Last week when I was talking about House of Bones, I mentioned a couple other films that shared a similar plot line, a ghost hunting TV show gets more than they expected. Those films were the punningly titled Grave Encounters from Tribeca Films and Ghost Watch which originally aired on BBC1. In the last week, I caught up with both of these, and with only one week left in Ectovember, I thought I would talk about them both. They present two very interesting and different views of ghost hunting shows, British and American views on the supernatural, and how best to utilize a limited budget. I'll go ahead and say right up front that these are the two finest examples of the ghost hunter horror films that I have encountered, and both of them mine the television concept effectively and with precision.

Grave Encounters is set up like a found footage film with a tacked on beginning featuring a producer who has been sent a tape of a proposed series called, you guessed it, Grave Encounters. Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson) leads his team of paranormal investigators into Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, a site where supernatural phenomena has been reported for years. The hospital has a history of murder, lobotomies, and insanity ingrained into it, but the team is more fascinated by how creepy the place will look on camera. After being locked in for the night, they soon find that the hospital offers up much more than an eerie locale. As one of the team goes missing, the others are menaced by ever growing ghostly activity which forces them into breaking down the chained door they entered through, but behind they find only more halls. As endless night stretches on, Lance and the crew begin to surrender their bodies and their minds to whatever evil lurks in the hospital walls.

Without a doubt, Grave Encounters sets its sights on two particular paranormal shows, Ghost Adventures and Paranormal State. Lance's show intro for Grave Encounters is nearly a verbatim melding between those two shows' preamble. (For the record, Adventures is silly fun while State is among the worst that the paranormal reality genre has to offer.) Throughout, writer/ directors The Viscous Brothers (Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz) absolutely nail the patterns of speech used in ghost hunting shows as well as correct use of terminology and actions. I completely believed that the characters responded in the way their real life counterparts would in the same situation, with a mixture of fear, intrigue, steady unremitting disbelief, and the absolute need to put everything on tape. The movie goes for almost an hour before a big scare happens, creating tension throughout the first hour with small happenings and good old fashioned personal conflict between the characters. When the effects work finally intrudes, that is where the film stumbles somewhat. With a larger budget, the effects would have felt much cleaner and less forced, but I do have to give it up to them for showing something and not taking the cop out Blair Witch route.

Despite the occasionally hamfisted effects, Grave Encounters is really a movie that hinges on the actors. Most of the weight in this regard is taken on by Sean Rogerson as Lance. Sean does a heck of a job drawing the audience in with his as he succumbs to horror and madness, but by the end of the film, he took it a bit over the top for me. However, his performance can be seen as a perfect example the decent into Lovecraftian insanity, and it is very telling that his only link to normalcy comes through the lens of a camera. I was equally impressed by Mackenzie Gray as the "psychic" Houston. I would be hard pressed to believe that this character was not based on debunked British psychic Derek Acorah. His performance was highly entertaining, and I really liked that his character was a self aware charlatan but when shit went down he stuck to his shtick in hopes that it would save him. Merwin Mondesir, Ashleigh Gryzko, and Juan Riedinger all give effective performances to round out the team, and no one really felt like they didn't carry their weight.

Ghostwatch takes a slightly different angle on the found footage film by presenting itself on television as a live spectacle. Host Micheal Parkinson and Sarah Greene invite viewers to join them as they investigate a home in Northolt, London reported to be the most haunted home in England. They present both photographic and audio evidence backing up the claims of Pamela Early (Brid Brennon) and her daughters Kim and Suzanne (Michelle and Cerise Wesson) who have been troubled by a spirit that the young girls call "Pipes". While Parkinson and paranormal researcher Dr. Pescoe (Gillian Bevan) remain in the studio to take calls and analyse the evidence, Sarah joins the family in their home where strange happenings slowly begin to unfold. At first it seems like it might only be the work of the daughters creating a hoax, but as the night wears on, the spirit begins to strengthen, affecting the family, the studio, and even the viewers at home.

Airing October 31st, 1992 on BBC1, Ghostwatch was preceded a short title sequence indicating the writer's name and that it was part of the dramatic Screen One series, but many viewers missed that entirely and assumed that the events unfolding on the screen were real. To stem some of the panic they expected to cause, director Lesley Manning had included a number where people could call into to the "show" and share their own ghost stories. When viewers called in, they were let in on the fact they show was fictional. However, the phone lines remained so clogged many couldn't get through, and Ghost Watch created a mini-War of the World's style hysteria. As such, BBC has never repeated the program, and it was only released on VHS years ago. (Thankfully it's in its entirety on Google video and linked below.) What also made the program especially believable was that Parkinson and Greene were respected British television personalities. Parkinson was a venerated journalist and Greene a children's television presenter. (In sort of a twist Yvette Fielding, host of Most Haunted, which clearly based the format of its live events ten years later off Ghostwatch, also started out in kid's TV.) The natural reactions of all the actors, both playing themselves and characters, really sell the whole affair.

Where Ghostwatch really shines is where Grave Encounters faltered, the effects. Ghostwatch chose to keep it subtle with vague images that happen and then are gone in a blink of an eye. I had the advantage of being able to watch scenes over and over, but I can imagine that many home viewers were disturbed by things they thought they might have seen. The director did a great job integrating the ghostly presence into the film. In one instance a scene is looked over three times by Parkinson and the Doctor to determine if a presence has appeared. In the first run, there is something in the frame. In the second, nothing is there, and in the third, there is a vague notion of a shape. A later instance showcases a full body apparition which disappears in the split second it takes for the camera to swing back around. Keeping it subtle (while still paying off and showing something) made Ghostwatch incredibly effective and believable. The only drawback that Ghostwatch has is its pacing. Having to keep in the context of live television often made it feel like it lost steam throwing back and forth between the studio and the haunted home.

One of the main differences between Ghostwatch and Grave Encounters is the cultural gap between North American and European view of the supernatural. In a recent poll over 70% of British respondents said they believe in ghosts. By comparison, the North American figure lingers around or below 50%. Grave Encounters works against the disbelief. The paranormal team is presented as a group of skeptics who are more concerned about making money than actually finding a ghost. Some of them even continue to deny far past the point of reason as a means of coping with the strain. The cast of Ghostwatch however seems eager to believe and have genuine concern for the family being haunted. When it looks like it is a hoax, the investigators genuinely seem crushed. I attribute the differing opinions on the supernatural to the dominance of religion in societal norms, and while North Americans predominately define themselves as Christians, attendance in churches across England and Europe as a whole are at an all-time low.

While neither Ghostwatch and Grave Encounters get it perfectly right, both films are very enjoyable watches. Hopefully someday, Ghostwatch will get an actual North American DVD release, but until then, i highly encourage folks to check it out online. With its television format, it is easily watched in chunks for your viewing pleasure. Grave Encounters, while not "the scariest movie since The Ring" as claimed by The New York Times, is a tense little actor's film with some really interesting supernatural elements. If you can forgive the first stumbling effects shot, you're in for a genuinely scary ride. I'm really interested to see what the next project for The Vicious Brothers will be as Grave Encounters is a hell of a film debut. Well, that wraps it up for Ectovember. I hope you enjoyed my look at haunted cinema (though it descended into ghost hunter territory), and come on back next month for more cult, horror, and genre goodies for the holiday season!

There's basically two movies to talk about if you want to broach Thanksgiving horror. (Unless you count Eli Roth's fake trailers in Grindhouse for Thanksgiving.) There's 1972's Blood Freak, which isn't really about Turkey Day, but it does feature a biker being turned into a killer turkey with an appetite for drug dealers. Then there's the 2009 low budget effort Thankskilling. While I've never got my hands on the former, I've avoided the later for the last two years as, frankly, it sounded stupid. Well, I finally watched it, and I wasn't at all wrong. Thankskilling is stupid, stupid like a fox. With a killer puppet turkey running around spouting one liners and a script that wants to be Troma-like but can't quite manage, Thankskilling may just be the antidote for the family Thanksgiving dinner.

Seeing as this is a poultry based slasher, there's precious little to synopsize. The movie starts off with a pre-title sequence wherein the film's killer turkey makes his first appearance while offing a large breasted pilgrim (Mature porn star Wanda Lust). Cut to present day, and five college students are on their way home for Thanksgiving break. After the nerd tells them the legend of Thankskilling, the Gruesome Gobbler begins to stalk the teens. Their only hope is the vast collection of books about Turkeys that one of their fathers owns, but before they can stop it, the turkey rapes, murders, and bastes a swath of blood wherever he goes.

Making a movie on a shoestring budget is no easy task even in this shot-on-video era. Thankskilling is one of the better looking movies to come out of this movement, and it's plain to see that every penny of the $3000 dollar budget is onscreen. The problem is the chasm from the films they seem to want to make, and the one they did. While the film opens on a naked breast, this is the last bit of sleaze you get in the film, and the violence is watered down to practically nothing as well. Director Jordan Downey clearly wants to follow in the footsteps of Lloyd Kaufman, but a fairly tame tale of a wisecracking turkey isn't going to do the job. The turkey puppet, voiced by Downey, is clearly the best part of the film (and the scene where it shares a cup of coffee with a man in a turkey suit is hilarious visually if nothing else.), and the wisecracks took me right back to the days of my youth before funny Freddy Kruger wasn't infinitely irritating.

Perhaps the greatest strength of Thankskilling is its brevity. Running just barely over an hour, it's an easy watch, and it contains enough decent jokes to make the experience worthwhile. It also might be better if you're slightly sleepy from too much turkey. Someone test that theory out and get back to me on it. Right now Thankskilling is available for Instant Watch on Netflix, and while it is an incredibly flawed movie, I still encourage folks to check it out. After all, there's only so many times you can watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving or Miracle on 34th Street, and no one is ready for A Christmas Story quite yet. So after bottling up all that rage at your family gathering, come home and queue this one up. It may be a turkey about a turkey killing some turkeys, but it's not a bad way to spend a holiday evening.

Before I go, I want to take an opportunity to thank all my readers. No matter if you're celebrating Turkey day or one of my readers from around the world, I thank each and every one of you who make the Lair one of your favorite places for Cult, Horror, and Genre reviews.

It’s been a couple of months since last Emily of the Deadly Doll’s House of Horror Nonsense and I got a chance to do a film swap, but after our recent meet up at Horrorhound Weekend, I really wanted to get back to our film exchange. After swapping around a few ideas, we settled on a Thanksgiving-ish theme, "Movies We Are Thankful For". For my part, I gave her Alice’s Restaurant, Arthur Penn’s 1969 adaptation of Arlo Guthrie’s eighteen and a half minute song featuring hippy Thanksgiving, courtroom hijinx, and a rousing lesson in draft dodging. Click on over to Deadly Doll’s to see why Alice’s makes me thankful, and what Emily thought about it, but first Emily's pick, Bad Boy Bubby, an Australian movie that's perfect for the whole family at the holidays. It has to be family friendly. Well, that is if your family is really into incest or torturing the family cat. I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me give Emily a chance to set up her thankful selection...

"I can't officially argue that Bad Boy Bubby is an appropriate Thanksgiving movie--for starters, it takes place in Australia, where turkey is probably replaced with emu for all I know--but it's certainly a film that I'm THANKFUL for. It's cheating of course, but still: this 1993 independent black comedy is one of those movies that just make me happy to WATCH MOVIES, and thankful that there will always be artists who can take chances onscreen.

So sure, there's incest, animal violence, sexual harassment, and surprisingly grisly murder, but somehow all of these acts work in harmony to create a weirdly sweet coming of age tale not just about a boy growing up, but about a man discovering the world and all of its gifts. Pizza! Cats! Love! Duct Tape! Aren’t we all thankful these things exist? Set it to a bizarro spoken-word-rock score and bam! We’ve got something that celebrates the essence of this fine and tasty holiday far more appropriately than giant balloon animals."

To say that Bad Bob Bubby doesn’t start off as your typical Turkey Day affair is possibly the greatest understatement since the settlers told the Indians that those blankets looked fine to them. The first thirty minutes of the film are some of the most excruciating cinema I’ve ever managed to watch. I would have had an easier time watching Salo, Cannibal Holocaust, and Martyrs on three screens simultaneously.  Thirty five year old Bubby (Nicolas Hope) has never set foot outside the walls of the dingy apartment he calls home. His domineering mother (Claire Benito) beats him, molests him, and threatens him with poison air and a vengeful God. When Bubby’s not having sex with Mom, he delights in torturing cats, squishing roaches, and other assorted grossness. His world is turned upside down when his father returns home, and it’s not too long before Bubby goes on a parental killing spree.

It’s a half hour of some of the most abject darkness I have ever sat through, but somehow director Rolf de Heer almost manages to overcome the film’s setup in the next hour and half. After offing the folks, Bubby goes out into the world. There he discovers music, pizza, cunnilingus, rock and roll, atheism, pain, love, and finally happiness. Over the course of Bubby’s transformation, de Heer used 35 separate cinematographers to capture each of the new experiences, and each one adds a pair of fresh eyes to the proceedings. Through Bubby, who later takes on the persona ‘Pop’, is a difficult character to relate to or fully like, his childlike wonder of the world is an amazing thing to behold. Perhaps the easiest shorthand to describe the film would be to say it is Being There by way of Eraserhead with a healthy dose of black Aussie humor thrown in to boot.

The jillion dollar question though is do I share the same feelings as Emily about this movie? Well, in some ways it does make me thankful. Anyone who watches the first half-hour will be glad for two reasons. First, it didn’t happen to them (presumably), and secondly, they never have to watch it again. While I found Bad Boy interesting and through provoking, I feel like de Heer might have veered too much into the shock factor during the first act. It left a long hole to dig out of, and with Bubby’s actions later in the film still remaining despicable, the redemptive part of the film feels a bit hollow. I do share the sentiment that de Heer made a brave film, and certainly it is not intended for every audience. Had Emily not picked this film for me to watch, I’m not so certain that I would have hung in there past the kitty violence (of which there was more than I ever want to see again), but ultimately I’m glad I did.

That being said, I, for one, am glad I get to get up in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, turn on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and enjoy the crap out of the giant balloons, Broadway dance numbers, and a special appearance by the Rockettes. I can’t imagine part of me would rather be watching a challenging, but exploitative, art film. So on that point, Emily and I diverge. What I am most thankful for today is the Deadly Doll. From our monthly (or semi-monthly) swaps to our face to face meetings, it’s always a pleasure to butt heads (and occasionally agree) with her. I’m always glad to have a friend that will make me try and wrap my brain around cinema like Bad Boy Bubby, and one who will watch Alice’s Restaurant in good humor (though I thought she would check out the song as well). That’s all for this Pilgrim’s progress for today. Check back later in the week as I gobble up a Turkey Day semi-classic.

One of the reasons I started The Lair (the one and only, accept no substitutions), was to throw the spotlight on some of my favorite films, and over three years ago, I got around to one of my all time favorites, Jeff Waltrowski's Project: Valkyrie. In that film Jim Cranston, a deadbeat who owes money to the mob, finds helpful hero robot Valkyrie while going through boxes of inventions belonging to his grandfather, Professor Jack Cranston. He keeps the robot, but to make some quick cash,  sells off a serum that causes the rise of the Fourth Reich. Thankfully, Valkyrie gets Jim into gear and they stop the rise of the mutant Neo-Nazis. Imagine my surprise when six months after my original review, Mr. Waltrowski commented on my post and teased a prequel to Project: Valkyrie featuring the adventures of Professor Jack Cranston. As I followed the production of It Came from Yesterday, I was very  impressed the the scope of production that Jeff was undertaking. He planned to film the entirety of his movie on green screen, a risk that could either really pay off, stumble over itself, or just create infinite comparisons to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In the end, It Came From Yesterday captures a mixture of the past, present, and future, with mixed results.

More than a few times I've professed my love for ghost hunting shows here at the Lair. I have my favorites (Most Haunted), ones that make me chuckle (Ghost Adventures), and ones I can't stand (Ghost Lab). In between there's a plethora of other shows of varying degrees of mediocrity. So I've long looked for a horror movie that incorporated ghost hunting in an interesting way. While I've never gotten to see the crown jewel in this particular sub-genre,the 1991 BBC1 mockumentary Ghostwatch, I've sat through Haunting of Winchester Mansion and Death of a Ghost Hunter both of which I felt no compelling reason to write about. (I'm still holding out some hope for Grave Encounters (2011)) Today's ghost hunter flick is the first I've seen to both show the seedy underbelly of the paranormal show and give a satisfying, and often horrific, ride. The strangest thing is that it hails from the home of one of the premiere spiritualist shows, Ghost Hunters. That's right. You're about to be treated to something very scary, a SyFy movie I enjoy. House of Bones is thankfully not a horror/porn, a sequel to the Snoop Dogg flick, or a theme restaurant based on the Emily Deschanel. Instead, it's made for TV fare with a ton of potential, some decent scares, and, dare I say, a whole lot of spirit(s).

Corin Nemec (Mansquito, Parker Lewis Can't Lose) appears as Quentin French, the prissy, small ponytailed host of the paranormal show Sinister Sites. With the ratings beginning to fade, the network is demanding that the host get his hands dirty and actually join the ghost hunting team on an investigation. Meanwhile, in New Orleans (Really nearby Crowley, La. The one exterior city shot could have literally been anywhere.), the team is busy setting up for an investigation in the Wicker House, a home notorious for numerous murders and disappearances over the years. Despite the home's sordid past, lead investigators Tom (Ricky Wayne) and Greg (Marcus Lyle Brown) are non-believers more than willing to set up a shot or create evidence. In addition to the host joining the team, new addition Heather Burton (Charisma Carpenter), a psychic, and production assistant Bub (Kyle Clements) soon find that the house is indeed haunted. In Bub's case, he finds out the hard way. With actual evidence being captured, Tom gleefully disregards the team's safety in order to make exciting television, and soon they all find that the house itself is a presence and it will not let them leave.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this SyFy original is that they would air it in the first place. The entire premise of the film relies on the conceit that ghost hunting shows are bunk, full of actors scaring themselves, and actively engaged in fakery. With Ghost Hunters still pulling in a sizable viewership, it took a certain amount of balls to air a film that basically says the fans are stupid. The second most surprising thing is that the film is actually pretty good. While House of Bones initially relies on jumpy video cuts to create tension, director Jeffery Scott Lando lets those fade into the background and actually manages to come up with quite a few creepy visuals.Writer Anthony C. Ferrante has clearly watched a ton of the shows and gets his stuff right, and I do have to say his style is improved since the underwhelming Boo (2005). That's not to say that the film is not full of useless expository passages, inane dialog, and broad characterizations. After all, you can take the movie off of SyFy, but you can't take the SyFy out of the movie. What a cast and crew can do is make the best out of a fumbling script, and with House of Bones, they've done just that.

There were actually three things that drew me into watching House of Bones, the ghost hunting angle, the "New Orleans" setting, and Charisma Carpenter. While I am no huge fan of Buffy and Angel, I am quite the fan of Ms. Carpenter. Far and away, she's the best portion of this film, but her psychic character is totally underused. (The character is also roundly ignored. When a psychic spits up blood and tells me a house is possessed by malevolent spirits, well, I can guarantee there would be a Bugg size hole in the door pronto.) Ricky Wayne, who has recently landed roles in Real Steel, the Charlie's Angels tv series, and Burn Notice, impresses as the lead investigator. His character arc is the most dynamic, and Wayne pulls it off nicely. Marcus Lyle Brown is likable enough and the same can be said of Kyle Clements and Collin Galyean, who played the team tech guy, but neither became fleshed out characters. Top billed Corin Nemec is really not in more than 15 minutes of the film, and that is being entirely generous. As a group, the cast rises above the script, but not far, perhaps a Chris Angel street magic rise, but no further.

Looking at the film from a ghost believer's point of view, the characters come to believe that the house contains both intelligent (as in they will respond with some intelligence) and residual spirits (who appear or act without an awareness of our timeline). The most interesting concept is that the house itself is not only possessed, but it had been constructed as a means of storing and amplifying psychic energies. The same has been said of Winchester Mansion (which the aforementioned film borrowed a name, but not an actual setting from) built by Elsa Winchester to both protect herself from ghosts as well as focus their energy for Ouija and other means of communication. Again, someone knew their stuff. Sadly the things that bothered me most in the entire film were when the characters went to the basement, a place that would not exist in below sea level New Orleans, and when the spirit drives a cop car away. The first scene is just a personal pet peeve, but the second was so silly it almost took me entirely out of the film.

No matter what your feeling on ghosts or shows concerning them, I highly recommend no one go into this movie without knowing from whence it came. As far as SyFy films go, this is far and away one of the best I've ever seen. As a regular film, it rates below average which is the rating I'm going to give it. Even so, I had a great time watching it, and while much of that has to do with the cast, I can't underestimate some of the macabre creepiness that House of Bones manages to achieve. With another writer taking a pass over the script, a little bit more money in the budget, and perhaps a couple minor casting changes, House of Bones could have been a solid, quality entry into the supernatural genre. As it stands, House of Bones built something good upon a shaky foundation, and when your network can't even afford a proper amount of letters in their name, that's pretty damn impressive.

If you've ever had the desire to see Peter Cushing do his best belly dancing, then you've come to the right place today. For I have for you guys the only film in which Count Dracula cut a Middle Eastern rug, the 1965 Hammer film She. Based on an 1887 novel by H. Rider Haggard, She first made its way to screen in 1899 as The Pillar of Fire. Over the next few years it would become one of the most remade films in formative cinematic history (proving unnecessary remakes have always been the stuff of the movies.) It was next made in  1911 with Marguerite Snow in the title role, then in 1917 a version was filmed for Fox, and in 1925 with the participation of Rider Haggard. Perhaps the most well known version is King Kong director Merian Cooper's   She (1935) which transposes the action from Africa to the Arctic and is thoroughly appointed in the Art Deco style. It has been hailed as one of the best (and first) enjoyable "bad" movies, and the title character's look clearly influenced the design of Disney's evil queen in Snow White. A movie called She, bearing some of the character names, debuted in 1982, but it has little to no relation to the source material, and finally it was  remade within recent memory (if anyone remembers, I certainly missed this one) in 2001. While I've seen most of these versions over the years, it wasn't until TCM, continuing their celebration of movie blondes, showed Hammer's She (I wish they had shown the sequel The Vengeance of She as well.) I finally caught up with the most lavish version ever put to film.

The story begins in Palestine of 1918, shortly after World War I had come to a close. Military men Professor Holly (Peter Cushing), Leo Vincey (John Richardson), and Holly's former manservant Job (Bernard Cribbins) are kicking back in a bar carousing and doing a little dancing. Leo is tempted away from the fun by a mysterious but beautiful woman, Ustane (Rosenda Monteros), and soon he gets knocked unconscious. Upon waking he is met with the even more beautiful woman Ayesha (Ursula Andress), the immortal queen of a lost civilization of Egyptians, also known as She or She-who-must-be-obeyed. She believes Leo is the reincarnation of her long lost love, and she tasks him to follow a map to her kingdom if he wishes to be with her. Convincing his two friends to come along in pursuit of great discoveries, the trio set out across the desert where they run out of supplies, are attacked by warring tribes, and at one time are nearly sacrificed. Finally reaching Ayesha's kingdom, Holly and Job become quite aware of the immortal queen's cruelty, but Leo is blind to his obsession's wickedness and his quest for undying love becomes his undoing.

When I first heard the phrase "She-who-must-be-obeyed", I thought for a minute that my wife, The Lady Bugg, must be around somewhere, but then I realized it was a movie and I could relax and think about how hot Ursula Andress was. And, oh, man, is she ever smoking hot in this film. Andress became an international sex symbol three years earlier when she rose from the ocean wearing a white bikini in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No. (Interestingly her voice in She was dubbed by actress Nikki Van der Zyl who also was her voice in Dr. No and would continue to dub voices for Bond movies for years.) Andress is radiantly beautiful as the wicked queen, especially so in her gold and feathered headdress, and it really comes as no wonder that a man would traipse across the desert to find her. In this early portion of her career, Andress' acting relies on her emotional core as we never hear her real voice. Everything is with the eyes, and from the relief of finding her lost love to the fury of betrayal , she channeled the character to perfection.

It was also very interesting to see Peter Cushing in a Hammer film that wasn't a horror flick, or at least not in the traditional sense. Holly is the grounded force in the film attempting to talk some reason into his young,love struck compatriot, and Cushing gives a tender performance especially his speech on age and immortality which encapsulates the film's meaning in a neat package without spoon-feeding it to the audience. It should be noted that Christopher Lee also appears here as Ayesha's high priest making this yet another Lee/Cushing/Hammer films collaboration. John Richardson, who some may recognize from One Million Years B.C. and Mario Bava's Black Sunday, does a fine job as the obsessed lover. There were several times I wanted to reach into the screen a smack his character for making dumb choices, which always makes me feel like an actor is doing his job. Speaking of those three letters,Bernard Cribbins appears as the biblically named Job, and he provides what little comic relief the film gives.Cribbins would go on to appear in several of the "Carry on.." films as well as making a memorable appearance in Hitchcock's Frenzy.

While none of the versions of She that I have seen are perfect, the Hammer version comes closest. She was the most lavish production Hammer had undertaken, and its budget became the high water mark for all their productions. Director Robert Day successfully widened the scope of Hammer's film making, and brought a dash of Laurence of Arabia to the proceedings. That being said, She moves at a glacial pace, and sometimes it gets bogged down in talk when it could have used a shot of action. The story at its core is one for the ages, as evidenced by the numerous versions and remakes, and even through the slow movement, it managed to keep me entertained and combined well with the well appointed sets.For fans of Hammer films, adventure movies, Lee, Cushing, and especially Andress, She is essential viewing, and if you won't take my word for it, She-who-must-be-obeyed might have a thing or two to say about it.

While Poe adaptations in the 60's belonged to Roger Corman and Vincent Price, today's film found three European auteurs getting down and dirty with the works of Edgar Allan. Each of them present a singular and innovative look into the work of the macabre writer, and through the film was distributed in the states by American International Pictures, it has little in common with the content or tone of AIP's other Poe offerings. It should be noted that for the purposes of this review I watched the French language version entitled Histoires Extraordinaires. This title comes from the first volume of Poe's short stories translated for a French audience by the poet Baudelaire, but when it was released in the States, it was saddled with title Spirits of the Dead, a reference to an 1927 poem of the same title by Poe. Of the two I much prefer the French title as it speaks directly to the type of tales the movie contains, stories of the extraordinary. As this film is divided into three segments with no connecting device (the American version contains narration by Vincent Price between the stories), I'm going to tackle each one individually.

First up is the Germanically titled Metzengerstein. Jane Fonda stars as Contessa Frederique de Metzengerstein, a decadent woman given to throwing grand parties filled with debauchery and sex. Next door lives the austere Baron Wilhelm Berlifitzing (Peter Fonda) who is in all ways the opposite of the Contessa. Living a quiet life, hunting and riding his horses, the Baron takes no part in his neighbor's grand lifestyle. One day while roaming in the forest separating their property, the Contessa becomes caught in a bear trap, but is freed when the Baron happens across her. Instantly smitten, the Contessa pursues the Baron, but being a moral man, he sees no future in their pairing. Lashing out, the Contessa sets the Baron's stables, containing his prized horses, on fire, and her unrequited love perishes trying to save his animals. Only one horse survives, a large black stallion that no one can control. The Contessa believes she can tame the horse, but its strong spirit, perhaps that of the Baron, becomes her undoing.

Metzengerstein was first published in 1832 in the Saturday Courier magazine, and was included in the 1864 publication of Baudelaire's translations. However the story it contains is very different than the one shown on screen. Director Roger Vadim had just completed filming on Barbarella when he was tasked with the project, and he chose to gender swap the main character from Poe's story to continue working with his previous film's star, Jane Fonda. He also injected the unrequited love story (and thank goodness it wasn't requited as Vadim cast her younger brother Peter Fonda in the role) in the place of the family rivalry of Poe's original tale. At its core, the story remains virtually the same. Both the film and the story concern one man (or woman) and their cavalier attitude toward life. As with most Poe stories, the evil are punished and we are lead to believe that the deceased have something to do with it from beyond the grave. Vadim successfully creates tension on the screen, and Jane Fonda, looking radiant, grabs the viewer with her dynamic performance.

The second tale is an adaptation of Poe's story William Wilson. Alain Delon stars as the titular character and the doppelganger who troubles his life. As the story begins, William convinces a priest to take his confession despite the fact that he is not Catholic, and he begins his tale by describing his experience at boarding school. Young William Wilson is clearly a little tyrant terrorizing all of his schoolmates, but when a new boy arrives with his same name, same face, and same manner, William's position is threatened. in the dead of the night, he attempts to strangle the new William Wilson, and for his troubles, they are both kicked out of school. Over the years, the other William Wilson always seems to be there to stop William Wilson just as he intends to do something violent,perverse, or deceptive. Finally unable to stand any further interference, William stabs his double to death, but soon finds his life in mortal jeopardy.

Published in the United States in a 1939 issue of Burton's Gentlemen's Magazine, William Wilson was the first of Poe's stories to be translated into French, making it's debut over two installments in the Parisian magazine La Quotidienne. For the film, director Louie Malle chose to emphasize William Wilson's cruel streak making him party to torture and attempted murder. Strangely, the straw that makes Wilson resolve to kill his double is being called out as a card sharp and having his fun giving a lady (Brigitte Bardot) lashes from his riders crop. (The Bardot character was completely made up in order for Malle, who introduced the world to Bardot in And God Created Women, to sex up the story.) After Vadim's rather reserved period piece, Malle's use of graphic nudity and violence allows the film as a whole to ramp up a level. However, the segment feels phoned in with Le Circe Rouge's Deleon providing the only solid portion of the film. The direction seems hasty at times, and Malle even admitted that William Wilson was the least personal of all his works. He allowed many changes to be made to appeal to mass audience in hopes it would help raise funds for his next picture, 1971's Murmur of the Heart.


The final segment of Spirits of the Dead is the most challenging and, on the surface, the least horrific of all three. However, I believe it would be the one to most appeal to Poe's wicked sensibilities. Terrence Stamp plays the titular character Toby Dammit, a British Shakespearean actor fallen on hard times due to his love affair with the bottle. In exchange for a Ferrari, he agrees to go to Italy to appear in a Western based on the return of Jesus Christ. Enduring a strange awards ceremony, Toby continues to have visions of a devilish child who he helped get back her white ball. Veering deeper into alcoholic paranoia and genuine insanity, Toby makes off with his prized car and drives with wild abandon straight into his undoing.

Toby Dammit is the only of the three tales that didn't retain Poe's original title, but it is also the segment that departs most from the source material. Poe's tale, Never Bet The Devil Your Head, is a satirical screed against morality tales and transcendentalism and was first published in 1841 in Graham Magazine. However, in the hands of Federico Fellini, Poe's story is twisted into a tale of addiction, the falseness of the entertainment industry, and artist's internal battle with demons. So in other words, the same sort of ground that the director looked at in 8 1/2 and throughout his career. The whole segment is a fevered dream, and it floats effortlessly between the absurd (Toby having his picture taken with his blond, lanky, pale stunt double who proudly states that he also doubled Tomas Milian.) to the intensely visual (Toby's wild ride, the disturbing visuals of the satanic, yet innocent, child.). In the end, Poe and Fellini come to the same conclusion in their stories, a person must have their wits about them or they are prone to lose their head. Where Poe's tale comes off like a wan joke, Fellini's film hits like a hard right. I should also mention that this is Stamp at his best, wild eyed and perfectly pitched.

While all three segments have their charms, Fellini clearly outshone the other tales. Vadim's segment lack a visual element beyond the flat, matter-of-fact shots, and Malle crafted a decent tale though it lacked spirit. Fellini chose to take Poe's tale as a launching point and then catapult the story into cosmic, philosophical territory. It should come as no surprise that while the entire film is hard to find, the Fellini segment has been split off and restored, and, in recent years, it has been hailed as a lost classic. Taken as a whole, Spirits of the Dead succeeds in giving an alternative to the heavily Gothic, dark castle Poe films of Roger Corman. Instead, Spirits of the Dead weaves Poe's morbid sensibility into the fabric of modern life, in the case of Fellini's Toby Dammit, and into the well lit Romantic and Victorian settings of Vadim and Malle. While none of the three segments give a perfect portrait of the brooding Baltimorian's stories, taken as one, they rank among this writer's favorite cinematic translations of Edgar Allan's work.