The Witches (1966)

 "I see. What we admit, we believe. And what we believe, I suppose, could destroy us."

This is a most odd example of a peak period Hammer horror film. It totally eschews the usual tropes and fun- and even the usual familiar faces. Instead we get a typical subtly bleak script from Nigel Kneale and a quiet little supernatural thriller, riffing on both voodoo and witchcraft, heavily based on a highly impressive final ever film role for actual Hollywood star Joan Fontaine.

There's much to commend, too. Fontaine is superb, odd though it is to see her share a screen with both Betty Spencer and Reginald Perrin. The misdirection and final twist are well done, and the deep psychological horror of being trapped in a mental institution appears to good effect. It all takes place in a dreamlike mid-'60s Cornwall which adds deliciously to the atmosphere.

Still, it's a bit slow, and the voodoo elements do rather feel crowbarred in, effective though they are at times. The constant flashbacks to the African artifacts are also very awkward. The film is hardly without its flaws, and is certainly far from Kneale's finest work. And the direction is... well, workmanlike. Still, a decent film if perhaps no more than that.

The Creeping Flesh (1973)

 "That is why I shall have to employ someone for whom eythics have no significance..."

This is (SPOILERS, even if I remain vague) a film which relies entirely on a last minute twist, upon which all relies and about which I;m not going to be able to say much. I'm not generally strict on spoilers but this is literally a last minute revelation which raises a poor to average film, based on seemingly silly concepts, to a film based on a script which actually has some merit.

Not that the production can be much faulted: Freddie Francis directs and Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee star in a horror film, not actually by either Hammer nor Amicus, yet which evokes both. The question is not whether or not the film is well made; it's about to what extent the last minute twist redeems what has until then been a ho-hum film.

There, I suppose, feminist subtexts here, about how feminine expressions of sexuality are seen, in quite horrifying scenes involving mother and daughter, about how expressions of female sexuality are seen firstly as invitations to rape and, upon resistance, as insanity.

The poster decives in that the skeleton, while impressive-looking, is not seen moving until a brief, dramatic scene at the end of the film. Yet there is an interesting feminist subtext here in a script which takes its time to reveal what is really going on while appering really quite silly for most of its length. It's alsoa film in which awidowed Cushing is made to mourn his late wife.

This is an interesting curiosity, perhaps. But the last minute twist does not save it from mediocrity.

Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

 “You realise what you’re implying? That we owe our human condition to the intervention of insects?”

I thought, after all this time, that I'd better get roumd to the last of Hammer's cinematic adaptations of Nigel Kneale's Quatermass serials. This, an adaptation of the best of the three serials, is entirely unlike- and better than- the previous two, both of which were among the earliest Hammer horrors in the early '50s, to the extent that their right to that label may seem somewhat tenuous. But this is 1967, the very height of Hammer Horror...and much more clearly a horror film.

The film does not, of course, match the TV original in quality, necessarily truncated though it is. Much is excused, including Quatermass’ concluding monologue, although the script, by Kneale himself, is a superbly done adaptation. The story is one of mood, theme and character rather than cinematic visuals, but the cinematic medium allows for the building of a feeling of dread towards the end, and a much more visual ending.

Andrew Keir, although good, is no Andre Morell, but both Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover are first rate, and James Donald slowly grew on me. More so than the excellence of the cast, though, the film works superbly well as an old school horror film built on suspense and ideas rather than spectacle, keeping the subtext but moving things in a different direction from the original. And it really, really works.

This, I think, is absolutely one of the finest Hammers.

The Quatermass Experiment: Part 2 ("Persons Reported Missing")

"Don't. Don't comfort me."

OK, confession time. When I blogged Part 1, last year, I was somehow under the impression that only the first episode existed. Oops. I now realise, having seen it, that the second episode exists too, and is awesome. And I have to admit that  it's even worse than that; I watched all of the original three Quatermass series years ago, except this episode. Oops.

Moving swiftly on, this is a fascinatingly dark episode, as you'd expect from Nigel Kneale. The main plot chugs along as we slowly discover that the surviving astronaut nay (mostly) have the body of Victor Carroon, but he also seems to contain the minds of all three.

All this is grounded in the mystery of whatever horrific thoughts Quatermass is so obviously suppressing, the conflict generated by Paul Whitaun-Jobes' tenacious journalist, Jimmy Fullalove, and most of all by the big reveal that Jusith Carroon had been having an affair and was about to leave her husband. Now she faced a future as a guilt-ridden carer to a man she doesn't love.

This is superb drama, made four years before Sputnik but giving us a believable depiction of space travel even if, being pre-Suez, it shows a superpower Britain as the pioneer. Extraordinary.

The Quatermass Experiment: Part 1 ("Contact Has Been Established")

"It's one of them things. They dropped one."

This is, sadly, one of only two episodes of this six part serial that I will be blogging; the others don't exist. They will never be found, whatever Philip Morris has been up to, as they were never telerecorded in the first place, which is a shame. Television in 1953 was a very ephemeral medium, all of it live aside from a few pre-recorded film sequences. For repeats, the actors would simply repeat their performances. You saw it once and it was gone.

1953 was a long time ago and looks it; the picture quality, naturally, is rubbish and the long scenes are there because it simply wasn't possible to include more than two or three different scenes. Television was very much theatre with a camera pointed at it. There's a scene break here where the picture fades to black and stays black for what seems like ages.

Nevertheless, this is a superb piece of television scripting and production, dripping with atmosphere, however limited the live performers may be, and a reminder of the brilliance of both Rudolph Cartier and the great Nigel Kneale. This is a world in which science is admirable and scientists great men, but only because science is a desperate and fragile attempt to impose order on a terrifying world in which dark things lurk at the edges, not least human nature. It's refreshing, though, to see the scientific talk isn't being dumbed down in any way. And this is an era, what perhaps we can call the Dan Dare era, when it was possible to imagine Britain as a space pioneer. Sputnik lay four years ahead. To people in 1953 the achievements of the British Experimental Rocket Group were scarcely imaginable.

The plot is simple enough- a rocket has been sent into space, gone missing, but has now returned under mysterious circumstances. There is much tension in this scenario, later to be lovingly ripped off by Doctor Who in The Ambassadors of Death. Only in future episodes will it become apparent that something else has come back with Caroon.

And yet, the real unpleasantness is very much on Earth. A useless civil servant busybody is there to annoy and to serve the plot function of being exposited at, while newspaper columnist Jimmy Fullalove (a very young Paul Whitsun-Jones) exhibits all the cynicism of today's red top tabloids. (And this angle, that of the press,would also come to be lovingly ripped off by Doctor Who in The Web of Fear.)

We also have some comedy working class characters and a dear old lady played by Katie Johnson of The Ladykillers fame. She is truly from another age; IMDb tells me she was born in 1878 and made her stage debut in 1894!

Sadly, as but one more episode exists, we won't get to consider the whole thing. We can only judge the first two episodes, but this at least is a brilliant episode. One more to go, though...

Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks

Part One

“You won’t go away, will you?”

The story starts with a random bloke running for a bit and then getting killed- must be a Terry Nation story then. And if that wasn’t enough, things suddenly start going wrong with the TARDIS- yep, it’s Terry, all right.

Thing is, though, the scene where the TARDIS goes wrong and strands the TARDISeers may be predictable, but it’s fun, and shows what a surprisingly good pairing the Pertwee Doctor and Sarah Jane actually make. Sarah Jane (or “Sarah” as everybody seems to actually call her), on her very first visit to an alien world is stranded, and taking it extremely well. The fact that this is believable is more down to Lis Sladen’s performance than the script, but believable it is.

Sarah returns to the TARDIS while being followed by a sinister figure who, for once, doesn’t turn out to actually be friendly. Still, there’s a big alien city to remind us who wrote this story. The dialogue’s a lot sharper than you’d expect from Terry Nation though, a reminder that Robert Holmes unofficially script edited this.

I like the fact that the story starts at night but it becomes gradually lighter as the episode progresses, the sort of detail which can be so easily forgotten.

This is a typical Nation first episode in which our heroes explore their surroundings for a while, only meeting any other characters later if at all, but it’s a proven formula. We finally meet some stranded humans, and they include a character called Jane Tarrant, surprisingly our first Tarrant of the marathon. Apparently there’s a space plague, no doubt requiring doctors of space medicine.

This is very well directed, with lots of good handheld bits and even an impressive-looking dissolve. The Daleks’ flying saucer looks good too, and is immediately recognisable from The Dalek Invasion of Earth, another surprising example of continuity from many years ago. We’re seeing a surprising amount of this sort of thing- presumably the Radio Times Tenth Anniversary Special has had an influence. But it also goes to show that the reveal of the Daleks is not supposed to be a surprise, but a dramatic climax, and the saucer is a hint of what’s coming which whets our anticipation.

Sadly, once the Daleks appear their voices are nowhere near as good with Michael Wisher doing the voices on his own, and for some reason they’ve been painted silver. And this should have been a good cliffhanger- in fact a double cliffhanger with Sarah about to be sacrificed- but we can clearly see that either the Dalek guns don’t work or they’ve forgotten to do the effects.

Part Two

“Inside each of these shells is a living, bubbling lump of hate.”

Slight problem here- the Daleks’ weapons don’t work, but the lights on their domes apparently do. But aside from that things are still great. There’s some nice tension inherent in this uneasy alliance between humans and Daleks- we know the Daleks will betray them once their weapons are working again.

There’s more great direction on show early on as we get our first Dalek POV shot and our first Dalek to be attacked and set on fire, both of which look great and recur throughout the story.

Galloway’s an interesting character, resenting the Doctor for challenging his status as the alpha male. And he renders himself beyond the pale by trying to fit in with the Daleks and agreeing to the extermination of some Exxilons.

The sacrifice scenes are brilliantly done, very atmospheric with the chanting, the incense, the cages and the attention to detail all round. This story was the second BBC video I ever owned, I think way back in 1989, so I’ve seen it many times. But this is the first time in many years and I’m surprised just how good I’m finding it.

I love the model TARDIS the Daleks use to test their new guns. This makes it seem doubly ironic that it’s the Daleks who rescue Sarah and the Doctor from being sacrificed. The Doctor and Sarah are forced to flee to a tunnel with something nasty, leading to a nice line from Sarah: “I just heard your wind effect gnashing its teeth.”

 Part Three

“Yes, a palpable hit.”

Seeing Bellal, an Exxilon without the rags, makes me realise what a fantastic alien costume this is. Admittedly we also get a strangely mannered performance, but yet again everything about this story proves to be far more impressive than I remember.
 
Annoyingly, though, we get yet another story trying to tell us that “primitive man” could not possibly have built all those ancient monuments, so aliens must have done it. Grrr. One of my pet hates, that.

I love the whole thing with the city- the tests are fun in themselves, and I think the element of being chased by Daleks would be an exciting addition to IQ tests in real life.

Surely the most terrifying cliffhanger so far… the floor of doom.

Part Four

“Now the universe is down to 699 wonders.”

More tests, culminating in some groovy psychedelia. This episode is as great as all the others, and a real eye-opener about Terry Nation. Being script edited by Robert Holmes really does seem to pretty much compensate for all his faults. Admittedly, the “I have failed- self-destruct” Dalek suicide scene is just silly, but this is a fantastic ending, with even Galloway redeeming himself as all the plot threads are nicely drawn together. Although it’s ironic that the Doctor and Bellal are once again saved by the timely arrival of some Daleks, and Jill and Sarah seem to fill the Daleks’ sacks with sand and move the parrinium awfully quickly.

Oh, and I notice that pulsing sound is heard briefly inside the Dalek ship. It’s maintained its 100% record in Dalek stories so far.

Well, that was great, 5/5. With Holmes there to tart up the dialogue and presumably sharpen up the plots and characterisation, a Terry Nation script is revealed to be actually rather good, with some great ideas. So far this season, which I hadn’t had particularly high hopes for, has earned two 5/5s and a 4/5. Can it keep on with this sort of form?