Hammer House of Horror: Visitor from the Grave

 "Be a good girl, and do exactly what I tell you!"

Trigger warning: violent sexual assault is very prominent here.

This is, on a storytelling level, a good episode. The twist at the end is superb, the performances are good and it pretty much acieves what it sets out to do. The direction from Peter Sasdy is particularly magnificent.

And yet there's something uncomfortable about the basic concept: a man breaks into a woman's home, tries to rape her, is shot dead and appears as a ghost to attract "revenge". This is the use of violent stranger rape as entertainment without any real social subtext, something that wouldn't be done these days.

On the other hand, Harry is creepy, and that's done deliberately. It's not overdone, but I think we're meant to see his relationship with the much wealthier but mentally ill and vulnerable Penny as one of coercive control. There's a subtlety to the characterisation here which is impressive. Kathryn Leigh Scott and Simon MacCorkindale are both superb in portraying this dynamic.

This is a disturbing episode, mainly to do with the treatment of rape, but I can't deny it's impressively written and made.

Hammer House of Horror: Rude Awakening

 "You shouldn't have killed your wife, Mr Shenley..."

For the second time in succession we have a superb episode. Yes, it helps to have a charismatic lead in Denholm Elliott, cast against type as an estate agent in the least posh role I've ever seen him in, but this script is superb, layering dream within dream and horror upon horror, leading to out increasingly deluded protagonist killing his wife in the belief that it's only a dream.

The structure of dreams within dreams, denying us a stable grip on what is and is not reality, works superbly, and allows the episode to play effectively with form, structure and tropes. Yet beneath it all is something fearfully desperate. This is an episode set within the psyche of one unhappy man.

There are such subtle touches here, beyond the obvious yet well done obvious scares as the creepy voice on the telephone, the collapsing building or the body in the dumb waiter. Yet cleverest of all is the revelation that Norman's secretary, with whom he's been carrying on an affair in a series of implausibly sexy outfits, is in fact just a young and unattainable women whom this unhappy man secretly likes. This is tragedy as horror, puncturing the delusions of a man whose life is without colour. And it's quietly excellent telly.

Hammer House of Horror: The Thirteenth Reunion

 "I don't know why we have a women's page. We don't have a men's page!"

Last episode was the fun and silly sort of Hammer Horror. This second episode could not be more dissimilar. Superbly and inteligentlly scripted and shot, it is a masterpiece of suspense that starts with a macabre mystery and ends with a truly nightmarish shot.

The opening scenes seem to promise, despite the witty and likeable nature of protagonist Ruth (the excellent Julia Foster), little more than an unusually brutal weight loss regimen presided over by Renton's dad from Trainspotting.Yet when Kevin Stoney appears we know that something's up and, by the time we meet the gang including Von Smallhausen from 'Allo 'Allo, the script is cleverly feeding us the morsels we need to work out exactly what it is that is happening and why, in a masterly use of the art of plotting.

This is subtle, intelligent, gripping horror and the best thing I've seen from Hammer since The Devil Rides Out. I have absolutely no idea what to expect next.

Hands of the Ripper (1971)

 "It's the Ripper!"

I love Hammer Horror. Not all of the films are good, although most are, but most at least provide some cheesy fun. This one, however, does not really do even that. It's a rare dud.

I suppose there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept- the daughter of Jack the Ripper (a married, unnamed aristocrat who murders his wife after escaping a torch-wielding mob) grows up to have blackouts triggered by a certain thing that cause her to kill, much as her father. This is centred around a very Henry Higgins relationship between Dr Pritchard (Eric Potrter, still very good here even while obviously phoning it in) and Anna herself (an excellent Angharad Rees.

There's some good subtext here- one example of which is the debate between Pritchard and Dysart about judicial killing, rightfully reminding us of the barbarity of the practice: after all, how many killers have had abusive childhoods, even if not necessarily watching one's father stab one's mother to death? There also an amusing equivalence, intended or not, between seances, mediums and all that and Freudian psychoanalysis- both kinds of quackery are, of course, nonsense.

There are also enjoyable appearances from both the great Dora Bryan and the always wonderful Lynda Baron, both having enrmous fun with their roles. However, the film never really catches fire and, despite the charasma of the two leads, is rather formulaic without being silly enough to be quite enough fun, isolated scenes aside.

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Countess Dracula (1971)

"Countess Dracula! Countess Dracula!"

Meh. I like me a good Hammer, but this is the most forgettable sort of early '70s stuff. Doing a film based on the notorious Elizabeth Bathory is not a bad idea in theory but the plot is perfunctory, the script tired and Ingrid Pitt, wonderful though she is, doesn't have the charisma to carry a film otherwise full of nonentities, excepting the ever-fab Peter Jeffrey in a minor role and some delightful scenery chewing from Maurice Denham. Overall, it's a Hammer worth skipping. Even the title is crowbarred in.

Any interesting points? Well, the costumes look good, and no doubt are accurate for early 17th century Hungary. The history is a bit off: Elizabeth Bathory was active as a serial killer between 1590 and 1610 (a much longer period!!!) but the film, with Turks encroaching on Vienna, seems to be set in the 1680s. And, of course, whereas the real Bathory may not have committed the murders to stay young at all, in the film she is actually rejuvenated. But beyond that and an incongruous bit of bawdiness with boobies in the tavern (the real world has pubs; cinematic Central Europe has "taverns") there's not much to say about it.

Next!

The Stone Tape

“A ghost is a mass of data waiting for a correct interpretation.”

I usually do films on Saturdays, but I suppose a one-off television play will just about do. It’s appropriate for the time of year, too; this was originally commissioned in 1972 as a Christmas ghost story. It’s the first drama by Nigel Kneale that I’ve reviewed on this blog, but it certainly won’t be the last. It’s also the first thing I’ve watched without subtitles for this blog (I’m a little hard of hearing) since those episodes of Doctor Who which had yet to get a DVD release. I don’t need them, exactly, but I’ve become used to being spoiled and not having to miss any lines of dialogue, so it’s become very annoying to have to suffer that here, at times. For a DVD release to neglect the subtitles is unforgiveable.

There’s something about the culture shock inherent in watching older dramas that makes them particularly interesting to write about. Here we have a bunch of characters who smoke all the time, drink whisky while they’re working, and wear… interesting clothes. The entire concept of a recording medium to replace magnetic tape is, of course, ancient. Peter’s attitude towards Jill is frequently quite eye-poppingly sexist. The vicar has an old-fashioned and incomprehensible Rowley Birkin-style way of speaking. We even get a full-on racist impression of a Japanese person which made my jaw hit the floor. The past is indeed a foreign country.

Aside from the fact that it’s dated, though, it hasn’t dated. The performances are great, with an extraordinarily intense Jane Asher putting in a superlative performance, and Michael Bryant convincingly playing a gradual descent into obsession. Peter is one of those men who seem to belong in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; forthright, intelligent without being posh, meritocratic, a little bit bohemian, and dressed very much of the era- a bit of a cross between Alfie and Roger from The Great Escape. The direction is great, too; this doesn’t look at all like the static, multi-camera ‘70s stuff you’d expect.

But the main star here is Kneale’s script, which lets the characters breathe and gives us moments of humour while gradually building up the tension towards the incredible climax. The central concept is great; ghosts are in fact recordings, in stone, of emotionally intense moments. But there’s a twist, of course, and the revelation that there is in fact something ancient and malevolent behind this phenomenon is brilliantly shown just by the use of red lights. The final twist- that Jill takes the place of the erased ghost- is amazing.

As I’ve mentioned before, I haven’t any belief in the supernatural whatsoever, and some amount of such a belief is pretty much a precondition for being scared by this sort of thing. So it’s no criticism to say that I wasn’t scared, exactly. But I was riveted by the tension and the inexorable sense that things were heading towards an inevitable and horrible conclusion. Kneale may be a little dry as a writer (I found it very hard indeed to come up with an opening quote), but he’s an absolute master of storytelling.