Horror Archive

Watchers (1988) Region 2

Corey Haim out acted by a dog shock! Come to think of it Corey Haim out acts a dog would have been more of a surprise. Haim plays the teenage hero in this adaptation of the Dean R. Koontz bestseller. When he finds a lost dog he takes it home with him little suspecting the mutt has escaped from a secret research lab or that it’s probably more intelligent than he is. It was part of an experiment to create the perfect killing machine, the dog itself acting as a lure to draw another genetically engineered creature to its victim and that other creature is free as well and looking to carve itself a little Haim sandwich.

While the novel this is based on had an equally silly premise it was still able to craft some effective moments most notably the climax which manages to elicit the reader’s sympathy for the “bad” beastie. There’s none of that here, everything is black and white. With the best moments of the novel excised this has been turned into a simple boy and his dog tale albeit with horror/SF slant. Nothing wrong with that per se, I’ve enjoyed many a shaggy dog story but then they never starred Cory Haim. He’s all 80′s hair and zero acting ability, I really wasn’t kidding about the dog having superior thespian abilities.

Spiders (2000) Region 2

When you’re dealing with giant spider movies you can be pretty sure you’re in for some cheese, the question is will it be tasty cheddar or stinky gorgonzola. Well in the case of Spiders it’s definitely the latter.

What we have here is an attempt to merge Alien with Arachnophobia, with a secret government experiment to combine extraterrestrial and spider DNA. A dim-witted reporter and her equally intellectually challenged crew stumble on to the scheme and end up trapped in a secret base with the hybrid spider.

The DVD sleeve says this is from the FX team who created From Dusk Till Dawn, Spawn and Wishmaster. That may be so but here they are responsible for some of the worst CGI effects I’ve ever seen. It’s bad enough when the film stays in the confined space of the base but when things head outside for the over the top climax with a spider of King Kong sized proportions, it’s so bad it’s not even funny.

Ineptly directed by Gary Jones, a man whose career highlight was working on the Xena and Hercules TV series, this was a real chore to sit through. Lead actress Lana Parrilla is a familiar face having had recurring roles in 24, NYPD Blue and Boomtown but here, with everything working against her, she’s not up to the task of saving a very bad movie, still even Sigourney Weaver couldn’t have salvaged this one.

The Legend of Hell House (1973) Region 2

This is similar in structure to Rober Wise’s The Haunting with a group of paranormal investigators spending a few days in a haunted house and like that film was based on a novel, in this case Richard Matheson’s Hell House. The films also share similar plots with the groups gradual deterioration as the oppressive atmosphere of the house weighs on them evident in both films. Hell House is the less subtle of the two films, there’s nothing here to compare with the classic ‘holding hands in the dark’ scene in Wise’s classic.

What it does have going for it is a powerful sense of dread generated by the inventive direction of John Hough, who uses odd angles and reflections to keep the viewer off balance. Hough was also responsible for Hammer’s underrated Twins of Evil but sadly most of his work was in TV.

Adding to that oppressive atmosphere is an exceptional score by Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire both of whom worked on the BBC’s Doctor Who in the early years of that show. Here they mix electronic sounds with more conventional instrumentation to great effect.

As for the actors all give decent performances with Roddy McDowall relishing the chance to take a more central role as Benjamin Franklin Fischer the only survivor of a previous expedition. I’ve always been a fan of McDowall and this is one of his best parts (at least out of ape make-up) and he’s clearly having a ball.

The House of Exorcism (1975) Region 2

I’ve never seen Maio Bava’s Lisa and The Devil but from the original footage used in this bastardised version it looks like a pretty standard giallo murder mystery. This re-edited version, featuring new footage shot by the producer Alfredo Leone to cash in on the success of The Exorcist, is another animal altogether.

The structure of the film has been completely altered so that Bava’s footage is used in flashback to reveal what happened to Lisa Reiner (Elke Sommer) that resulted in her hospitalisation and the subsequent involvement of a priest played by Robert Alda. This restructuring results in the film making virtually no narrative sense.

Bava was an inventive filmmaker who could do a lot with a minuscule budget, creating such stylish features as Black Sunday and Planet of the Vampires, the latter an obvious influence on Ridley Scott’s Alien. Sadly here his style is so diluted as to be all but unwatchable.

The performances are nothing to shout about either. Elke Sommer is there primarily to look pretty while Telly Savalas plays the lollypop sucking butler (or is he the devil?) as if he were Kojak.

So does the film have anything to recommend it? Well yes, sort of. If features some hysterical exorcism scenes that are far funnier than anything featured in The Exorcist spoof Repossessed starring Leslie Nielsen.

For the first of these double bills we’ve got a couple of zombie flicks and we’re talking old skool voodoo zombies.

The Dead One (1961) Region 2

This is set just outside New Orleans on a plantation inherited by John Carlton, who’s taken his new wife there for their honeymoon. Cousin Monica is none to happy about this as she had been running the plantation prior to John’s arrival and as she moonlights as a voodoo priestess she’s not someone you’d want to piss off. She hatches a plan to use her zombified brother to kill John’s wife in the hopes of holding on to the land through a loophole in their Grandfathers will.

Director Barry Mahon’s claim to fame is that the part played by Steve McQueen in the Great Escape was loosely based on him. That’s as close to making a classic film as he came; it’s clear from this that he was a kindred spirit to that master of (mis)direction, Ed Wood.

The first twenty minutes are padded out with a couple of New Orleans jazz bands and an appearance by exotic dancer

The Movies

Jess Franco! A name to strike fear into the heart of any true cinephile. He’s been called Spain’s answer to Ed Wood and manages to live down to that billing extremely well and yet, for lovers of trash cinema there’s often much to enjoy in a Franco film. With titles like Swedish Nympho Slaves and Diary of a Nymphomaniac you’re not really expecting another Citizen Kane. And how can you not want to see Killer Barbys vs. Dracula?

This second release in Tartan’s Jess Franco Double Bill series pairs a couple of lesser-known offerings from the schlockmeister’s 70′s heyday.

First up is Devil’s Island Lovers from 1974. One of Franco’s preoccupations, particularly in the 70′s, was with imprisoned women. Caged Women (aka Barbed Wire Dolls in the US), Women Behind Bars and Ilsa, the Wicked Warden all came from his fevered mind. Devil’s Island Lovers is one of his earliest entries in the genre.

A fictional island’s corrupt governor who lusts after the girl, Beatriz, frames her and her lover for murder. The plot doesn’t really make a lot of sense, it’s just there to get the girl into the prison, although it takes almost half an hour to get there. The main reason for this is the flashback nature of the narrative, it’s told from the perspective of the couples’ lawyer as his investigations begin to uncover what happened to the young lovers.