Body Beneath, The (1970)

... aka: Vampire's Thirst, The

Directed by:
Andy Milligan

Graham Ford (Colin Gordon), a new arrival in London from Canada, is awoken from his nap by Reverend Alexander Algernon Ford (Gavin Reed) and his wife Alicia (Susan Heard), distant relatives who'd like to invite him and his wife Anna (Susan Clark) to dinner. Alexander has just arrived there himself from Ireland, moved into Carfax Abbey and opened a new church in the area called Old Souls Church. He's talkative, friendly, nosy and more than a little strange, and not only because priests typically don't go around quoting Oscar Wilde, but also because he seems to know much about Graham and his wife without ever having ever them. Alicia is an oddball herself. She refuses to talk to anyone and whispers everything directly into her husband's ear for him to relay to others. Regardless, Graham accepts their invitation. Anna, on the other hand, has just had an odd encounter with three blue-faced blonde women at a local cemetery. Meanwhile, Susan Ford (Jackie Skarvellis) has just told her lover of two years, artist Paul (Richmond Ross), that she's pregnant. The two decide to get married soon, so it's a good time for the Reverend to get in contact with her via letter. They could use someone to officiate their wedding.

The Reverend and his wife turn out to be centuries-old vampires, who lead a pack of similar bloodsuckers. Sunlight doesn't kill them but does weaken them and Alicia has to administer blood transfusions to her hubby in the upstairs bedroom and apply leeches to him when his blood pressure gets too high. They're assisted by a hyperactive, reluctant hunchback named Spool (Berwick Kaler), who was abandoned by his family as a child after his stepbrother pushed him in front of a bus. When Susan shows up to visit, they drug her drink and then lock her in an upstairs bedroom. The Reverend explains to her that she's their only hope in carrying on the family bloodline. Apparently, lots of inbreeding in the family has weakened them and now they need new blood, so to speak. Susan will be kept there and be forced to keep popping out one baby after another to procreate a stronger breed of Ford. Meanwhile, at Graham and Anna's home, Anna is behaving strangely. The three blue-faced ladies had bitten her on the neck in the graveyard, turning her into a vampire. She drugs her husband's tea and then lets the Reverend and the vampire ladies in to kill Graham.

Another relative - Candace Ford (Emma Jones) - is kidnapped and brought to Carfax Abbey, where they plot to use her as their personal blood supply. Spool is forbidden to speak to their prisoners and, when he's caught talking to Candace, he's taken outside and nailed against a tree! Susan's boyfriend eventually shows up looking for her and notices the Reverend doesn't cast a reflection before he's booted out. A maid tries to help him find his missing fiancé, but Alicia jams sewing needles into her eyeballs and Paul is locked up in a room with Susan, where they await their death. Eventually, a vampire gathering shot through a Vaseline-smeared lens is held, where a female vampire proclaims Americans "the scum of the Earth" and says they're all "pimps, prostitutes and religious fanatics" when the Reverend entertains the idea of them relocating to the States.

This has much in common with the director's other films from the same time period and yet seems somewhat different. The Gothic horror trappings and British setting are similar, as is the dialogue-heavy script and theatrical acting and costumes. However, this one has a modern day setting, better production values and actually (gasp!) cuts it somewhat as an actual movie. The acting, editing, costumes and photography are all better than usual for the director. However, in Milligan world, competence and restraint are both a good and a bad thing. It's good in that this will be easier to swallow to the masses and proves the widely-panned director could indeed craft a mainstream, competent film.. It's a bad thing in that it's not as wild, quirky, bizarre, funny or memorable as some of his other, rougher-around-the-edges efforts like TORTURE DUNGEON (1970) or BLOOD (1974). Perhaps the fact this was made for a different production company (Cinemedia Films) instead of William Mishkin is what made the difference. Milligan also edited (as "Gerald Jackson") and did both the costumes (as Raffine) and sound (as "Joi Gogan") for this one.

Something Weird have released a nice DVD for this one, which includes lots of Milligan trailers as well as the director's very interesting, black-and-white gay bathhouse drama Vapors (1965), which runs 32 minutes and is actually quite good itself (not to mention very daring for its time).

★★

Hitcher, The (1986)

... aka: Highway Killer, The
... aka: Hitcher, the Highway Killer

Directed by:
Robert Harmon

"My mother told me never to do this," smirks Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) as he pulls off to the side of the road to pick up hitchhiker John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) on a dark and stormy night. Not to let him down, John wastes no time in the "acting intimidating, shady and all-around psychotic" department. He refuses to tell Jim where he's going, stares at him and grabs his inner thigh just as he's about to pull over to help a stranded motorist. Jim mistakes it for a pass, pulls his car over and tells John the ride is over. John refuses to budge, says just enough to ease Jim's mind and then they're back on the road. And then John confesses that the car they'd just passed belongs to the last guy who gave him a lift and that he "cut off his legs... and his arms... and his head..." I guess mom was right after all. The Hitcher sets up its horror premise right out of the gate: There you are out in the middle of nowhere late at night with few others around and trapped in your car with someone clearly psychotic. What do you do? Well, you try to play it cool until you can lose them... Only this strange, mysterious man turns out to be about as easy to lose as one of those face-huggers from Alien.

Jim's first possible attempt to escape comes when they pass through a construction stop, but John pulls out a switchblade and gives a simple-enough warning: "Don't." When asked just what he wants, John is also rather direct: "I want you to stop me." Jim finally manages to push him out of his car, but his nightmare has only just begun. John seems to somehow appear everywhere. He murders a family of three, kills them and leaves their bodies in their station wagon along the side of the road for Jim to discover, kills a couple who give him a lift and then uses his truck to harass Jim along the dusty, desolate Northern Texas roads he's traveling through. After barely escaping a gas station explosion, Jim ends up at a diner where he meets waitress Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and is left a nasty clue in his French fries that Ryder has even been there. Cops show up, arrest Jim and haul him off to the station for questioning.

At the station, strangely enough, Jim discovers that his wallet and the car registration are missing so he can't even properly identify himself and that Ryder has planted a bloody switchblade in his pocket to implicate him in the murders. He's promptly thrown into a cell, but the mysterious psycho comes there too and kills all the cops. Jim flees into the desert, has multiple other run-ins with Ryder and many more people (primarily police officers) die. Now no one's going to believe the poor kid! Luckily, Nash - who Jim bumps into once again aboard a bus - does, and helps him escape from the cops. She's repaid for her help by getting tied to two semi trucks and pulled into two. Just what exactly is going on? Who is John Ryder? Why is he terrorizing and trying to implicate Jim in a bunch of needless killings?

The Hitcher opts to go an extremely ambiguous route for quite awhile as the extremely unpleasant story unfolds. For about the first hour or so, one could even twist and turn the various events to where Jim is actually the killer and John doesn't even exist. However, that's all taken care of once Leigh's character, and then numerous others, actually see him. That then opens up numerous other questions about John Ryder that Eric Red's screenplay isn't exactly ready to answer. If we're to believe that John is a flesh-and-blood psycho, then there's way too much coincidence on display for this to be the least bit believable. The man certainly must have otherworldly powers to pretty much be everywhere he is at just the right time. He's able to anticipate nearly all of Jim's moves, can miraculously shoot down a moving helicopter with a pistol in one shot and shows up in places he'd have no clue where to be without possessing some powerful ESP abilities. Since his existence as a mortal - albeit a highly perceptive and intelligent one - is ultimately established, the level of exaggeration throughout equips this with a higher "Yeah, righhhht" quotient than usual; particularly on repeat viewings. Yet despite those major flaws, this is still a gripping, exciting, suspenseful and very well-made film. The oddly intimate and nearly-homoerotic relationship between killer and prey provides some additional interest, though a hidden meaning is left open enough to swing either way, so to speak.

Props can be sent out to nearly the entire technical crew for their work here, particularly the editor and cinematographer. Excellent locations are used throughout and this also boasts some of the most thrilling car crash scenes you'll see. Harmon had secured the director job because of a good 30-minute short he'd previously made called China Lake (1983), which also involved a psycho prowling desert highways and itself was remade as the TV movie The China Lake Murders in 1990. Harmon originally wanted Terence Stamp for the psycho role here, though it's difficult now to imagine anyone else other than Hauer (who's perfect) playing this enigmatic part. The rest of the cast - including Jeffrey DeMunn, Billy Green Bush, Jack Thibeau, Gene Davis, Armin Shimerman, Jon Van Ness and Henry Darrow (all playing small roles as law enforcement officers) - do their jobs.

Upon release, the reviews were extremely mixed (leaning toward negative from most of the majors) and this didn't exactly set the box office on fire. Nevertheless, the film picked up enough of a following over the years to spawn The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003), with Howell reprising his role, and a (critically panned) 2007 remake.

★★★

Santa Claws (1996)

... aka: 'Tis the Season

Directed by:
John A. Russo

John Russo will forever be best known as the co-writer of the masterpiece NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and for that reason alone he will be immortalized in our beloved genre regardless of whatever else he does. However, unlike NOTLD's director / writer George A. Romero, who went on to prove his talents numerous times over with various other excellent films, Night is thus far the lone major highlight in Mr. Russo's career... and one he'd go on to milk for all it's worth. In the early 80s, Russo wrote a zombie novel called "Return of the Living Dead" and an accompanying script, which he then put together as a possible 3D film project by producer Tom Fox. The two wanted Tobe Hooper to direct, but Dan O'Bannon ended up getting the job instead. O'Bannon then drastically re-wrote Russo's screenplay to the point where it had next to nothing to do with what Russo had written. Despite that, Russo retained a story credit for the ensuing film; the 80s favorite THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985). Afterward, he continued to exploit the "Living Dead" with numerous novels, comic books, documentaries and films. He wrote "The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook" in 1989, produced Tom Savini's mediocre Night remake in 1990, put together a 25th Anniversary Night documentary (later titled ZOMBIE JAMBOREE) in 1993, and committed a nearly unforgivable sin by re-cutting and inserting cheap new scenes into the original film and releasing it as Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition in 1999. Not content with all that, he went on to blab about Night is numerous documentaries and TV specials, executive produced the atrocious Children of the Living Dead (2001) and has announced he's going to make Night sequels numerous times over the years. One he kept going on about was "Escape of the Living Dead," which was going to be based on Russo's 2005 comic of the same name. The film has yet to happen.

Aside from Night and all the offshoots, Russo was also heavily involved in the whole 80s / 90s Scream Queen phenomenon, which basically revolved around attractive actresses of varying degrees of talent who usually took their clothes off in low-budget films. Starting in 1993, Russo was the editor of the magazine "Scream Queens Illustrated" which featured interviews with, and accompanying nude layouts of, female B movie stars like Linnea Quigley (the magazine's very first cover girl). To supplement that, Russo's company Latent Image Inc. also hawked Scream Queen books, trading cards, autographed posters, cheesecake videos like Scream Queens Swimsuit Sensations and and Scream Queens Knockout Workout (1992) and other such merchandise. Santa Claws falls firmly into this category of T&A fluff, though unlike earlier SQ videos, which are often just women parading around in the nude or in swimsuits or lingerie, it's a genuine attempt to make an actual horror film with a plot. Debbie Rochon, then an up-and-coming Scream Queen on the rise who has since become an indy horror queen with hundreds of credits to her name, was drafted for the lead role. Not only nice to look at, Rochon is also one of the better actresses in her category, so it's no surprise that Russo kept her around for several of his later projects like his Night re-do and the yet-to-be released Saloonatics (2002). She was also the announced star of Russo's yet-to-be-filmed "Escape of the Living Dead."

Claws centers around actress Raven Quinn (Rochon), who has a master's degree in zoology but instead opts to make a living as a nude model and B-movie Scream Queen (in a role clearly patterned after real-life Scream Queen Brinke Stevens, who has a master's degree in marine biology). Right after Raven secures the lead role in "Scream Queen Christmas" her life begins to fall apart, starting with her wayward Joey Buttafuoco-lookalike husband Eric (John Mowod), a glamour photographer who's just run off to Akron with slutty model Debbie (Susan Ellen White) and is considering filing for a divorce. To make matters even worse, Raven has attracted the attention of an obsessed, long-haired weirdo stalker named Wayne (Grant Kramer). As a child, Wayne gunned down his obese uncle and silicone-chested mother after catching them in bed together. Now as an adult, he has photos of Raven plastered all over his walls, a candle-lit shrine dedicated especially to her and even mail orders a bust of Raven, which he talks to and kisses, and fantasizes about coming to life. Wayne, who conveniently lives right next door to Raven, then begins babysitting her young daughters Angela (Dawn Michelucci) and Savannah (Savannah Calhoun) to integrate himself into her life. Not content with just that, he also begins donning disguises and taking a garden claw to the cast and crew of "Scream Queen Christmas."

Ho!

Ho!

Ho!

Merry Christmas!

Clearly designed primarily as a vehicle for slasher T&A, this very cheap-looking direct-to-video trash fails miserably as a horror film with its laughably choreographed and ineptly staged attack scenes, one of the lamest murder weapons on record and a completely silly and non-threatening psycho (played in a laughably over-the-top manner by Kramer). There's no gore and barely even any blood, which will further piss off the target audience, as will the fact this was promoted as a killer Santa movie and Wayne doesn't even put on the costume until the film is nearing the 1 hour mark. This does a little better at the T&A, with five actresses getting naked, but gruelingly long sequences of women stripping out of glittery costumes on extremely cheap looking sets will have even the most desperately horny Lothario quickly seeking his fast-forward button. Rochon is several cuts above the others in the looks department and, like all good things, her topless-under-the-Christmas-tree-boogie is saved for the very end. For what it's worth, the supporting cast is littered with NOTLD alumni. Marilyn Eastman plays Raven's bitchy mother-in-law, Karl Hardman plays a sleazy producer, Bill Hinzman is a cameraman and Russo himself appears as a detective. Christine Cavalier and Terri Lewandowski, who were then trying to market themselves as mother-and-daughter Scream Queens, as well as Lisa Delien (also in the terrible Demon Lust [1997]) provide nudity. Russo filmed the tie-in tape Scream Queen Naked Christmas (1996) at the same time and on the same sets. It also featured Rochon, Kramer, Cavalier, White and Delien.

Much of Santa Claws actually seems like a defense for the whole Scream Queen movement. Raven has to defend herself against a feminist reporter who tries to degrade her career choice, her hypocritical in-laws, who are just fine with her husband shooting nude layouts but not OK with her appearing in them, and Wayne himself, who disapproves of her line of work and wonders what men do while watching her videos. Posters for nearly every film Russo ever worked on are seen on the walls and there are many direct plugs for "Scream Queens Illustrated." At one point, Hardman's character says the magazine is "...a tasteful presentation of horror movies, horror movie makers and horror movie starlets. The girls have beautiful bodies and normal, healthy guys enjoy looking at them." This whole angle is curiously destroyed not only by psycho Wayne but also Raven herself as she discusses one of her lame fans in detail, suggesting that men who like stuff like Santa Claws are pathetic, maladjusted perverts!

★1/2