FilmFanatic.org

Synopsis:
A boarding school student (Jennifer Connelly) who has the power to communicate telepathically with insects befriends a wheelchair-bound entomologist (Donald Pleasence) with a pet chimpanzee, and together they try to solve the mystery of who has been stalking and killing local girls.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Amateur Sleuths
• Boarding School
• Dario Argento Films
• Donald Pleasence Films
• Horror Films
• Insects
• Serial Killers
• Supernatural Powers

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that this “brutal Dario Argento horror film” — also known as Phenomena — “has the striking visual style we’ve come to expect from the Italian director, and there are a couple of his customary shocks”, but he “too often forgoes legitimate shocks for nauseating sights — lice crawling on a rotting head, Connolly throwing up, heads crashing through glass, deformed faces” (who enjoys this kind of fare?!). In addition, as Peary notes, “Argento’s script is extremely weak”, with “Connelly’s sleepwalking:

… and even her control over insects smack[ing] of writer’s ‘convenience’; in fact, the insect premise has such little effect on what happens that they could easily be eliminated without serious damage being done to the film.” Indeed, everything about the screenplay is awkwardly handled, clumsily plotted, occasionally illogical, and woodenly acted. To that end, Peary points out that Pleasence’s chimp “gives the film’s most impressive performance” (!). While 15-year-old Connelly is undeniably stunning:

… she’s given terribly lame dialogue and situations to play out. Feel free to skip this one. To watch a humorous overview by a fan of this film (who generously points out its many laughably bad moments: “It’s time for another Donald Pleasence monologue…”), click here.

Note: For this review, I’ve used the American-release title of the film as referenced in Guide For the Film Fanatic, which had 20+ minutes removed. This is likely the version Peary saw, though I watched the 116 minute version known as Phenomena.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Atmospheric cinematography
  
• Beautiful location shooting
  

Must See?
No.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Moria Review

Synopsis:
When a researcher (Rollo Linsky) informs a doctor (Paul Hampton) that his insane colleague (Fred Doederlein) has implanted parasites in his young lover (Cathy Graham) and then killed her, Dr. St. Luc (Hampton) and his girlfriend (Lynn Lowry) begin an investigation, quickly finding that an increasing number of residents in their apartment complex — including a businessman (Alan Migicovsky) whose wife is friends with a lonely neighbor (Barbara Steele) — have become infected.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Barbara Steele Films
• David Cronenberg Films
• Horror Films
• Mad Doctors and Scientists
• Zombies

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary notes that this “first of David Cronenberg’s low-budget horror films to play in the United States” “quickly established his cult”. Shivers presents an “intriguing setting” — an “isolated, sterile apartment complex which is a planned, self-contained community” — wherein a parasite with “the power to drive its carrier violently insane” is travelling “on its own from apartment to apartment through the plumbing”, and can also “be transferred from its carrier through sexual contact.” He posits that the “film has some tension at the beginning when the initial people are infected”, noting that the creepiest moment comes “when the parasite crawls between unsuspecting Barbara Steele’s legs while she bathes” (ewww!), then transfers from her throat to her lover’s while kissing — but he argues that the “story, character development, and the film itself go out the window when almost everybody in the building” (except Hampton) “becomes infected and runs through the halls looking for people to attack.”

Peary writes that while this “exploitation picture is too violent and crude”, the “special effects (i.e., creatures moving beneath the skin) by Joe Blasco anticipated those that would appear in future big-budget SF and horror films” — like Alien (1979). Because the sub-genre of “sci fi body horror” films isn’t a personal favorite, it’s hard for me to comment on whether Cronenberg’s film goes off the rails or simply continues along its own perversely logical trajectory; I can say that things certainly build to a tense fever pitch by the end, leading to a sense of claustrophobia and despair.

As Richard Scheib of Moria writes, “Shivers is Night of the Living Dead construed as a satire on the 1970s swinger lifestyle” — a very apt analogy indeed.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Some effectively creepy moments on a low budget
  

Must See?
No, though of course Cronenberg fans will be curious to check it out.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Classic Horror Review
• Jigsaw Film Lounge Review
• Moria Review
• SF Gate Review
• Classic Horror Review

Synopsis:
A young teen (Sarah Patterson) dreams that she’s left her parents (David Warner and Tusse Silberg) to go stay with her advice-filled grandmother (Angela Lansbury), who tells her tales of a werewolf (Stephen Rea) who runs away from his bride (Kathryn Pogson) and then attacks her years later for remarrying, and a young man (Vincent McClaren) given a hair-sprouting potion by the Devil (Terence Stamp). Soon Rosaleen (Patterson) is telling stories of her own — including one about an impregnated witch (Dawn Archibald) seeking revenge on the nobleman (Richard Morant) who abandoned her, and one about a young she-wolf (Danielle Dax) receiving assistance from a kind priest (Graham Crowden).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Angela Lansbury Films
• Coming of Age
• David Warner Films
• Fantasy
• Folk Tales, Fairy Tales, and Mythology
• Strong Females
• Terence Stamp Films
• Werewolves

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that this film by “Irish director Neil Jordan… and his co-writer, Angela Carter, on whose short story the film is based” is “thematically and visually unlike any other movie”, defying “genre classification”. He adds, “It’s not really a horror movie, although it contains horror elements, such as dramatic men-into-werewolf transformations”:

— and while “it could be called a ‘suspense’ film or a ‘terror’ film,” it’s “more accurately… a film about sexual anxiety and a young virgin’s fear of and fascination about crossing the sexual threshold.” He notes that Jordan and Carter “have brought new sexual meaning to the fairytale” of Little Red Riding Hood:

… “by making the girl-wolf relationship a metaphor for all male-female relationships and by having the girl’s fairytale walk through the woods to Grandma’s house be the centerpiece of a frenzied dream of a young girl.”

Peary describes the movie as “wondrously photographed (its ‘look’ is unique)”, representing a “netherworld” that “is magical, enchanting, yet mysterious and foreboding. It’s a world filled with insects, snakes and toads, and warm-blooded animals; twisted trees, spider webs, and all kinds of sexual imagery.”

While Rosaleen is warned by her grandmother (in “a delightful bit by Angela Lansbury”) to “stay away from men”:

… and she “believes her grandmother speaks the truth about men and fears sexual contact”, she “does not run from the stranger she meets in the forest.”

Peary adds that “even more than Picnic at Hanging Rock, this film expresses the painful and confusing sexual yearnings of young girls.”

He ends his review by noting that while this movie is “not for all tastes”, it’s “definitely worth a look” — and in the years since Peary’s GFTFF was published, it’s developed a cult following, as has his phenomenal thriller The Crying Game (1992) (which happens to be one of my top-ten personal favorite films — but my review of that will have to wait until I have time to resume writing about post-GFTFF must-see titles…) What most impresses me about The Company of Wolves (other than its incomparable other-worldly sensibility) is how strongly it empowers females: while Peary focuses on Patterson’s sexual development, I see this as primarily a movie about a girl daring to venture out into the (admittedly scary) world on her own, imagining the worst that might happen to a female at the hands of men (dealing with an insistent suitor; being attacked; being impregnated and/or abandoned) and also how she might handle and survive such a fate.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen
  
• Angela Lansbury as Granny
  
• Highly atmospheric cinematography
  
  
• Anton Furst’s sets
  
• Impressive special effects
  

Must See?
Yes, as a cult favorite.

Categories

• Cult Movie

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Moria Review
• Spinning Image Review

Synopsis:
When he picks up his daughter Candy (Cindy Hinds) from a weekend visit with her mother (Samantha Eggar) at a controversial therapeutic clinic and notices welts on her back, Eggar’s husband (Art Hindle) confronts Eggar’s doctor (Oliver Reed) and tries to determine what’s going on. Meanwhile, a rash of mysterious murders by a dwarf-like creature ensues, as Frank first leaves Candy with her grandmother (Nuala Fitzgerald) and then with her sympathetic schoolteacher (Susan Hogan).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• David Cronenberg Films
• Father and Child
• Horror Films
• Mental Illness
• Mutant Monsters
• Oliver Reed Films
• Psychotherapy
• Samantha Eggar Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that this “complex, chilling horror film by David Cronenberg advances two of his major themes: there is nothing more frightening than sudden unexplained changes in our physical compositions” and “sterile institutions meant to promote health are often responsible… for destroying a person’s physical and mental well-being.” He notes that “this was the first Cronenberg film in which his characters are sympathetic”, with “the relationship between Hindle and Hinds… truly touching” (agreed).

While he feels the “film often has repulsive imagery and much in the climactic scene is illogical,” there “are several terrifying scenes” and he posits that the picture has “a cold, other-worldly feel” which is “heightened by the fact that many of the characters’ surnames… can’t be found in your local telephone book” (!).

Peary elaborates upon his review in his first Cult Movies book, where he admits to being “intrigued by the premises of all of Cronenberg’s film” but questioning “his judgments and directorial maturity”, given that he gets “juvenile pleasure from trying to jolt viewers by repelling them with blatant, often ridiculous images”, and gets “kicks trying to disgust us.” (In a “making of” documentary about this movie, Eggar concedes that it was hard not to laugh while filming the infamous scene in which she reveals her deformed body to Hindle…) Peary writes that among the “terrifying sequences” are “the murders of Julianna [Nuala Fitzgerald] and Barton [Henry Beckman]” (Eggar’s parents); he accurately notes that “when Julianna enters her mysteriously ramshackle kitchen, looks up toward the ceiling, and spots a little crouched figure in red atop the cupboards about to leap on her, or when Candy sees the hooded figure (who may remind you of the dwarf assassin in Don’t Look Now, 1973) hiding on the stairwell, you are likely to jump.” Meanwhile, “the most chilling” scenes are when two of the dwarf-like creatures “brazenly enter Candy’s classroom pretending to be her classmates:

… and when they walk with Candy hand in hand along the highway in the snow.”

Peary writes that “perhaps what is most remarkable about The Brood is the sinister quality that Cronenberg establishes,” by “staging intense psychodramas between Raglan and Nola” (and, in the opening scene, with another troubled patient):

… as well as “by creating a restrictive atmosphere around the Psychoplasmics Institute; by making his characters humorless and setting the picture in cold, snowy weather (where everyone wears coats and scarves, and walks under gray skies)”:

… “by giving the autocratic Raglan a henchman; [and] by making us aware of the history of child abuse in Nola’s life.” While Peary doesn’t think the final sequence makes sense, he concedes that “at least it’s spooky, lively, and comes after about an hour and a half of absorbing, solid cinema.”

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Art Hindle as Frank
  
• Oliver Reed as Dr. Raglan
  
• Samantha Eggar as Nola
  
• Fine cinematography and direction
  
  
  
• Many creepy moments
  

Must See?
Yes, as an eerie and still-powerful cult horror flick. Discussed at length in Peary’s Cult Movies book.

Categories

• Cult Movie
• Important Director

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Spinning Image Review
• Moria Review

Synopsis:
When a sadistic man (John Karlen) and his beautiful new wife (Danielle Ouimet) stop at a nearly deserted Belgian inn on their way back home, they meet a mysteriously ageless woman (Delphine Seyrig) and her loyal companion (Andrea Rau), who seem deeply interested in befriending the couple.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Delphine Seyrig Films
• Horror Films
• Lesbianism
• Newlyweds
• Vampires

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that “Belgian writer-director Harry Kumel’s English-language lesbian vampire film is among the most stylish of horror films and probably the most perverse.” He argues that this “cult film is flawed, yet it masterfully combines traditional horror elements with outrageous, often ludicrous wit; and no other horror film can match the eroticism that pervades every scene.” He adds that “it’s a rare horror film with social relevance: it more than expressed feminist themes — it actually had a decidedly anti-male attitude, despite being made by men.”

The film centers on Seyrig’s character, who “claims to be Elizabeth Bathory — the name of the ‘Bloody Countess’ who lived and murdered scores of virgins for their blood three centuries before” and is played by Seyrig “with the sense of irony and melancholia that we associate with the roles of Seyrig’s friend Marlene Dietrich”.

Peary notes that “like Stephanie Rothman’s similarly plotted The Velvet Vampire, this vampire film shows that female vampires can win over a woman completely through the unbeatable combination of willpower, mind control, and sex appeal.”

Peary goes on to write that the “film contains horror-movie conventions — mist, too-loud suspense music, bloody violence, vampires who cast no reflections, don’t drink alcohol, and peer into bedroom windows from balconies — but Kumel (influenced by former friend Josef von Sternberg) handles nothing conventionally”, instead cleverly using “sound, music, his wonderful sets, colors (especially red):

… clothes, character placement, and weird camera angles (often he shoots from above, or at a great distance to convey the terrible isolation each character feels).” Peary elaborates upon his GFTFF review in Cult Movies 2, where he notes that the “film can be intentionally silly”, “downright horrifying”, or “utterly outrageous, in a macabre sort of way” — then shift to being “surreal, as in the magnificent shot of Elisabeth surrounding Valerie [Ouimet] with her cape as they stand on a cliff, the full moon shining behind them.”

He argues that while this “may be a wicked film”, and “it is no gem”, he finds it “sexy, imaginative, amusing, and undeniably fun.” While I acknowledge Peary’s appreciation for Daughters of Darkness, I can’t say I feel the same way. This films seems to me to be all style and no substance, and I honestly don’t understand the “point” (which I know is probably asking too much of a vampire film). Very little actually happens, other than ongoing seductions and killings. Intriguing narrative threads — i.e., Karlen calling home to his “mother” (Fons Rademakers) — are introduced, then dropped:

… and the lead characters are either unlikable or not particularly sympathetic (i.e., we don’t learn enough about Ouimet to relate to her). While fans of vampire flicks will surely want to check this one out, it’s not must-see viewing for all film fanatics.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Delphine Seyrig as Elisabeth Bathory
  
• Fine cinematography and set design
  

Must See?
No, though fans of the genre will of course want to check it out.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Original Review
• Moria Review
• Spinning Image Review
• Roger Ebert’s Review