Operazione paura (1966)

...aka: Curse of the Dead

...aka: Curse of the Living Dead

...aka: Don't Walk in the Park

...aka: Kill, Baby... Kill!

...aka: Operation Fear

Directed by:

Mario Bava

Don't let the stupid American title (Kill, Baby... Kill!) or even the vague and somewhat misleading original release title (Operation Fear) keep you from enjoying this gem of Gothic horror. It's very easy to find on various bargain horror collections but you'll need to do your research if you want the full visual experience. The two best releases to date have come from Dark Sky (who strangely recalled the film soon after releasing it so now it's hard to find) and Anchor Bay (who offer it in their Mario Bava Collection, Volume 1 box set, which is still easy to find at an affordable price). There are few horror films I can think of off hand that can match this film's densely beautiful color cinematography, imaginative camerawork and atmospheric art direction. It's not only amazing to look at, but it's also competently plotted and has plenty of memorably eerie moments. Far from a masterwork when it comes to conventional storytelling, but it does know its strong points. I don't want to get too involved in the plot (it always takes a backseat to the visual aspects, anyway) other than to say this film involves a ghostly little blonde girl spreading fear (and death) around a small Transylvanian village.

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Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (a doctor called in to help) and Erika Blanc (a college educated woman who was born there but left as a child) investigate a string of strange deaths (which are presumed to be suicides) in the village, with autopsies revealing that the victims have gold coins embedded in their hearts. Fabienne Dali is an exotic-looking witch who uses some rather unorthodox techniques to shield characters from evil and Luciano Catenacci (also one of the producers) is a bald, sinister-looking burgomaster. Other characters include an inspector (Piero Lulli) and a wealthy baroness who's hiding an important secret ("Gianna Vivaldi"/Giovanna Galletti). Plotwise, the film meanders and drags at times and the dubbed dialogue (though reasonably well recorded compared to other Euro-horrors of the era) is utterly forgettable. But the film scores a bullseye at what its attempting to do and that's creating an ethereal, eerie supernatural mood.

The irony of having an angelic-looking blonde girl representing evil was later copied by Fellini for "Toby Dammit" (his segment from the anthology Spirits of the Dead) and Scorsese for The Last Temptation of Christ. My favorite bit of camera trickery was a repeated zoom lens shot going in and out and finally pulling back to show it's a little girl on a swing. The movie is full of clever touches just like that. It's also very foggy, boldly colorful, has a creepy score from Carlo Rustichelli and is much more technically imaginative than other films coming out in the 1960s. Definitely a must see for horror buffs as well as future filmmakers who want to learn how to take make much out of limited resources. The photography is credited to Antonio Rinaldi, though Bava certainly had his hand in there as well.

★★★1/2

Kwaidan (1964)

...aka: Ghost Stories

...aka: Hoichi the Earless

...aka: Kaidin

...aka: Weird Tales

Directed by:

Masaki Kobayashi

Four part Japanese horror/supernatural stories, each set during a different season. It's beautifully made, the storylines are styled as old fashioned morality tales and the art direction and cinematography are both astonishing. The 125 minute version released many places is missing the second tale. The full version (available from Criterion) runs 164 minutes. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes film festival and was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar; one of the only times a genre picture has received either honor.

★★★1/2

Onibaba (1964)

...aka: Demon, The

...aka: Devil Woman

...aka: Hole, The

...aka: Ogress, The

...aka: Witch, The

Directed by:

Kaneto Shindô

After a man is drafted in war-torn 14th century feudal Japan and sent off to fight, his impoverished and lonely mother (Nobuko Otawa) and wife (Jitsuko Yoshimura) remain in their swamp-land home. Food is scarce and every day is a struggle for survival, so the women are reduced to ambushing worn-out or injured warriors, killing them and selling their armor and other belongings to a greedy local merchant, before disposing of the corpses by throwing them down a large hole in the ground that's located near their home. The older woman comes to mistrust her daughter-in-law when she couples up with a deserter (Kei Sato), and begins to wear a demonic facial mask she has taken from a slain samurai to try to scare them away... only to eventually discover it won't come off! A rare film from this era that has the courage to be unrelentingly grim, this is one of the best horror films produced in Japan (or anywhere else for that matter) during the 60s. It's well acted (especially by Otawa), extremely bleak and even surprisingly sensual at times, with brilliant black-and-white cinematography, a breath-taking visual composition and potent nightmarish imagery. Though it predominately takes place out in the open air, the film is wonderfully eerie and claustrophobic thanks to the closed-in living quarters of the ladies, who are seemingly separated from the rest of the world by fields full of tall, wavering reeds.

Not until somewhat recently has this film began to get the recognition it deserves as a horror classic and that's thanks in part to the excellent 2004 DVD release from Criterion. The fact it was released in certain countries over the years with such generic and non-descript titles as THE DEMON, DEVIL WOMAN, THE HOLE, THE OGRESS and THE WITCH probably didn't help its reputation any back in the day, but apparently it made enough of an impression on William Friedkin that he patterned the flashes of the white demon faces in THE EXORCIST (1973) directly on the look of the mask in this film.

★★★1/2

Faces of Death II (1981)

Directed by:

John Alan Schwartz

Dr. Francis B. Gross (Michael Carr) hosts yet another stomach churning collection of real-life death in this first sequel. Some say this entry has the most authentic death footage of the entire series (aside from a silly drugstore robbery segment), but it's still grainy and cheap looking, and senselessly slapped together with absolutely no insight into anything (though the narrator rambles on and on as if he's being profound), which makes it really hard to sit through for an hour and a half. There's a suicide, more animals dying (including dolphins getting slaughtered in Japan), bloated corpses, an infected snake bite, soliders developing leprosy after being exposed to radiation, a long sequence on boxer Johnny Owen's death, avalanche and fire victims, car and airplane crashes, public executions, etc. It's actually the least gory of the bunch (probably because it's full of older news footage) and was followed by FACES OF DEATH III in 1985.

Score: 1 out of 10

Faces of Death (1978)

...aka: Original Faces of Death, The

Directed by:

John Alan Schwartz

Many people know that this "mondo" movie became a huge hit on video, but I bet fewer people know that it was also a hit on the big screen and played in many theaters across the globe. By now, it's also pretty common knowledge that a lot of the supposedly "real" footage contained in this notorious shockumentary is actually fake. In fact, the Make-Up Effects Lab out of Hollywood even gets a special thanks in the end credits for creating some of the death/gore scenes! “Highlights” include an electrocution, a decapitation, a bear attack ("Don't get too close!"), animal being killed (a look inside a slaughterhouse, monkey brain eating, etc.), car wrecks, plane crashes, cannibalism and lots of autopsy footage. If you're game I guess you could have some gross-out fun trying to figure out what's real and what's not. Otherwise, this probably isn't worth watching unless you're a sick fuck who gets off on this kind of stuff. Director "Conan Le Cilaire" and writer "Alan Black" are aliases for John Allan Schwartz (primarily a TV writer) and host/narrator "Francis B. Gross" is really actor Michael Carr, who would go on to play same in some of the "sequels."

A huge money-maker, this helped establish Gorgon as one of the top horror labels of the VHS era and was followed by FACES OF DEATH 2-6 (1981-1996, with part 5 and 6 simply reusing footage from the other four), THE WORST OF FACES OF DEATH (1987; which is nothing more than recycled footage from the first three) and FACES OF DEATH: FACT OR FICTION? (1999), which contains even more recycled footage and feins being a revealing look at the series but instead comes off as a desperate attempt to squeeze more nickels and dimes out of an already-dead franchise. Speaking of which, a 2008 "Director's Cut" was issued by Gorgon complete with audio commentary from Schwartz. Does anyone actually care anymore?

Dozens of similar tapes were released during the 80s and early 90s in the wake of FOD's success (DEATH FACES, TRACES OF DEATH, etc., etc.). Many of them even copied the cover art (a skull) to cash in. I haven't seen a single one that I deem worth ones time, especially nowadays when some of the sickest shit imaginable is only a mouse click away.

Score: 2 out of 10

From Beyond (1986)

...aka: H.P. Lovecraft's From Beyond

...aka: Resonator

Directed by:

Stuart Gordon

While many claim this isn't quite up to the same team's more famous cult classic RE-ANIMATOR (1985), I think it's nearly as good. Again, it's very loosely based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (a man who was certainly ahead of his time) and there's a solid scientific foundation laid out before the film ventures into more exploitative and unpredictable territory. At a secluded mansion, Dr. Edward Pretorious (Ted Sorel) and his assistant Crawford Tillinghast (Re-Animator star Jeffrey Combs, given a slightly more restrained role here... at least for awhile), have developed a "sonic resonator" to tap into another dimension. It works, unleashing a variety of ghoulish demons, one of which bites Pretorious' head off and transforms him into a nasty otherworldly mutant naked to the human eye and intent on finding "the ultimate pleasure." After Pretorious' dead body is discovered, Crawford is blamed for the murder and sent off to a mental asylum for awhile. Reserved doctor Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton, also from RE-ANIMATOR and given a more substantial part here) eventually shows up to try to help him prove his innocence. They, along with cop Buford "Bubba" Brownlee (Dawn of the Dead's Ken Foree) go to the mansion to recreate the experiment and then things take a turn for the even weirder. Combs develops a phallic, pineal "third eye" that pops out of his forehead and allows him to see into the alternate dimension and Crampton becomes a psychotic, sex-starved dominatrix. The director's wife, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, co-stars as a bitchy doctor.

Well acted by the leads, directed with flair and filled with interesting concepts and special effects, this was a victim of heavy censor cuts during its initial release but still remains a gruesome, humorous, inventive and outrageous 80s treat which should please the majority of horror fans. The very set-bound looking house where the majority of the film takes place and colorful lighting even give this a comic-book like feel at times. The executive producer was Charles Band and Richard Band provided the score. The 2007 MGM DVD release restored all the missing footage, including a grisly scene where Combs sucks brain out of the empty eye socket!

★★★

One Million Years B.C. (1965)

Directed by:

Don Chaffey

Hammer Film Productions were probably shocked when this remake of the popular 1940 Hal Roach film ONE MILLION B.C. quickly became their all-time highest grossing film. In retrospect, it's not really difficult to see why, with the voluptuous beauty Raquel Welch (in one of her first major roles) as a cave woman (of the Shell People tribe) clad in skimpy animal skin get-up. Simply put, this film made it acceptable for both men and women to watch bountiful barely-covered male and female flesh on display under the guise of archeological study. High concept cinema, eh? The plot (Raquel falling in love with a guy from the opposing Rock People Tribe, played by the also easy-on-the-eyes John Richardson) is slim, silly but engaging enough to be acceptable time-killer in between showcasing the real star of this film; the stop-motion special effects genius of Ray Harryhausen. The dinosaur creations crafted by the pioneering FX artist are among his best work.

Producer/scripter Michael Carreras liked second female lead Martine Beswick (who plays cave girl Nupondi) so much that he gave her her own starring vehicle in the similar PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1967), which he also directed. Also in the cast are Percy Herbert, Robert Brown and Lisa Thomas. The film was the 100th from Hammer, who still had many more to come.

★★1/2