Glowing in the dark, p.25
Glowing in the Dark, page 25
In spite of these improvements, there’s still not a lot to recommend Infernal Men except as a historical curiosity. As Santo movies go, much better ones are still in the offing. This set from Indicator is less about two movies that you’ll want to put into your regular rotation, however, as it is about giving audiences access to films of historical note that might otherwise be lost to time. These may not be much fun to watch, but it’s extremely nice that we get the opportunity, nonetheless.
With Santo himself largely absent, the story in Infernal Men instead focuses on the heroic undercover officer, played by Joaquin Cordero, who had the bad guy part in Evil Brain. It’s even got a halfhearted attempt at a framing story, as we see the film’s climax at the beginning, and then flash back to how things ended up that way. Ultimately, both pictures end with the same footage of an airplane taking off, ostensibly ferrying two different newlywed couples to new lives together, guarded by one or two masked wrestlers who are along for the ride.
Both also end with variations on the same monologue from Enrique Zambrano, the other half of the films’ co-writing team, explaining to the audience why the Masked Man (or men) keep their identities a secret: “They are citizens of the world. Their duty knows no borders. They use masks to hide their identity for the good of all mankind.”
Author’s Note: A topic I return to again and again is the importance of physical media in keeping films like this around, and I’m always grateful for imprints that help to preserve these bits of film history, regardless of how I feel about the films themselves.
Originally published March 2023
Signal Horizon
“These are things that can happen
in a woman’s life.”
Dario Argento’s Phenomena (1985) in 4K
Phenomena is not the best Dario Argento movie. It’s not the most significant, the best-known, or the most widely seen. Yet, it boasts a singular accomplishment that few other films can match: If it were not for Phenomena, we very likely wouldn’t have the Clock Tower series of video games, a franchise that is, itself, often considered to be the genuine classic that many might argue Phenomena is not.
At one time, I might have been among that “many.” Phenomena was the first Dario Argento film I ever saw, and I was not prepared for it. While I enjoyed my time, it didn’t win me over the way something like Suspiria later would. And yet, each time I return to Phenomena, I seem to love it more.
That early reticence can’t be laid entirely at the feet of my relative inexperience with Argento, either. Looking on Letterboxd, one can find plenty of devoted fans of Italian horror who dismiss or deride Phenomena, calling it, for example, “by far the worst movie of Argento’s otherwise untouchable ’75-’87 run” or even “fake Fulci horseshit.”
There are also giallo purists who will lay out a very strict set of definitions regarding what is and is not covered by that peculiar subgenre. They will tell you that expressly supernatural films such as Suspiria and Inferno—which were not the direct predecessors of Phenomena, but pretty close—don’t count. I don’t know how those individuals feel about Phenomena but, for my purposes, it also doesn’t really matter.
Whether it truly is one or not, Phenomena is, in so many ways, practically the ur-text of what many of us think when we think of giallo—and of Italian horror from this period more generally. There’s a little bit of everything (perhaps, some would claim, too much) in this flick set at a girls’ boarding school in a region that the film assures us is called the “Swiss Transylvania.”
Naturally, there’s a killer on the loose, knocking off young women using a knife on the end of a long metal pole that snaps together. There’s also a very young Jennifer Connelly—a year before Labyrinth—playing the daughter of an absent movie star who comes to stay at the boarding school and who has a psychic rapport with insects (you heard me). There’s Donald Pleasence with a Scottish accent as a wheelchair-bound entomologist who is helping the police to try to catch the killer.
There is ominous wind, said to “cause madness.” Portions of the school, which is on grounds once owned by Richard Wagner, are abandoned and unsafe. There’s sleepwalking and music cues that at once flout the normal approaches of score deployment and, at the same time, define and structure the scenes in which they occur. Before all is said and done, there’s a deformed killer, a creepy life-sized doll, a gross pit filled with corpses, more than one unlikely decapitation, and a chimpanzee armed with a straight razor. When we get the killer’s motive—to the extent that we ever do—it hinges upon what is essentially a pseudoscientist’s understanding of psychology.
It is, in sum, an Argento movie. And while it may not be the most Argento movie he ever made, it’s probably the one that I think of the most, when I think of his work, even while it lacks certain trademarks such as the Mario Bava-esque lighting of Suspiria or Inferno. In the grand traditions of the best of the form, it is both beautiful and grotesque, lurid and poetic, potent and nonsensical. It is not what the kids these days might call “pure vibes,” but it either works for you or it doesn’t, and very little that I can say is likely to change anyone’s mind.
Shot on film, released in a variety of cuts over the years, heavily reliant on soundtrack and atmosphere, movies like this are basically what fancy Blu-ray and 4K editions were made for, and Phenomena has been released a number of times on home video in various forms. This new 4K Ultra HD release is only the latest upgrade even from Synapse, who previously rolled out a features-loaded Blu.
I’m not an expert on film restoration or sound mixing or any of that, but I can say that, to my untrained eye and ear, the movie has never looked better. What’s more, the two-disc 4K set is just as features-packed as previous Synapse releases and boasts what I think is every major cut of the film, including the 116-minute Italian version, with a mixture of English and occasional Italian dialogue, the 110-minute “international” version, and the much shorter, R-rated, 83-minute U.S. cut, under the title Creepers.
So far, I’ve only watched the longest cut on this edition, but I’m told that all three boast new 4K restorations, including lossless soundtrack restorations. Various additional material includes a feature-length documentary originally produced for the Arrow Video release of the film. If you already own Phenomena in high definition from one of its numerous previous releases, the question of whether the upgrade is worth it will probably come down to how strongly you feel about the film. But then, if you feel strongly enough about it, like I do, there’s probably not really even a question to begin with…
Author’s Note: Thanks to the fact that Phenomena was the first Argento film I ever saw, combined with its influence on Clock Tower, it remains to this day the aesthetic that I most closely associate with the giallo, even though that is… pretty inaccurate.
Originally published March 2023
Signal Horizon
“Whatever I do here is no different from what is done at any other school.”
The House That Screamed (1969)
and the Horrors of Fascism
Ballyhooed as one of Spain’s first horror movies, The House That Screamed is barely that until its closing minutes. Despite a couple of grisly and well-shot scenes of violence, most of the horror of The House That Screamed is the horror of repression—although, of course, repression is itself a type of violence, a fact that is ever boiling just beneath the surface of the film.
Released in Spain in 1969, under the title “La residencia,” aka The Finishing School, the picture was later brought out in the States by AIP in 1971 as The House That Screamed, the title for which it is better known. By then, however, it was already a box office hit in its native country, where it became the highest-grossing movie up to that time, raking in the equivalent of roughly a million U.S. dollars. It did not perform as well Stateside, where it had about ten minutes trimmed from its running time and somehow received a GP rating (at the time the equivalent of PG-13) despite the film’s heavy psychosexual themes.
The new Blu-ray from Arrow offers both the original Spanish cut of the film, which clocks in at around 104 minutes with the original title, and the AIP House That Screamed cut. Like a great many European films of the time, The House That Screamed was shot with a combination of actors from different countries all speaking their own native languages, then re-dubbed as needed for export. This means that both versions are here in English, with only some of the characters dubbed and others not.
Indeed, the film’s star is undoubtedly Lilli Palmer, a German actress who transitioned to Hollywood in the 1940s. She received a Golden Globe nod for her role in the 1959 Clark Gable comedy But Not for Me, though horror fans are more likely to recognize her from the 1971 version of Murders in the Rue Morgue or the Nazi clone thriller Boys from Brazil. Here, as the school’s sadistic yet “profoundly human” headmistress, she does an admirable job of holding the screen, even as she is surrounded at all times by nubile young ingenues in various stages of undress.
Critics and film scholars have compared the film unfavorably to Psycho, which is fair only if all you watched was the last five minutes or so. Despite a couple of stabbings which occur first at about the midway point of the film, this overt horror ending feels almost tacked on by comparison to the rich gothic melodrama of the rest of the picture, though it is executed no less artfully for all that, and comes as quite a punch, even when you can’t help but know that it’s on its way.
Sure, there are a handful of murders and the expected whippings and psychological torments that you won’t be shocked to see in a girls’ boarding school movie, but the real horrors of The House That Screamed are taking place outside the walls of the house itself—and, indeed, outside the time period in which the film takes place. Introducing a screening of The House That Screamed at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, Marc Edward Heuck wrote that, “Some clever Spanish filmmakers found a means to tell the world about the ravages and effects of living under totalitarianism, while still working under the strict dictates of the state, and that was through making horror films.”
Though The House That Screamed is a period piece set in 19th-century France, it is pretty clearly meant to evoke the horrors of fascism, under which Spain was suffering at the time the movie was made. The ease with which the psychosexual politics of the boarding house can be read as a microcosm of national fascism is rendered particularly striking when you realize that the film was made in Francoist Spain.
It comes as no surprise, then, that Guillermo del Toro has singled out The House That Screamed as a favorite, calling it a “deranged, Freudian gothic melodrama” and a “keystone of Spanish horror.” Its influence can be seen throughout del Toro’s filmography, from the psychosexual dynamics of the orphanage in The Devil’s Backbone to the gothic opulence of Crimson Peak to del Toro’s own extensive metaphors (and outright depictions) of Franco’s Spain. You can even see the ghosts of The House That Screamed (which has no ghosts of its own) in some of the films that del Toro merely produced, such as The Orphanage (2007).
The debut feature of Narciso Ibanez Serrador, the director, was already a household name in Spain by the time he released The House That Screamed. This was thanks to the Spanish-language horror anthology series he created and helmed, Tales to Keep You Awake, which was a huge hit on Spanish television in the 1960s and has, itself, recently been released on Blu-ray by Severin.
In spite of its box office success, The House That Screamed was one of only two feature films that Serrador would ever direct. The other is probably much better known, at least among American horror fans—the 1976 cult hit Who Can Kill a Child? Fortunately, with this new Arrow Video Blu, fans can now experience this other low-key classic from Serrador, as well.
Author’s Note: A recurring theme throughout the reviews in this book is movies I didn’t expect to like but did anyway. A more unlikely recurring theme is the fascism of Francoist Spain.
Originally published March 2023
orringrey.com
Horror Is Where You Find It
The other night, we watched The Sea Hawk (1940) for the first time. We watched this for several reasons, among them because Grace loves the old swashbuckling novels like the one this picture was adapted from. Books by folks like Rafael Sabatini (who wrote this one), Alexandre Dumas, Frank Yerby, and a variety of others, especially Samuel Shellabarger, who wrote one of Grace’s favorite books of all time, Prince of Foxes, itself adapted into a movie in 1949 starring Tyrone Power, Orson Welles, et al.
While I also like these old Hollywood movies, I was excited about this one for a particular reason. Like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), another all-timer that we watched for the first time last year, this was directed by Michael Curtiz. While Curtiz is probably best known for Casablanca, and perhaps only slightly less well-known for swashbuckling fare like this, when I think of him, the first two movies that spring to mind are two of his only horror pictures—and two of my favorite horror films of all time: Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933).
I’ve written about those two films at some length in various other places, but for those who are just hearing about them for the first time, know that I recommend them, especially Doctor X, as heartily as I possibly can. Not only are they two of the only surviving films shot in what’s known as “two-strip Technicolor,” lending them a lurid and unmistakable palette, they are also just dynamite examples of the horror films of Hollywood’s golden age—and horror films in general.
On those two films, and several others, Curtiz worked with Polish art director and production designer Anton Grot, who, for my money, may have been one of the best who ever plied that trade. The incredible look of both Doctor X and Mystery of the Wax Museum owes at least as much to Grot’s work behind the scenes as to Curtiz’s work behind the camera.
Grot and Curtiz are working together again on The Sea Hawk, and while the sets here are not as filled with expressionistic horror or pulpish shadows and angles as those of Doctor X, they are no less impressive, or integral to the mood and function of the piece. From possibly the most impressive ship-to-ship battle I have ever seen, which opens the film in dramatic fashion and for which Warner Bros. had to build a larger sound stage to accommodate the full-scale ships, to minor touches in quiet scenes, the production design and art direction here is always top of the line.
In fact, there’s very little in The Sea Hawk that isn’t a shining example of Golden Age Hollywood operating at the peak of its powers. The actors, including Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, Brenda Marshall, Alan Hale, Una O’Connor, and many others, all acquit themselves nicely, while Flora Robson as Queen Elizabeth is an absolute force of nature. But the human elements may be the film’s weakest links. Everything from the score (by swashbuckler stalwart Erich Wolfgang Korngold) to the costumes (by the prolific Orry-Kelly) to the scope and scale of the film itself is absolutely top-drawer Hollywood, as they only did it back in those days.
Earlier on, though, I was talking about horror, and I want to address the horror bonafides in The Sea Hawk, which absolutely has them, even if we discount the involvement of Curtiz and Grot. One of the things that really sets The Sea Hawk apart from a number of the other cutlass-and-tights flicks of the era is the way in which it deftly handles a variety of disparate moods, from swashbuckling adventure to throne-room intrigue to romance to tragedy to tension and, yes, horror.
Each of these transitions is handled at once dramatically and dynamically, with touches that are often both small and ingenious. Take, for instance, the sequence of the film which takes place in the New World, where the standard “silver screen” black-and-white of the rest of the picture is replaced with a sepia tone that captures perfectly the changed feel of the setting.
This extends to the film’s few moments of genuine horror. The galleys of the Spanish ships, where slaves are whipped into pulling heavy oars, are rendered in an expressionistic scale that calls to mind the great German silent films, while an attempt at escape late in the movie is suffused with more genuine tension than most entire thrillers can ever manage. The desperation of a slog through the swamps of the New World is rendered suitably oppressive, but the real star of the horror show comes when the escaped crew of the Albatross attempt to return to their ship after an ambush.
Worn down and desperate, they row toward what should be their salvation, but even before they reach the ship, it is clear that something is very wrong. As they climb aboard a ship that should be bustling with the rest of their crew, all is silence and the grim creaking of the rigging, a setting as haunting as any ghost ship ever put on film. The real bravura touch, however, comes as they move to explore the deck, and the camera suddenly switches to a top-down shot from high in the rigging, one that expertly conveys the isolation and the unknown danger of the situation in which they find themselves.
These are only a few brief moments of horror in a film that otherwise moves effortlessly across a variety of other tones and moods, but they are no less deftly deployed for all that and for me, at least, they served to heighten what was already a most enjoyable experience with a classic film of yesteryear.
Author’s Note: While I watch more horror films than any other kind, I watch and enjoy all kinds of movies, especially those from the so-called golden age of Hollywood. Watching The Sea Hawk was a particular pleasure, and I was compelled to put my thoughts about it onto my website, especially as it relates to the horror film.
For those who do primarily watch horror pictures, it is well worth your time as a detour.
