most part, at a time when everyone was trying to perfect prosthetic gory effects to top the last. For the first time I noticed a hand 'wobble', in the game where two macho miners play the 'stabbing the table between the fingers' game (also used in Aliens). Looks like they were using a very convincing prosthetic hand - I thought they found a couple of experts to do it for real!

While the many of the characters are 'up for it', and this is an unofficial entry in the get drunk, 'have-sex-then-die' genre, sex is treated far differently than the usual half-naked girl wandering around with a knife. The opening scene cleverly confuses expectations in an underground triste, the best pool player in town is a flouncy-looking blonde, when the hero is in a fight the women don't just stand around and cower - they join in, and my particular favourite, a guy actually gets a condom out before sex. This is so very rare in movies nowadays, let alone 1981! It's a more adult attitude, and a bucking of the cliches. After watching a lot of horror films, I've gotten very tired of the cliches.


Lastly, while Friday the 13th took three films to sort out the iconic look of Jason, My Bloody Valentine hits the ground running with the awesome image of the miner dressed in black, with a gas mask covering the face. The pick-axe completes a really scary look. But with most of the blood diluted by censorship (Friday the 13th had cuts as well), the film disappeared without a sequel, maybe because it didn't have a catchy ad campaign, and the killer doesn't have a nick-name. I don't know why, but it didn't catch on - but now it's one of my favourites of the slasher genre.


The new Special Edition Lionsgate DVD has the option to watch both the original cinema release or the new restored version - both work seamlessly. There's also an interesting interview with the director and a couple of the cast, (why build sets when everything you need is 2000 feet underground?) and Ken Diaz (The Thing, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Tom Burman (The Manitou, The Exterminator, Grey's Anatomy) talk about how their impressive special effects were done.

The restored, original trailer of the 1981 My Bloody Valentine is here on YouTube...

I'm a Horror Blogger - official!

Zombo's Closet of Horror is a blog that casts a wide eye over the genre - my recent favourite was a look at the family who built their own full-size recreation of The Munster's mansion...

Zombo has cleverly realised that bloggers love talking about themselves, and regularly invites horror specialists to write about motivations and interests. I was recently invited to join the party and Zombo, John Cozzoli, published it today. Thank you very much for the opportunity, John.

Read it here... Meet The Horror Bloggers - Black Hole Reviews