Murder in Mind

Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)

The success of Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs (1991) set off a particular wave of psychological crime thrillers in the Nineties. The protagonists were often characterised with a mental hang up, such as a crippling trauma which needed to be overcome in order to finally take down the film's monstrous antagonist. These films were less action orientated and more adjacent to the horror genre. A major selling point was the killer's twisted methodology and his grotesque crimes. Kiyoshi Kurosawa's slow burner Cure (1997) is a stellar entry in this scene. The selling point being the killer supplanting  murder into the mind of others via his power of suggestion.

Tokyo detective Kenichi Takabe (Kōji Hashimoto) is tasked with investigating a string of murders which have plagued the city. The crimes are perpetrated by seemingly random people, who subsequently slash the carotid arteries, leaving a carved ‘X' on the victims’ necks. These actions are barely remembered by their assailants after they're caught. With the aid of Shin Sakuma (Tsuyoshi Ujiki), a hospital psychiatrist, the investigative pair make some headway discovering the random killings are brought upon by a hypnotist. The cool and calm Takabe also has to deal with his wife Fumie (Anna Nagakawa) succumbing to a deteriorating mental disorder. Both the case and his wife's illness are taking an immense toll on the detective.

As for Cure's heinous antagonist, Kunio Mamiya (Hasato Hagiwara), the dishevelled and mousy looking individual is introduced early in the film. A lost man on the beach, appearing to be suffering from amnesia when meeting his latest victim. With the aid of his lighter or spilt water, the drop out psychology student manages to hypnotise his prey before moving on. Thus, turning these random individuals who have had the misfortune in conversing with him into unwitting killers.

Despite some bloody scenes, Cure doesn't focus too long on the killings. Instead, it's the disturbing and uneasy build-up to these crimes which Kurosawa excels in capturing on film. One scene in particular, set outside a police box, shows the chilling act of a police officer gunning down his colleague so matter of factly. This is all filmed in daylight with one fixed point of view from a medium distance. The affect of which makes the whole scenario all the more disturbing, as it looks so mundane.

Cure possesses heaps of foreboding atmosphere thanks to an excellent combination of Tokushô Kikumura's gloomy and distant cinematography and a sound department able to make the drone of a tumble dryer sound oppressively frightening. Although preceding the J-horror boom by a couple of years, Cure's palpable atmosphere and pallid colour palette are arguably influential to the scene. The dark and flat visuals are pitch perfect with its subject matter. The production design of the various interior locations range from squalid, to urban hellholes. Thus, Cure shares some obvious common elements with David Fincher's Se7en (1995) not only with its premise.

Kurosawa has a great handle on showcasing Mamiya's power over others, not just with his hypnotic powers. The diminutive amnesiac can command a room with his sheer presence. A great example is the power struggle between him and Takabe in a darkly lit hospital room. During their scene, the antagonist manages to turn the tables as to has the greatest stature and command of the room. The camera composition frames the detective as the sick patient, while Mamiya slyly becomes the authoritarian figure.

Kind of shocked that Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a director associated with churning out low budget V-Cinema (Japan's straight-to-video) films like Door III (1996), managed to craft a gem of a cinematic thriller somewhere in between. Cure would be his belated break out success in international circles. The director would subsequently deliver the acclaimed, apocalyptic J-horror Pulse (2001), containing a similar look and under your skin vibe to Cure. A good film, but it's not one that I rate as highly compared to Cure; malevolent spirts from the internet don't exactly have the same impact for me as a serial killer Kenny Craig supplanting murderous thoughts into people's minds.

Embarrassed to admit that Cure is a new discovery for me. It's the type of psychological thriller that develops in a rich and intelligent fashion, without unfolding like some hackneyed police procedural which is so common today. A slow burn shocker that's so palpable, that it lingers on well after the closing credits; especially after that final scene. If you've seen it, then you know what I'm referring to. 

Highly recommended.

All the Little Devils Are Proud of Umbrella Entertainment

Wake in Fright | Official Restoration Trailer

Tedd Kotcheff  | 1971

 

With the exception of Kino Lorber's forthcoming release of the notorious Ilsa films on 4K UHD, the most sought after home release this year has to be Ted Kotcheff's classic, Aussie nightmare Wake in Fright (1971).

It's been a long wait, but one that seems to be worth it with just how superb Umbrella Entertainment's restoration seems to look so far. A significant contrast to the yellow colour grading of the film when it was released on Blu-ray in 2009. And to think, I always thought it looked that way to emphasise the scorching heat and all that beer in the film.

Hopefully, a more local distribution label will release this restoration around my neck of the woods, as I honestly can't justify paying a small fortune for any film, no matter how great it is, to be shipped from the other side of the world.

The Slinging Detective

Singapore Sling (Nikos Nikolaidis, 1990)

Preceding the Greek Weird Wave movement, which rose to prominence in the late 2000s, Nikos Nikolaidis's thoroughly depraved Singapore Sling (1990) can be considered as ahead of its time. Ought to add, I've largely found Greek Weird Wave (which turned Yorgos Lanthimos into a popular name amongst the kino massive) a pretentious and farcical movement, thanks to its trademark stilted deliveries and awkward hipster humour. Singapore Sling happens to be something of an outlier in this regard, as it manages to have its own idiosyncratic charm and identity without it being eye-rollingly trying too hard. As a result, it happens to be a rewatchable entry in extreme cinema rather than a one time endurance test.

Singapore Sling, or to use the literal English translation of its original title - The Man Who Loved A Corpse, takes obvious inspiration from Otto Preminger's celebrated noir Laura (1944). Preminger's film has  Dana Andrews's private dick searching for the killer of Gene Tierney's character, before a big twist surfaces later in the movie. Nikolaidis has Singapore Sling, the eponymous, Greek detective searching for his lover Laura. The sleuth stumbles upon a bizarre mother and daughter disposing of a body during a torrential downpour, who might know something about Laura's whereabouts.

Many familiar tropes and cliches associated with film noir are prominent in the film. The most obvious is the titular character being the detective investigating the disappearance of his sweetheart. From the harsh black and white contrast lighting, to Sling's first person narration (albeit in Greek), there's a level of technical understanding for the genre's craft. Without the odd giveaway, such as a very obvious '80s looking turntable, you would be forgiven for mistaking the film as being from a much earlier era. That is of course if depraved movies of the Forties and Fifties were on par with this back then. It's what makes Singapore Sling so anachronistically abstract.

Be warned; Singapore Sling definitely falls under the extreme cinema umbrella. This is a film which isn't shy in showing numerous acts of sexual depravity like BDSM and various bodily fluids. There are wince inducing moments of vomiting during a greedy feast scene, but perhaps the film's piece de resistance is the scene involving a kiwi fruit. Without delving into any graphic detail, you'll never see the fuzzy fruit in the same way again. Ever.

What's intriguing about the film, for me at least, is the relationship between Daughter AKA Laura (Meredyth Herold) and Mother (Michele Valley). Given how intentionally unreliable and contradictory facts and details are presented, you aren't certain if the characters are related, or if it's all role play. This does add another layer to the film, which sends the mind racing into overtime attempting to make sense of the characters.

Performance wise, both Herold and Valley are superbly animated and quirky as the psycho mother and daughter. They are what makes this such a watchable film. Thanassoulis plays it lifelessly deadpan, but there's more to his character as the film progresses. He's plainly not a third wheel in the film's plot. To be fair, Singapore Sling's group psychopathy has a lot in common with Freddie Francis's absolutely stellar Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (1970), another film that I adore involving a role playing dysfunctional family.

Definitely not for everyone and obviously one for the sickos. A technically stylish and well crafted film considering how depraved it is from the jump. It's oddly strange how various tropes and cliches associated with film noir are grafted into such a perverse art-house film. This make it all the more audacious. A  transgressive film, and one that's grown on me even more over the years.

Amazingly, Singapore Sling is available to watch for free and uncut on Nikos Nikolaidis's YouTube channel. How it hasn't been taken down by Google, I'll never know. However, I do welcome it being there for any inquisitive film fanatics daring enough to check it out. More recently, Singapore Sling got the lavish boutique Blu-Ray treatment, courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome, which I ended up purchasing for my own film library.

Of Death, of Love

Dellamorte Dellamore (Michele Soavi, 1994)

Largely considered as the last great Italian Horror by film critics and genre enthusiasts, Michele Soavi's darkly comic Dellamorte Delllamore (AKA Cemetery Man, 1994), is both a surreal and unconventional offering bound to frustrate and confuse anyone mistaken into thinking this would be another gory, flesh eating, Italian zombie flick in the vein of Zombi 2 (1979) or Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (1981). While commonly described as an existential zombie film, it's only partially accurate, as the zombies, or "returners" as called by the film's protagonist, are only prominent in the first half of the film. The remainder is a descent into madness, where the living are the bigger focus of the story. Culminating with an ambiguous ending, that's open to all sorts of interpretation.

Gianni Romni's screenplay is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, penned by author and comic book writer Tiziano Sclavi. The book was a prequel to Dylan Dog, a cult Italian comic storied around an English, paranormal investigator. Artist and co-creator, Angelo Stano based his on the titular character on the English thespian Rupert Everett, after seeing him in the drama Another Country (1984). Flattered by the use of his image and the general premise of Dellamorte Dellamore, Everett's eagerness and involvement in the film's pre-production came very early on.

On the outskirts of Buffalora, a rustic town in northern Italy, the chronically depressed Francesco Dellamorte is the caretaker of the nearby cemetery, which is besieged with the select undead who rise from their graves seven days after their burial. The thirty-something protagonist, who has more in common with an emo teenager, is accompanied by an almost mute (the only thing he utters is, "Gna!" and in typical Lassie fashion, its meaning is understood by Dellamorte), spherically-shaped manchild known as Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro). Together, they deal with the returners like a humorous odd couple burdened with the most mundane of tasks. Interestingly, Dellamorte is a bit of a pretentious prat with his depressed poetic drivel and confessing to only reading the telephone book. His cellar dwelling companion, however, likes nothing more than consuming plates of spaghetti with bread and watching war footage on his beloved TV.

Their dynamic changes with the introductions of She (the stone cold, Finnish Italian fox Anna Falchi). The buxom bombshell plays three different, but identical looking women (technically four if you count her returner form). The first is a beautiful, young widow with a penchant for the ossuary. The second is the second mayor's secretary with a fear of male genitalia. The final version of She is a college student who turns out to be a prostitute. All three of these incarnations have a profound effect on Francesco Dellamorte's mental state. Ultimately, turning him into a man who no longer kills the dead, but the living. As shown when the Grim Reaper appears and tells Dellamorte, "Stop killing the dead. They're mine. If you don't want the dead coming back to life, why don't you just kill the living, shoot them in the head? Are you listening to me?" Indeed he does, as he eventually drives into town and goes on a killing spree; shooting the local youths who mocked him for supposedly being impotent.

Structurally, Dellamorte Dellamore is top heavy (not a pun on Falchi's fantastic topless scenes*) as the first incarnation of She consumes the first hour of the film. The other versions of the alluring femme and their impact in the film, run far shorter. They're all pivotal, however, as they're key triggers to the decline of Dellamorte's deteriorating mental state. There is of course Gnagi's sideplot, where he falls for the career obsessed mayor's daughter. Dead or alive; she's still only fourteen years old, regardless of Gnagi believing he is also a child. Back on topic, the film does manage to work really well, despite its absurdity. It's largely due to its uniqueness and its surreal, dreamlike quality; everything feels and behaves so out-of-wack, that any flaw might come across as intentional by Michele Soavi. A notable reason why Dellamorte Dellamore is given the clichéd description as being Lynchian. Although, Italain horror has always had its own eccentricities and general weirdness well before the term was ever coined.

In terms of the film's visual style, it's a veritable mix of vintage Sam Raimi and early Peter Jackson; particularly many of the nocturnal graveyard scenes. Mauro Marchetti's stunning cinematography easily elevates the film above most other '90s horror films, let alone the barely functioning Italian horror industry at the time. Soavi, a fan of classic fine art and recreating them in his films, creates a homage to one during the ossuary scene, where Dellamorte has his head wrapped in a scarf, passionately kissing a veiled She; an obvious reference to Rene Magritte's The Lovers II. Other films also get the referential treatmentl  the most blatant being the snow globe from Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941). A totally obscure one, is Dellamorte constantly mistaken for an engineer; a reference to David Hemming's character in Dario Argento's Deep Red (1975). Of course, Soavi was no stranger to referencing grand pieces of art with his directorial debut, the Euro-slasher Stagefright (1987); a classic horror in its own right.

Perhaps the film's greatest achievement is Rupert Everett being in it, playing it thoroughly emo, yet defying the odds and being the superb lead. Easily his best film. Witnessing him shoot dumdum bullets into the undead while acting thoroughly morose is how I would imagine Ash J. William would be if he was a poncey English bloke. Everett is also the common element that keeps the film flowing and compelling, regardless of its incoherent plot. He bridges all the on-screen insanity from one scene to the next, from his comedic scenes with Hadji-Lazaro's Gnagi, to his doomed romances with Falchi's multiples of She; it's thoroughly entertaining.

Bottom line - Dellamorte Dellamore is a classic, yet sadly perfect swan song as the last great Italian horror. It's also tragic Soavi never helmed any other theatrical films afterwards and retreated into TV work, as he stepped out of the shadow of being Dario Argento's protégé and proved to possess his own unique style and talent. The Italian film industry was in dire straits at the time, and all the great directors were well past their primes, which makes Soavi an important name in the canon of Italian horror for being responsible for its last great entry.

*Can't link any of the multiple screenshots I took of Anna Falchi's topless scenes as Imgur deleted them. The philistines.

Viewings: January 2025

Started off the year focusing on rewatching a bunch of titles. Still managed to fit some new-to-me films, however.

Major highlights were Leslie Stevens's surreal, folk horror Incubus and Robert Eggers's remake of Nosferatu.

 

Film:

Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak, 1944)*

Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger, 1950)*

At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (José Mojica Marins, 1964)

Incubus (Leslie Stevens, 1966)*

Up the Chastity Belt (Bob Kellett, 1971)

The Devil (Andrzej Żuławski, 1972)*

The Night of the Devils (Giorgio Ferroni, 1972)

Scream… and Die! AKA The House That Vanished (José Ramón Larraz, 1973)*

Vampyres (José Ramón Larraz, 1974)

The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke, 1978)

Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980)

Roadgames (Richard Franklin, 1981)

Knife Under the Throat (Claude Mulot, 1986)*

Juice (Ernest R. Dickerson, 1992)

Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)*

To Die For (Gus Van Sant, 1995)

The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)*

Polytechnique (Denis Villeneuve, 2009)*

YellowBrickRoad (Jesse Holland, Andy Mitton, 2010)*

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)

Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-ho, 2016)

Godzilla Minus One (Takashi Yamazaki, 2023)

Nosferatu (Robert Eggers, 2024/2025)*

Television:

Elvis Presley: '68 Comeback Special (Steve Binder, 1968)*

Doomwatch - Season 1: Episodes 1 & 4 (Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis, 1970)*

Top of the Pops - Episode #34.3 (Anne Gilchrist, 1997)

*First time viewings.

Dada Debaser Notes:

• Highlights of Siodmak's film noir Phantom Lady were the striking scenes exemplifying his German Expressionistic roots, Ella Raines as the besotted secretary turned amateur sleuth, and an erotically charged drum solo. Overall, a decent film.
  
• Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends can be casually summed up as a proto-Bad Lieutenant. Dana Andrews plays the rogue cop with a penchant for roughing up thugs, because he doesn't want to be like his no-good old man. Gene Tierney is the enchanting smokeshow, who realistically ought to have ditched Andrews for his actions. Enjoyable, but I really wish it ended on a darker note to fit better.
  
• Everyone harps on about Żuławski's Possession (1981), and rightfully so, but rarely do I hear much about his other films. Found The Devil, a period drama/horror set during the Prussian invasion of Poland, a real slog to sit through, regrettably. Film wound up being banned by the Communist government; wouldn't be surprised it was because of it being so boring than politically subversive.
• It might not have aged as well as Deep Cover (1992) but Juice works as a perfect time capsule of music and fashions from the early '90s under the guise of a crime drama. Don't think I ever noticed some of the brief rap cameos like Special Ed before.
  
• Both The Lives of Others and Polytechnique deal with dark chapters in the '80s. Something else they have in common in their dark subject matter, is clichéd, Hollywood style character writing; turning them into almost derivative dramas, virtually sucking away their respective impact.
  
• Flabbergasted by all the praise for Leigh's poverty p0rn drama Naked. A deluge of tediously, long pseudo-intellectual monologues, conspiracy theories and misanthropic rants delivered by David Thewlis (looking a lot like Catweazle, I might add) become incredibly exhausting after a while. The rest of the cast play unbelievably moronic characters, but you do get Ewen Bremner as a foul mouthed, homeless Scot which is genuinely funny.
  
• Florence Guérin and Brigitte Lahaie are completely wasted in the misogynistic and sleazy French giallo (shouldn't it be jaune?) Knife Under the Throat. It's a thoroughly inept thriller in every sense. Both actresses would appear again the following year with the superior Faceless (1987). Watch that instead!

On a final note:

Eraserhead | 'In Heaven' scene

David Lynch | 1977

 

Schreck the Third

Nosferatu (Robert Eggers, 2024/2025)

You need balls of steel to remake a film property which has been engrained in popular culture for over a century. For Robert Eggers, Nosferatu (2024) has always been a passion project. It took fifty years for Werner Herzog to craft Nosferatu the Vampyre, his own personal take on F.W. Murnau's German Expressionist masterpiece Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, and now, it's been almost as long since then for Eggers.

Eggers's The Witch (2015) was one of the greatest film debuts from the last decade and was a classic in its own right in the folk horror canon. He defied the dreaded sophomore slump with the Lovecraftian follow-up The Lighthouse (2019). While journos turned on The Northman (2022) with culture war think pieces, the Viking revenge saga ended up as your host's best film of 2022. All in all, these films cemented Eggers as an important auteur. Therefore, his revision of Nosferatu made it an eagerly anticipated title for many cinephiles. Now that it's out, the all important question rears its head: is it any good? Yes, but it's not without some serious flaws, however.

Arguably Eggers's greatest strength is his obsessive ability to bring verisimilitude to all his films. His history as a production designer explains this and shines through with his latest film. Nosferatu is without a shadow of a doubt a stunningly detailed film. From the costumes, sets and props, the film is visually sumptuous and mesmerising. The sequence where a horse-drawn carriage travels to Orlok's castle is like a mental sequence playing out in the mind of every gothic horror aficionado brought to life.

Eggers's Nosferatu has a distinctively different atmosphere from its predecessors. Whereas the previous two, which were inherently European in style, or to be more accurate, German, Eggers's version has the look and feel of a Hollywood production. That's not a slight at Jarin Blaschke's beautiful and almost monotone cinematography, but it does signify this is a more conventional beast. Delving deeper, both Murnau's and Herzog's films look far more natural, despite various camera and effects trickery (e.g. the use of slow motion and negative photography) Eggers's film, while gorgeous is stylised, controlled and artificial in contrast. It's far closer to what Francis Coppola attempted with his film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).

The most unique aspect of this updated Nosferatu, which separates it from previous versions, is the shift in making Lily Rose Depp's character, Ellen, the central protagonist. The emotional and psychological depth of the film, chiefly stems from her. The prologue shows her summoning an entity to rescue her from despair and loneliness. No surprise who answers her crying pleas from the darkness. The result is her sleepwalking and sharing a psychic bond with the film's monstrous villain.

Fast forward a few years and Ellen is newly wed to junior realtor Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), which ultimate triggers the familiar plot of the film. Nosferatu is essentially a love triangle. There's a complexity to Ellen's character which demands a lot from Depp. A young woman both attracted and reviled by the undead antagonist. A sexual woman repressed by the conservative standards of the nineteenth century.  Depp claims she was inspired by Isabelle Adjani's performance in Possession (1981), who coincidentally played the heroine in Herzog's remake. It's a disturbing performance by the young actress, as you alarmingly witness her convulsing or being possessed. Thus, it results with the film being more sexually explicit than before.

However, the focus on Ellen does have some adverse affects on the rest of the film. Plot points, particularly those in the second act, feel neglected to a certain degree. Thomas's eventual escape from the castle and his journey home are both rushed, while the introduction of the film's Van Helsing figure, Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) comes too late into the film, although his eccentric levity is most welcome in the film. The Hardings, friends of the Hutters are flat characters; particularly Aaron Taylor-Johnson's pantomime acting as Freidrich, while their two children Clara and Louise (possibly referencing silent era stars Clara Bow and Louise Brooks) are there to foreshadow a particular scene later in the film. If you're at all familiar with the two previous versions of the film, then you're aware of how devastating the plague is upon the fictional German city of Wisburg. Here, it's surprisingly fleeting.

As a result of these issues, the pacing does very much drag at times. And so, as beautifully lavish as Nosferatu is, it does have a touch of the by-the-numbers-Jane-Austen-costume-drama spirit about it at times. Thankfully, Willem Dafoe's performance, along with Simon McBurney's utterly insane Herr Knock manage to keep it entertaining and interesting.

Bill Skarsgård's Orlok is distinctively different to the fairy tale monster played by Max Schreck and the existentially sullen Klaus Kinski. This is a different beast altogether, with a more muscular build and a deeply guttural masculine voice. While Skarsgård's Orlok did look like how I would imagine a zombie version of Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik would be, I did get use to him over the course of the film. Also, I wasn't too bothered by the moustache, as Bram Stoker's novel has always described Dracula as sporting one. Really liked Orlok's attire in the film. He definitely looked like he was dressed from an even older era than the rest of the cast members in their corsets and carrick coats. Interestingly, Skarsgård's Orlok behaves far differently to Schreck's and Kinki's portrayals. The revised Orlok is best described as the mentally abusive ex, as evident in this choice bit of dialogue:

Count Orlok: So you wish me to prove my enmity as well? I will leave you three nights. Tonight was the first. Tonight you denied yourself, and thereby, you suffer me to vanish up the lives of those you love.

Ellen Hutter: Denied myself? You revel in my torture.

Count Orlok: Upon the third night, you will submit, or he you call your husband shall perish by my hand.

Ellen Hutter: No!

Count Orlok: Till you bid me come shall you watch the world become as naught.

Despite its faults, Nosferatu makes amends with an enjoyable hunt for Count Orlok where the pace drastically picks up, with an excellent theme from composer Robin Carolan that reflects it. Of course, there's the incredible final moments of the film with a closing shot that before the closing credits that won't leave the memory anytime soon. Ultimately, Nosferatu ends on a positively high note.

According to Eggers, an extend cut of the film will be released when it becomes available on Blu-Ray and 4K UHD. Not sure how the additional material would benefit, considering the issues in the second act, but it will be interesting to see how different this version will be from the theatrical release. Perhaps this new cut might add further development to the various subplots.

If this was made by any other director not named Robert Eggers, I doubt I would be this critical. His three previous films were in a different tier, in my opinion. Regardless, I still found Nosferatu overall enjoyable.

The Wish List: Part 8

I've struck it lucky a few times with these wish lists; even predicting distribution labels correctly.

Here are five more films which desperately need some well earned Blu-Ray or 4K UHD love.

The Creeping Flesh (Freddie Francis, 1973)

For a Tigon production, The Creeping Flesh has all the hallmarks of a Hammer horror film: the gothic Victorian setting; veterans of the legendary film company making up a significant portion of the cast and crew (Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee being the obvious examples), and of course a blood curdling monster which puts an entertaining spin on Charles Darwin's theories on evolution.

As far as Blu-Ray availability goes, The Creeping Flesh was released in 2017 as part of a three-pack by Mill Creek, which included Torture Garden (1967) and The Brotherhood of Satan (1971). The film quality is hardly exceptional, however. The other two films have been blessed since then with their own releases in superior picture quality and bonus features. This makes The Creeping Flesh even more wanting of some special high definition treatment.

The House with Laughing Windows (Pupi Avati, 1976)

Technically speaking, Pupi Avati's rural, slow burner has more in common with folk horror than it does with the sterotypical giallo. The House with Laughing Windows focuses on Lino Capolicchio's character being tasked with the restoration of a church fresco painting done by an insane artist. The film is laced with plenty of tension and dread throughout, culminating with a shockingly unforgettable ending. Which makes the film one of the more noteworthy films from the post-golden era of the giallo, not helmed by Dario Argento or Lucio Fulci.

As far as I'm aware, The House with Laughing Windows never received the Blu-Ray treatment anywhere in the world and it's definitely overdue for it. It's also one of the few remaining DVDs that I still own, since I haven't been able to replace it with a better version.

Cheerleader Camp AKA Bloody Pom Poms (John Quinn, 1988)

Another one of those '80s slashers that just as well falls into the giallo whodunnit formula as it does with the masked maniac on the loose. Cheerleader Camp is ludicrous with its premise of a summer camp for cheerleaders, which makes it difficult to take remotely seriously. However, its unapologetically low brow goofiness makes this quintessential late night viewing after you've had a few drinks. There's an abundance of T&A to compliment the blood spilled, which makes this somewhat precious considering the MPAA's crackdown on gore in horror films during this era. Lucinda Dickey better known as the possessed fitness instructor from Cannon's Ninja III: The Domination (1984) and the Breakin' movies (both of which from 1984), is one of the highlights in the film, the other is the numerous Playboy and Penthouse models being in it. However, what takes the bloody baton is the legendary B-movie actor Buck Flower not playing another hobo as usual.

Apart from a bootleg, there isn't a Blu-Ray of the film, which is crying shame as it's far more entertaining than some of the other late '80s slashers I've seen which have already received the boutique Blu-Ray treatment. This has Vinegar Syndrome written all over it.

5150 Elm's Way (Éric Tessier, 2009)

A French-Canadian psychological horror about an innocent young lad held captive by a psychotic chess master and his family. His only chance of freedom is to beat his captor in a chess game. And so a lot of chess games ensue. Without spoiling the film, it leads to an unexpected outcome and one that I found rather unique. 

Being an end of the noughties film, 5150 Elm's Way is a classic example of those underrated films which fell through the cracks when DVD was gradually being replaced with Blu-Ray, so it never received the hi-def upgrade. Fingers crossed this gets picked up by a label like Radiance films or Second Sight.

No One Will Save You (Brian Duffield, 2023)

A virtually dialogue free alien invasion film. Hardly a new concept with the A Quiet Place franchise being so popular in recent years, but I'll gladly take the Pepsi Challenge and pick Brian Duffield's sci-fi gem over any of those other films. That's largely due to No One Will Save You reminding me of the classic The Twilight Zone's episode Invaders, along with an incredible performance from Kaitlyn Dever.

It's an absolute crime that the best film I watched in 2023 is still not available to buy on physical home media. Instead, you have be subscribed to HULU just to watch it. Still, some films from the company such as the mediocre Prey (2022) managed to get a physical release, and for this reason I'm cautiously optimistic it'll happen to a far more deserving film like this.

Curse of Tongues

Incubus (Leslie Stevens, 1966)

Leslie Stevens' folk horror Incubus (1966) is far too much of a strange oddity to simply sum up in a few mere words. Once considered a lost film, this black and white tale pits good against evil with the fate of a pre-James T. Kirk, William Shatner's soul hanging in the balance. Elevating the film into bizarre territory is the dialogue being spoken is the artificial language of Esperanto. Stranger still, are the various misfortunes and fatal tragedies linked to this diabolical production. Incubus became a cursed film.

Borne from Stevens' decision to write and direct an independent film after his television series, the science-fiction anthology The Outer Limits (1963-1965), was cancelled. Daystar Productions, the studio responsible for the show, would aid in realising Incubus. Much of the film would be shot around California's Big Sur. The picturesque coastal region would contribute a great deal to the film's primal theme of good versus evil. Additionally, the setting was beneficial for an independent horror film with a low budget.

Set in the village known as Nomen Tuum, famed for a deer well able to heal and give beauty to those who drink its water, the region is a hub for the corrupted. The demonic succubus Kia (Leslie Stevens' wife, Allyson Ames) seduces these corrupted individuals; luring them to the sea, where she drowns them. The wretched souls sent to her God of Darkness. The beautiful succubus finds the task far too easy. She tell her demonic sister Amael (Eloise Hardt) that she yearns for a greater challenge; the corruption of a pure soul. Avoiding her older sister's warning to give up this endeavour as it's too dangerous, Kia begins searching for this potential victim.

Trekking (no pun intended) through the countryside, Kia spies upon three suspicious monks. Each of them exemplifying the corruption abound in Nomen Tuum. The first one holds a toad while creepily eating a hard boiled egg; the next buries a mysterious object in the soil; whilst the last monk mocks prayer to a holy crucifix, subsequently turning it over. It's after this strange scene where Kia spots her prey.

Whilst on a pilgrimage with his sister Arndis (Ann Atmar), the hobbling, war hero Marco (William Shatner) becomes Kia's objekto de deziro. The soldier drinks from the well and finds it tasting sweet. He is cured and able to walk again, longer requiring his stick. This is in stark contrast to Kia's previous victim who found the well's waters salty, foreshadowing his drowning under the succubus's foot. Kia follows the siblings to their home from afar. Once again, Amael interjects and warns Kia, but to no avail.

Kia introduces herself to Marc pretending to be a lost and weary labourer searching for a field. Marc instantly falls in love (the simp!) with the succubus. An eclipse occurs in the heavens above (symbolism, innit?). Arndis is blinded by the celestial event. She's also left alone, as Marc, like a lovesick puppy, escorts Kia to the fields she's meant to be working in.

Kia's brief time spent with Marc has put a damper on her objective. Her powers of seduction fail to work on the war hero. Marc turns down the offer of sex on the beach (and the consequential condemnation of his soul) with her. It leads to this choice bit of dialogue from the film:

Marc: I want you Kia. You know I want you. But there is more to it than lying naked in the sun. I want your body and I want to give you mine. But our bodies mean very little unless we also give our souls to love.”

Kia: I don’t have a soul.

A passionate kiss is enough for the succubus to faint and leave her out cold. Thus, Marc carries Kia to a nearby monastery where he thinks she'll be safe. Meanwhile, the blinded Arndis is guided to their location with the aid of Amael. The scene inside the monastery, where Kia is awoken by a ringing church bell and sent to absolute distress by being on consecrated ground, and being surrounded by all the religious objects inside the monastery, sends the demoness into a panic where she storms out crying.

When Amael catches up with her sobbing, demonic sister, she enquires what could have possibly happened to leave her this way:

Amael: Sister, what did he do to you?

Kia: He carried me...inside...to the altar.

Amael: He has defiled you, Kia...befouled you with love!

Kia: Yes, he said he loved me.

Amael: He has violated you! Sister you must revenge this holy rape!

The course of action leads to the titular incubus being summoned. In what's perhaps the best scene in the film, the two succubi pray to a demonic, winged creature that is standing over wooden, execution gallows. It's beautifully lit, with eerie smoke everywhere, and reminiscent of something you might spot in a German Expressionist film. The soil nearby is disturbed by the incubus (Miloš Milošević - credited as Milos Milos) rising out of the ground. It's from this point onwards the film goes in a surprisingly shocking direction.

Depending on various sources, the jury seems to be out whether the use of Esperanto was incorporated as a marketing gimmick by Leslie Stevens, or genuinely meant for international art house audiences. Fluent Esperantists who had watched Incubus (the second feature film to use the language) found the folk horror unintentionally laughable, as the actors were constantly mispronouncing the dialogue. It sounds like a mixture of Italian and Portuguese; two languages I don't know. I have no idea how laughably bad the actors were speaking any of the dialogue. Therefore, it's impossible to slate it like the Esperantists.

Incubus would fail to find distribution - with the exception of France. According to William Shatner's film commentary, "The French love this film, because they can’t understand it. And the French speak, when they speak French, they’re very difficult to understand each other." I'm not even sure if the Shat is making the slightest bit of sense with his rambling, or just having a go at the French, but we ought to be thankful to our Gallic, cineaste brethren as a rare surviving print of the film was discovered in the Nineties at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris. Incubus had been a lost film for decades until then.

Of course, Incubus's notoriety stems from its cursed film label. The Serbian actor and Alain Delon stand in Milos Milos was in a relationship with Mickey Rooney's estranged fifth wife, Carolyn Mitchell (AKA, Barbara Ann Thompson). On the 31st January 1966, Milos, fearful of his lover reconciling with her husband, would take Mickey's chrome-plated .38 calibre revolver and murder Carolyn right before taking his own life. Mere weeks before the Incubus premiere at the San Francisco Film Festival, Ann Arter would commit suicide. She was only twenty-seven years old. The film's failure that very same year would lead to Leslie Stevens and Allyson Ames' marriage falling apart, resulting in their divorce. The curse would strike again as the body of Eloise Hardt's seventeen year old daughter was found brutally murdered after her abduction on the 1st January 1969. Although linked to one of Charles Manson's crimes, her murder remains unsolved to this day. Coincidentally, a tenuous link to the film's curse involves Sharon Tate having attended the film's premier with her husband Roman Polanski. We don't need to go any further with that story.

In 1968, producer Anthony M. Taylor decided to give Incubus another go with finding US distribution; albeit releasing a risqué version of the film. According to Video Watchdog (#53), nude colour inserts were intended to be edited into the existing film. Not an uncommon trend at the time, but having one of its original actors returning, Robert Fortier as Kia's first victim, Olin, was certainly unusual. This new and nude footage would be filmed by none other than exploitation auteur (and Eminem lookalike) Ray Dennis Steckler. Too many contradictory sources to ascertain if this version actually exists, or not.

Incubus appears to be inspired by Ingmar Bergman's films. The coastal scenes alone give obvious The Seventh Seal (1957) vibes. Yet, despite the cast speaking in Esperanto, it still has the identifiable air of being an American production; a low budget one at that. Given its remarkably short running time, along with the various players being salvaged from The Outer Limits, Incubus does come across as some bizarre, melodramatic, American teleplay rather than a pretentious, European art house film. There's obvious padding with characters slowly walking from one location to the next, typical of many TV serials, but it's not so bothersome given the film's appealing visuals and unique atmosphere.

Conrad L. Hall's stunning black and white cinematography is irrevocably the film's greatest asset. Light and dark is contrasted in perfect opposition; symbolic of the good versus evil theme. Ironically, Hall abruptly left the film before it was finished, and was replaced with an uncredited William A. Fraker to complete the work. According to Shatner, Hall's departure was due to a series of misfortunes which befell him during the shoot; said to be by an enraged hippie putting a hex on the production after he being told to clear off by the film crew. Another reason to hate hippies.

Composer Dominic Frontiere reuses his music from The Outer Limits in Incubus. Angelic harps compliment Hall's stunning cinematography and add another level to the undefinable time period of the film. A further layer to the dreamlike atmosphere of Incubus.

Last, but not least, there's the inimitable William Shatner and the quality of his performance. Regardless of your opinion on his acting, his reputation for over-performing is unavoidable. Despite spewing nonsensical gobbledygook like the rest of the cast, Shatner is rather good here. Quite nuanced at times, except for the fight with the incubus; which is almost as silly as Kirk fighting the Gorn from Star Trek. Admittedly, when it comes to over-acting, Milos is the major culprit in the film, and he's only in the film in the last third of the film. As for the rest of the cast, Allyson Aymes was impressive as the seductive, succubus Kia. I also found Ann Atmer's Arndis the most sympathetic and likeable character in the entire film. That might unconsciously be because of her real life tragedy, but she was still good in it.

To sum up Incubus, it's nowhere near the bad movie it's reputed to be. I consider it very good. It's certainly flawed, like the mispronounced Esperanto, and punches above its weight at times, but I wound up admiring it, and never found it in the least bit boring. With the exception of Roger Corman's The Intruder (1962), Incubus contains one of Shatner's best film performances, in my opinion. Various sources cite Incubus as being ahead of its time in terms of the occult and folk horror boom in 1968 with films like Rosemary's Baby and Witchfinder General. Although, I don't entirely agree since John Llewellyn Moxey's The City of the Dead (1960) and Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960) immediately come to mind; preceding Stevens' film by several years. It is, however, a fascinating oddity from the past, one that appeals to me in a similar way to John Parker's Dementia (1955) one of my favourite film discoveries from last year. This instantly makes Incubus a major film highlight for me this month. 

Well worth watching.