Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält (1970)

... aka: Austria 1700
... aka: Brenn, Hexe, brenn
... aka: Burn, Witch, Burn
... aka: Hexen
... aka: Satan
... aka: Witches Are Tortured to Death

Directed by:
Michael Armstrong
Adrian Hoven (uncredited)

Shortly after its 1970 premiere in West Germany, Mark of the Devil (originally Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält or "Witches Are Tortured to Death") was banned in its country of origin; a ban that would last until 2008! It also had issues with censorship in the UK and the very first public screening of the uncut version wouldn't occur until 2013 (!!) However, most of the film's true infamy was created by an effectively crude American advertising campaign in 1972. Distributor Hallmark Releasing Corp. whipped up a memorable poster which boasted that it was "Positively the most horrifying film ever made," claimed it was "the first film rated V for violence" and even promised it was "Guaranteed to upset your stomach." Not content to rest on just those self-implied lowbrow laurels, they then went a step further: "Due to the horrifying scenes no one is admitted without a vomit bag." And that's exactly what patrons received upon entrance to see this one. Morbid curiosity meant audiences just couldn't keep away and they turned this into a money-maker. Clearly made in response to the hit WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968) starring Vincent Price, Mark actually managed to out-gross that film by a considerable margin due to the effective marketing. Witchfinder director Michael Reeves was originally even lined up to direct this one, too, but was replaced by British director Michael Armstrong after his untimely death.

In recent interviews, Armstrong revealed he was first given a script by his agent called "The Witch Hunter Doctor Dracula," written by the film's producer, Adrian Hoven. Armstrong hated it and got permission to re-write the whole thing. Only keeping the witch hunting theme, he decided to highlight the religious hypocrisy, crass violence and corrupt political state of the era. The finished script ended up being credited to the pseudonyms "Sergio Casstner" (Armstrong) and "Percy Parker" (Hoven). Hoven apparently wasn't pleased by any of this and there was a lot of tension on-set between the two men. At one point, Hoven even went behind the director's back to film many scenes not in the new screenplay (featuring himself and two of his children) that ended up in the finished product much to Armstrong's chagrin.

Sensationalism is all over ever frame of the opening sequences as we bear witness to all of the expected things that occur when religion isn't kept in check. You know, things like a caravan of nuns being hijacked so that they can be raped and murdered. That's followed by some good Christian tortures that involve a man having his hand chopped off before being stripped, tarred and feathered and sent into a crowd of laughing, leering townsfolk who are instructed to chase him through the streets until he keels over. Next up, two young women are hung up by their wrists and slowly lowered into a fire, making sure to curse their executioners before being engulfed in flames. A title card then informs us that "In Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries, it is estimated that nearly eight million people were convicted of heresy and executed by fanatical witch hunters, in order to save their souls." [Later scholarly estimates based on available data are MUCH lower, usually placing the actual death toll somewhere between 35 and 70 thousand.]

Heading over all this torture, rape and murder of innocents is a nasty, sniveling, self-serving witch-finder named Albino (Reggie Nalder), who's involved in these bogus convictions, torture sessions and executions strictly for his own benefit and uses his position of power for money, sex and to satiate his own sadistic desires. Unfortunately for him, he's only a "local authority" and royalty has sent out a notorious state-appointed witch-hunter named Lord Cumberland (Herbert Lom) to clean up the countryside. Arriving in the small Austrian village prior to Cumberland is his naive, well-meaning apprentice Count Christian von Meruh (handsome young Udo Kier) and chief executioner Jeff Wilkens (Herbert Fux), who's "the most famous head-chopper in all of Europe." Fearing his position is being threatened, especially considering he's been bypassing official trials and heading straight to the torture fun, Albino coerces an advocate (Johannes Buzalski) to forge papers and up the amount of convictions and executions prior to the Lord's arrival.

Getting caught up in all this are a number of people, most notably feisty barmaid Vanessa Benedikt (Olivera "Vuco" / Katarina), who falls in love with Christian but finds herself high up on Albino's shit list after slicing up his face when he attempts to rape her. Vanessa is whipped, convicted of having "illicit intercourse with the Devil" and thrown into a cell to await her fate as a succession of others wrongly convicted come to join her. Expelled nun Deirdre von Bergenstein (Gaby Fuchs) is raped and impregnated by a high-ranking bishop and thus convicted of carrying the devil's child. Young Baron Daumer (Michael Maien), who's just inherited a great deal of money from his deceased father, is accused of being possessed but only because the church wants their hands on his fortune. A nobleman / puppeteer (Hoven) and his wife (Ingeborg Schöner) are accused of crafting "human dolls that speak" and are thrown into the slammer along with their two young children. In between all of the torture scenes, Christian starts to see the light about how diseased and corrupt his mentor and others claiming to do God's work really are.

Since this same exact story had just been told, and told better, the previous year by the aforementioned Witchfinder General, this depends almost entirely on exploitation elements to differentiate itself from the pack. The good news is that if you're into screaming, torture, blood and misery, this has plenty of that to go around. There are many whippings, bloody lashings and slashings, fingers crushed in vices, bodies stretched out on racks, severed arms, legs and heads and a man driven mad by a water drip. Some of the more interesting torture techniques include feet burned with a hot iron, a tongue getting ripped out and ass torture where a man is forced to sit on spikes and then a hot seat where a fire is lit right under his bum. During an eye gouging, a bizarre cartoon effect has been added. This also includes a dash on nudity courtesy of Fuchs (who went on to play the female lead in THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN) and Dorothea Carrera as a young woman surprised in bed with her lover. Some of that and some of the grislier violence (as much as ten minutes) were censored in many countries over the years. The full uncut run time is 97 minutes.

Mark is fairly well-produced, with solid production values, sets, costumes and locations, and benefits from a strong cast, with especially good contributions from Lom, Nalder and Fux. It also deserves a bonus credit for being an early exploitation shocker hit with a cleaver and successful marketing campaign. However, it's also dreary, slow-moving and just not as compelling or well-made or artful as some of the other movies it shares company with and thus pretty forgettable on the whole. The fact the director and producer weren't seeing eye to eye is also evident whenever this sidesteps into unnecessary subplots that add nothing to the film.

After the film proved successful, Hoven quickly churned out an official, now-hard-to-find sequel: Mark of the Devil Part II (1973), which brought back Nalder and a few of the other actors for more of the same. Other bogus "sequels" later popped up on home video here in America but all of these were simply re-titled European horrors that had nothing to do with the original. Mark of the Devil 3 was actually the Mexican shocker Alucarda (1977), Mark of the Devil 4 was the Paul Naschy film HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB (1973) and Mark of the Devil Part V was used for the original "Blind Dead" film Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972).

★★1/2

Dorian Gray (1970)

...aka: Bildnis des Dorian Gray, Das
...aka: Dio chiamoto Dorian, Il

...aka: Evils of Dorian Gray, The

...aka: Portrait of Dorian Gray, The

...aka: Secret of Dorian Gray, The

Directed by:

Massimo Dallamano

Oscar Wilde's famous allegorical novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which was first published in 1890, was a key adapted literary piece of the silent film era. There were versions of it made in 1910, 1913, 1915 (one filmed in the US, the other in Russia), 1916, 1917 and 1918 (which featured a young Bela Lugosi). Of those, only the the 1916 version (directed by Fred W. Durrant and starring Henry Victor) remains. What most rightfully consider the definitive screen version of the tale came in 1945. Directed by Albert Lewin for MGM, it starred Hurd Hattfield as Dorian, featured scene-stealing work from George Sanders and Angela Lansbury and was gorgeously photographed by Harry Stradling Sr., who received a well-deserved Academy Award for his work. The tale then layed dormant for about twenty-five years until it was resurrected once again by producers Harry Alan Towers and Samuel Z. Arkoff, two pioneering forces in the exploitation business. They tapped Italian-born Massimo Dallamano (who'd go on to make the popular giallo WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO SOLANGE? a year later) to direct and co-write the film, and brought along a cast of familiar faces for a version so over-the-top trashy that it was critically annihilated upon release.

Aesthetically speaking, Helmut Berger was an ideal casting choice as Dorian, the man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Blonde, blue-eyed Berger is about as non-threateningly pretty as any man can be, which is crucial here because his allure is supposed to captivate men and women alike. His Dorian begins as a naive, well-meaning sort who has simplistic views on everything but quickly becomes victim to his own ego. Herbert Lom, surprisingly great in his off-beat role, co-stars as Henry Wotton; here an intelligent, gay, wealthy, worldly art collecter who cleverly manipulates those around him to get exactly what he wants. He has his eye on Dorian; slowly and methodically chipping away at his flimsy, half-formed ideals about life and love, and ensuring Dorian's budding relationship with virginal young actress Sybil Vane (Marie Liljedahl) stops before it really has a chance to begin.

Henry scares Dorian with his comments about aging ("One day you'll be old, wrinkled and ugly... We degenerate into hideous puppets."), encourages Dorian to be sexually experimental, not tie himself down, accompany him to parties where he can hobnob with filthy rich swingers and use his good looks to get whatever he wants. Henry's comments have also prompted Dorian to swear away his soul for eternal youth by a portrait his painter friend Basil Hallward (Richard Todd) has just made of him. Sybil is hit and killed by a car and once Dorian is exposed to the new jetset lifestyle and its kinky players, he's hooked and things begin spiralling out of control. Just as in most of the other adaptations of the story, Dorian remains his youthful self throughout the years as his painting tells of his true age.

Some have brushed this off as a silly piece of soft-core Euro-porn and I'm not going to argue with that sentiment. However, I have to say that I quite enjoyed the amped-up sexual compotent of this film and the places the director goes. The set-ups for the skin scenes, which range from innocent and sexy to seedy and discomforting, are sometimes so gloriously campy that you can't help but laugh. During one scene, Berger bends a wealthy old bat (Isa Miranda) over in a stable and has anal sex with her right next to a horse! My favorite bit though has to be when Berger (immediately after having sex with two different women) hops in the shower, drops the soap and a hand is shown grabbing it off the floor, only to reveal it's a heavily rouged/ mascara-wearing Lom using the opportunity to hop into the shower with him! And yes, Dorian does reciprocate.

One of Dorian's other lovers is Henry's equally predatory sister Gwendolyn (Maragaret Lee), who is bisexual and likes to be smacked around with a belt. Dorian also becomes an adult film star (!), has sex with a muscular black dude in a public toilet and attends a candlelit orgy at "The House of Pleasure," among other things. There's a cabaret musical number with a drag queen stripper, a nightclub called "The Black Cock" and sex scenes on a theater stage, in a field, on a yacht and on a beach. The porno director who Dorian works for is, interestingly enough, played by a black actress (Beryl Cunningham). While there is plenty of nudity, some of the sex is done subtlely or implied, and many of the scenes are strangely obscured when the camera dips behind tree branches, potted plants and curtains. The slapdash sexuality in this movie was unexpected (certainly pretty risque for the time) and actually kind of wonderful.

Visually, there are some very nice touches here. The film opens with an intriguing shot of bloody hands stretched out in front of the camera as it travels down stairs up to a kitchen sink followed by another elaborate camera shot tracking through a house with swank 70s decor. Dallamano also seems to have a way of making certain colors literally jump out of the screen at you, such as when Dorian takes his very red car on a drive through the lush green countryside. The settings are nice, the costuming is really interesting and they even throw in several disco scenes for us to snicker at.

Co-stars include Renato Romano as Dorian's former college friend, Maria Rohm (who is pitifully wasted here) as his wife, Eleonora Rossi Drago as a swinger and Stewart Black as Sybil's over-protective brother, who likely has incestuous designs on her and blames Dorian for her death. Liljedahl also gets to return after her death playing a woman named Gladys, who's a dead ringer for Sybil. It was filmed in London with Italian and West German backing. A cut VHS version was released here in America through Republic Pictures, but there's no official DVD for this one. The version I saw ran 98 minutes and uses the alt. title THE SECRET OF DORIAN GRAY (though it was packaged as the title I have listed here).

"Today, beauty is more important than genius." Indeed.

★★1/2

Asylum (1972)

...aka: House of Crazies
...aka: House on the Strand

Directed by:
Roy Ward Baker

The fourth of eight horror omnibus' from Amicus, and an above average one which benefits primarily from an excellent cast. The inmates of an insane asylum tell a visiting young psychiatrist (Robert Powell) three tales of horrifying madness and revenge, most of which deal with the supernatural. It's his job to then decide which of the inmates is actually a former doctor who has gone off the deep end to impress potential employer Dr. Rutherford (Patrick Magee). The first story - "Frozen Fear" concerns a man (Richard Todd) and his mistress (Barbara Parkins) who off his wife (Sylvia Syms), chop of the body and put the severed (but wrapped up) limbs in a freezer. Incredibly, the parts return to life to exact revenge. A severed head rolling around and breathing through the wrapping are creepy, memorable images. It's like the disembodied hand segment in Amicus' first anthology DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965), only amplified. The second story - "The Weird Tailor" finds financially strapped tailor Barry Morse assigned to construct a glowing suit made out of special fabric by elderly customer Peter Cushing, who is grief stricken over the recent death of his son. You can see just where this one's going, but excellent performances from the two lead actors make it worthwhile. Next up is "Lucy Comes to Stay;" which involves mentally unstable Barbara (Charlotte Rampling), who has just been released from an asylum, supposedly cursed of her schizophrenia. Her sneaky blonde "friend" (Britt Ekland), who was responsible for her getting put away to begin with, shows up and leads her back down a path or mayhem and murder.

The stories (all written by Robert Bloch) are fairly predictable but entertaining nonetheless and everything is neatly linked together by the framing segments, which themselves turn into a fourth story (titled "Mannikins of Horror") that features Herbert Lom as a doll maker dabbling in voodoo and soul transference. The cast includes James Villiers, Megs Jenkins (The Innocents) and Geoffrey Bayldon. House of Crazies is an alternate version to avoid with a running time of 86 minutes (6 minutes missing).

★★★

La setta (1991) [filmed in 1990]

... aka: Demons 4
... aka: Demons IV: The Sect

... aka: Devil's Daughter, The

... aka: La secta
... aka: Sect, The

Directed by:

Michele Soavi

I'm through with Michele Soavi! Through with his horror-ography, that is. Finally seen them all, from the 1985 documentary Dario Argento's World of Horror to 1994's Cemetery Man. It always feels good to see everything a director has to offer, right? My last watch is his 1991 film La setta aka The Sect, which was filmed over a two month period starting in September 1990 so it can be included here. The film was released here in America under an awful and misleading title I don't even want to type out again. There are some awesome visuals in here, along with nicely done production design courtesy of Massimo Antonello Geleng, excellent cinematography from Raffaele Mertes and a great score composed by Pino Donaggio. In addition, this thing is filled with perplexing, off-the-wall ideas that will make most viewers go "WTF?!," but, I think, in a good way. It's the first time I recall seeing a woman getting raped by a bird or a bunny rabbit using a remote control, that's for sure!

Unfortunately, like most of Michele's other movies, the dialogue is diabolical(ly awful), some of the lead actors are terrible and much of the story seems swiped from a popular movie directed by Roman Polanski. I'm sure you've heard of it before. While Polanski's film was a solid piece of work from top to bottom, Soavi's can be referred to as "ROSEMARY'S BABY: All dressed up with no place to go." Sometimes I get the impression that certain directors try to be weird for the sake of being weird, but lack the focus or talent to bring it all together in a cohesive, satisfying way, and Soavi has seemed to straddle that fence throughout his career.

Things start with a bunch of hippies (cue "Horse With No Name") being killed by cult members in California during the 1970s before jumping ahead 20 years to Frankfurt, Germany. Jamie Lee Curtis' sister Kelly Curtis stars in this one as an emotionally unstable school teacher. You can certainly see a family resemblance, though Kelly is more beautiful in my humble opinion. The major difference between the two is that Jamie Lee can act and Kelly cannot. Herbert Lom co-stars (and gives one of the film's only good performances) as an elderly, dying man Curtis almost runs over and then lets stay in her home. Lom carries around a mystery box he won't let anyone else touch, keeps drinking water and has special drops he keeps putting into his eyes. He sneaks a beetle into a sleeping Curtis' nose and from then on out things go all kinds of bat shit weird as her tap water turns an unnatural color of blue, her pet bunny starts watching TV, a piece of cloth starts trying to smother people, she starts hallucinating about wind chimes and a long tunnel leading about a mile underground is found in a secret room in her cellar (which she didn't know was there despite being in the home for eight months).

Describing the plot or trying to make sense out of it, is pretty much fighting an uphill battle, but it's best to describe this one as the aforementioned Rosemary's Baby spiced up with odd, sometimes surreal flourishes. There's a cult at work here, and Curtis is the innocent target, and people she knows and trusts are actually conspiring against her and the birth of the Antichrist may be a chief objective of the bad guys and, yeah, you know the rest. The ending tries to tie it all together, but it's muddled and lacking in motivation. The film is devoid of the characterization, strong performances, suspense, increasing paranoia and claustrophobia of Polanski's movie, even though there's plenty to enjoy from a strictly visual standpoint. But at the end of the day, it did manage to keep me both interested and entertained throughout.

La Setta was written by Soavi, Dario Argento (also one of three producers) and some other chap and features supporting performances from Euro horror regulars Mariangela Giordano (Peter Bark's generous mama in Burial Ground) as Curtis' friend, Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka John Morghen aka the guy who doesn't really like horror flicks but gets typecast in them anyway) as a guy who cuts out a woman's heart for some reason or another, Tomas Arana (star of Soavi's The Church) as a bearded cult leader, Donald O'Brien (Dr. Butcher, Medical Deviate) and more. Soavi appears in a cameo on a TV set and supposedly Daria Nicolodi is in it (at least according to IMDb), even though I don't recall seeing her anywhere.

A brief overview of the films of Michele Soavi:

Il mondo dell'orrore di Dario Argento (Dario Argento's World of Horror) (1985) - Ironically, this documentary about the films of that other popular Italian director (whom Soavi obviously is heavily inspired by and used to work for) is among my favorite of Soavi's work. It's very well done. ★★★

The Valley (1985) - A horror-ific 4-minute music video for Bill Wyman's piece from Argento's Phenomena, complete with a young Jennifer Connelly. Cheese-city baby, even for the 80s. ★1/2

Deliria (Stage Fright) (1987) - Sometimes visually interesting, but otherwise routine Italian slasher (or "giallo" if you think everything made in Italy involving a killer is a giallo). It's been awhile since I last saw this one, but it didn't wow me much when I did. I may give it a re-watch sometime. ★★1/2

La chiesa (The Church) (1989) - An excellent first half (including a great period-set prologue of Teutonic knights slaughtering villagers) becomes way too silly in the second as a bunch of annoying people become trapped in an ancient cathedral where demons take over. Strong visuals and score, but indifferent acting, leaden pacing and poor dialogue keep it from greatness. There's also a silly direct copy of a scene from ROSEMARY'S BABY. Does Soavi love that movie, or what? ★★1/2

La setta (The Sect) (1991) - Looking over my other ratings, apparently I saved the best of Soavi's horror flicks - which seems to be his least talked about, for last. Color my surprised. ★★★

Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man) (1994) - I could write a thesis paper on the many ways this film simultaneously irritates me and leaves me colder than the corpses Rupert Everett keeps taking down, but I'll pass. ★★

*Mr. Soavi has seemed to turn his attention to Italian made-for-TV movies in recent years. I'm not sure if any of those qualify as "horror" or not.

Phantom of the Opera, The (1962)

Directed by:

Terence Fisher

Review coming soon.

★★★