Cult Clip: Vault Of Horror (1973)

Good old YouTube comes up trumps again for the recently-reviewed Vault Of Horror. The trailer is in black and white - but the movie is actually in colour.

Vault Of Horror (1973)

A year after filming Al Feinstein's Tales From The Crypt, Amicus did the same thing with another Feinstein publication - Vault Of Horror. And while the director might have changed (this time to Roy Ward Baker), the film is more or less a carbon copy.

Well, actually, it's a lesser copy - same big name British cast, same scenario, same spooky tale - just not quite as memorable. This time the cast includes the wonderful Terry Thomas (above), Tom 'Dr Who' Baker, Denholm Elliott and numerous other actors you probably remember briefly from your childhood.

Repulsion (1965)

Bleak, dark, haunting - not words you would obviously associate with Catherine Deneuve and 60s London, but words you would associate with Repulsion.

Roman Polanski's second film (but his first English language) is a tale of mental breakdown - as good as anything on the subject. Deneuve is Carol Ledoux - on the face of it an attractive but shy beautician, living in London with her sister. But underneath a repressed and lonely Belgian girl with a fear of men - getting lonelier by the day as her sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux) spends most of her evenings with her married boyfriend Michael (Ian Hendry).

Manhattan Baby (1982)

Manhattan Baby doesn't make a lick of sense, yet remains one of Italian gore maestro Lucio Fulci's more endearing films.  In Egypt, an old witch hands nine year old Suzy Hacker (Brigitta Boccole) a strange amulet.  Suzy's archaelogist father, George (Christopher Connelly) is blinded by blue lasers inside a dusky tomb - whereupon wife Emily (Martha Taylor) brings the family back to New York.  Here, Suzy and kid brother Tommy (Giovanni Frezza - who will forever be Little Bob from The House By the Cemetery (1981)) become unwitting pawns of an ancient Egyptian evil as the Hackers are terrorized by snakes, scorpions, and strange portals to another dimension. 

Explicit gore is restricted to a memorably squishy climax involving marauding (stuffed!) birds, yet the bulk of this weird, hallucinatory chamber piece presents the closest Fulci got to the minimalist wonder of Val Lewton.  Hazy, scope photography soaks up the Egyptian locales and transforms a child's playroom into mystical domain where strange, unsettling fantasies leap upon unsuspecting adults. 

DVD Review: Road Games (1981)

The Hitchcockian thriller Road Games won Australian filmmaker Richard Franklin (a lifelong Hitch devotee) his chance to direct, the surprisingly good, Psycho II (1983).  Hitchcock's influence is apparent right from the opening scene: a sinister motel, a naked girl and a psycho-killer who murders her and dismembers her body off screen.  His shadowy activities arouse the suspicion of American truck driver, Quid (Stacy Keach), whose phone calls to the police are ignored.  Quid soon finds himself being tailed by the killer in his grimy van.  He picks up gutsy runaway Hitch (Jamie Lee Curtis) and they play guessing games with the psycho's modus operandi, culminating in a taut scene where Quid confronts what he thinks is the killer in a toilet cubicle while Hitch investigates his van.  When Quid returns, Hitch and the van have disappeared, leaving him the police's prime suspect. 

Franklin provides some nicely tense moments and a handful of shocks, but one hesitates to call this an unsung classic.  The story (co-devised by Franklin and screenwriter Everett De Roche) meanders with characters talking an awful lot, but revealing very little, as the tension dissipates.  Keach makes for an affable, articulate hero ("Just because I drive a truck doesn't make me a truck driver") - though Quid remains something of an enigma.  Jamie Lee Curtis is strong throughout her few, brief scenes, but Hitch's back-story (the runaway daughter of an American diplomat) is too slight to be anything more than a plot wrinkle. 

DVD Review: The Black Cat (1981)

Probably the least heralded movie from Lucio Fulci's "gothic period", The Black Cat isn't a classic but will interest fans of Italian horror.  Edgar Allan Poe's much-adapted short story inspires only the climax, but the bulk of the film is impressively claustrophobic, played in twitchy close-ups between the frightful feline and its master, Professor Robert Miles (Patrick Magee).  Miles is a paranormal researcher, who uses his demonic familiar to gorily slaughter those he feels have wronged him.  Nosy American photographer, Jill Travers (Mimsy Farmer) stumbles onto these mysterious deaths in a quaint English village and teams up with Scotland Yard's Inspector Gorley (genre icon David Warbeck) to bring the culprit to justice.  But is Miles in control, or the cat? 

The film strives for ambiguity, but winds up just confusing.  After the cat lures Gorley into a horrific accident, Miles screams: "No!  I didn't want that!"  Then he looks disappointed when Gorley turns up alive.  Fulci allegedly cranked this one out with little passion involved.  It's a less inspired reworking of Poe than Dario Argento managed with Two Evil Eyes (1989), but there is plenty to savour.  Mimsy Farmer attacked by rubber bats; a foggy village with superstitious locals straight out of Hammer films; a mix of occult lore, super-science and metaphysical chatter; and a victim who cowers while the cat opens a locked door. 

The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972)

Remember The Railway Children? Of course you do - it's a classic family movie that's on TV every other month. In fact, check your TV guide - it's probably on this weekend.

That movie was the first to be written and directed by evergreen British actor Lionel Jeffries. His second one is very similar, yet The Amazing Mr. Blunden rarely gets an airing on the small screen. Shame really, because in my opinion, it's actually a superior movie. Superior  and also darker - in the sensitive noughties, maybe a tale of ghosts and time travel just isn't parent-friendly enough for Sunday afternoon viewing.

And Now The Screaming Starts (1973)

I'm not one for period dramas, but Amicus and Roy Ward Baker combined to make one that every fan of British horror should see - And Now The Screaming Starts.

With more than a hint of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, this tale of revenge, screaming, wandering hands and haunting is like Hammer extreme - the plot, the blood, the screaming, the colour and the performances all go over and above the call of duty. It certainly wasn't an Oscar contender, but it is 91 minutes of good, old-fashioned comic book horror.

Top of the screaming league is Stephanie Beacham as Catherine Fengriffen, newly married to Charles Fengriffen (Ian Ogilvy) and off to Fengriffen Manor for an idyllic life. Except this is a horror movie and strange things are happening - faces jumping out of pictures, wandering severed hands and mysterious deaths as soon as anyone mentions what could be bringing it all on.

DVD Review: Fear In The Night (1972)

Hammer went down numerous alleys to find a winning formula in the 70s, few of them massively successful from a commercial point of view, but many of them well worth watching if you're a fan of British cinema. And that includes Fear In The Night.

With a minimal cast of Peter Cushing, Joan Collins, Judy Geeson and Ralph Bates, Fear In The Night is more psychological thriller than horror, with Geeson starring as the newly-married Peggy Heller, making a fresh start after a breakdown with new husband Robert Heller (Bates).

DVD Review: And Soon The Darkness (1970)

This is something of a first for Cinedelica - I'm reviewing the same movie for the second time. But as And Soon The Darkness has finally been released in its home country of the UK on DVD and as a copy has just popped through the letterbox, I feel it's justified this time.

Loosely classed as a horror, it's actually more of a thriller - and a very good one too as director Robert Fuest uses a minimal cast and the expanse of the French countryside to create a genuinely tense movie that leaves you second guessing right to the final scenes. In some ways, it's an Avengers spin-off, made soon after that show had finished, with writing duties shared by Brian Clemens and Terry 'Daleks' Nation, production by Clemens and Albert Fennell and with a jaunty (and slightly inappropriate) theme by Laurie Johnson.

Cult Clip: The Innocents (1961)

The word 'spooky' just about sums up the extremely strange British cult horror The Innocents.

It's the story of a governess (played by Deborah Kerr), hired to care for two children in a gothic-style stately home. While caring for the children, the governess discovers that her predecessor was having an affair with a man called Quint, who was also employed in the house, with both of them dying in bizarre circumstances.

Not only that, but she believes the two are attempting to possess the bodies of the two children. Strange and slightly disturbing even by today's standards, but well worth seeking out. See the trailer below...

And Soon The Darkness finally gets a UK DVD release

It's been some time coming, but finally, years after it got a release everywhere else, And Soon The Darkness is finally getting a DVD release in the UK. And as it's a lost Brit classic, it's not a day too soon.

We've reviewed the US version previously and recently dug up the trailer via YouTube. It's directed by Robert Fuest, using the team behind The Avengers (soon after that series ended), coming together to produce a tense/moody thriller about two young female cyclists who are on holiday in the French countryside. But one goes missing, leaving the other alone and unsure who to trust - because any of the people around could be a murderer.

I've managed to secure an advanced copy of the UK disc, so here will be a review of it online soon, along with details of any extras. If you can't wait for it, you can pre-order on Amazon for a bargain £7.98.

Find out more about the DVD at Amazon.co.uk

Tales From The Crypt (1972)

I love a good early 70s British horror film. Ok, it's not likely to be the scariest thing you see, but a movie like Tales From The Crypt is guaranteed to entertain you for the best part of 90 minutes.

Based on the Al Feldstein and Johnny Criag comic book stories, this Amicus anthology of stories gives the tales a distinctly British spin - and it's about as 70s as it comes. In fact, if you want a pictorial history of British interior design of the period, just buy this and take note of Joan Collins' pad in the 'All Through The House' Segment. But before we get to that, let's start at the beginning.

Cult Clip: And Soon The Darkness trailer (1970)

And Soon The Darkness is a firm Cinedelica favourite and one of the first films reviewed on the site many months ago.

So as the trailer to this post-Avengers project has recently been added to YouTube, we feel we have to give it a mention. And we also think you should view it, then seek out this gem of a British thriller.

DVD Review: Forest of Death (2007)

If nothing else, Forest of Death proves it's possible to make a supernatural thriller that isn't particularly scary, but still compellingly odd.  Following their jointly directed triumph Re-cycle (2006), the Pang Brothers went their seperate ways this year.  Oxide Pang made the psychological thriller Diary, while sibling Danny takes the helm here. 

The film opens with a young girl driven to slash her wrists amidst the eerie, mist drenched greenery.  Local rumour has it the mysterious forest induces suicides and shock deaths, the next being a police inspector who succumbs to a heart attack while investigating a crime scene.  Detective Ha (Shu Qi) takes up the case, pursuing an arrogant triad rapist.  In a radical move, she teams up with maverick botanist Steven (Ekin Cheng), who believes the living forest thrives upon, records and stores human pain and suffering.  Steven has invented a machine that can talk to trees (Shades of Clint Eastwood in Paint Your Wagon!), while May (Rain Li) his selfish, tabloid TV reporter girlfriend angles for a scoop. 

In the movie's most effective scene, Detective Ha and Steven use the forest's powers to goad a confession out of the rapist, while the trees traumatize the assembled reporters with the victim's pain.  But bodies keep piling up.  Ha discovers some suicides have been missing for decades, their corpses neither decomposed nor aged.  Meanwhile May, tortured by professional failure and a suspicion that Ha and Steven are having an affair, is lured into the forest. 

Cult Clip: Burke and Hare (1972)

YouTube is once more the place to find obscure British horror clips, in this case Vernon Sewell's Burke and Hare from 1972.

A solid British cast recreate the story of the (in)famous Edinburgh body snatchers, while 70s pop act The Scaffold (which featured Paul McCartney's brother) provide the annoyingly catchy theme - which is featured below, along with an all-too-brief clip of the movie.

Not available right now, but one I'd like to see back on the racks.

A Warning To The Curious (1972)

Come on, let’s be honest, amongst all the emotive responses we have whilst watching a play or film on TV, BEING SCARED OUT OUR WITS is the most memorable and masochistically enjoyable.

Your first experience of televisual terror should ideally stay with you forever, be it the moment Sapphire and Steele encounter a haunted picture or a fevered Dennis Weaver gets the ultimate tailgate.  My first big bladder shifting creepy TV experience came with seeing the masterpiece of ghostly horror that is A Warning To The Curious.

DVD Review: Diary (2007)

A dark, psychological thriller with fantastical flourishes, Diary is a solo outing for Oxide Pang. Released alongside brother Danny's supernatural thriller Forest of Death (2007), it is the better of the two films but still requires patience and perseverance throughout its duller patches. 

Winnie (Charlene Choi - one half of Cantopop superstars, Twins), a troubled young woman, leads a miserable life alone in her grungy apartment since her boyfriend Seth went away. She spends her days scribbling thoughts inside her diary, making creepy wooden puppets, and chopping up some suspicious looking meat. Her phone conversations with the errant Seth provide no explanation for why he left.  "Men would do anything for you before they get laid", Winnie confides in her best friend Yvonne (Isabella Leong).  "After that they all change." Yvonne urges Winnie to move on, but she begins stalking Ray (Shawn Yue), a young man whom she mistakes for Seth.

DVD Review: Re-cycle (2006)

While Hollywood's horror hacks obsessively remake the gore movies of the 1970s, Hong Kong cine-siblings Danny and Oxide Pang have been quietly turning the genre inside out.  Re-cycle reunites the Pangs with leading lady Angelica Lee (star of their breakthrough hit: The Eye (2002)). 

Lee plays Ting-yin, a successful novelist whose public persona masks a troubled past. Following an awkward press conference, and an uncomfortable reunion with her ex-boyfriend, Ting-yin begins work on her new horror novel, and is suddenly plagued by terrifying supernatural visions.  The Pangs tease us with glimpses of a long-haired ghost girl - suggesting this is going to be yet another Ring knock-off. 

But the film soars onto another level, as the ghost leads Ting-yin into a bizarre parallel world, beyond our reality.  She journeys across a breathtaking CG wonderland, confronting lost souls, giant killer toys, a cave haunted by aborted foetuses, and hordes of screaming, snake-necked zombies.  It's a rare horror movie that makes successful use of computer graphics, conjuring an eerie, oppressive atmosphere.  The decayed buildings Ting-yin wanders past are recreations of once-famous Hong Kong landmarks, demolished to make way for the economic miracle.  As Ting-yin befriends a pluck little ghost girl, whose familiarity holds the key to unlocking her dark secret - the Pangs draw ingenious parallels between their heroine's suppressed anxieties and Hong Kong's forgotten past. Their ambitious subtext is given weight thanks to yet another brittle, sensitive performance from the gifted Angelica Lee, and her remarkable rapport with child actress Qiqi Zeng. 

Cult Clip: The Haunted Palace (1963)

During the sixties Roger Corman directed and produced a lot of terrific horror films based on the work of author Edgar Allen Poe, but one of his best films borrows its story from the work of H. P. Lovecraft. During its initial release The Haunted Palace was advertised as being a "Poe" film in order to attract the same audiences that had enjoyed Corman's earlier movies, but The Haunted Palace is actually based on Lovecraft's story The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

In The Haunted Palace Vincent Price plays Charles Dexter Ward and he delivers one of his most complex and chilling performances in the film. The Haunted Palace is often overlooked in favor of Corman's Poe films,  but that's a shame since it's one of the directors most interesting and creepy efforts. The original DVD is currently out-of-print and used copies fetch a high-price on Amazon. Hopefully a new DVD of the film will be made available soon. In the meantime you can enjoy the original trailer for the film posted below.

- Kimberly Lindbergs

Classic Hammer movie posters reissued

Good news for fans of classic Hammer movies - the pick of the film posters have been officially reissued.

The posters are back in print to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of The Curse Of Frankenstein, with 12 classic images available over a period of time. All are of the original 'quad' size, litho printed on 170gsm paper and sold in a heavy duty black glossy tube.

The first four of the 12 available are The Curse of Frankenstein, Countess Dracula, Vampire Circus and our favourite, The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires (pictured above). The remaining titles will follow over the coming weeks - and if you subscribe to buy them all, you will also receive a free copy of The Curse Of Frankenstein/The Mummy poster. This will not be sold separately.

All retail for £19.99 each, with postage and packaging free to anywhere in the world.

Find out more at the Posters and Stuff website

Free Online Viewing!

The American Movie Classic television network is currently offering free online screenings of two great American thrillers from the sixties as part of their annual Halloween Monster Fest. You can watch Francis Ford Coppola's Dementia 13 (1963) and Jack Hill's Spider Baby (1968) on their site just by visiting the links posted below:

Watch: Dementia 13 (1963)

Watch: Spider Baby (1968)

- Kimberly Lindbergs

Cult Clip: The Tenant (1976)

Few directors have made as many effective and horrifying films as the award winning Roman Polanski, and one of his best thrillers is The Tenant (Le Locataire, 1976) which he also starred in. The film tells the disturbing tale of a man (Polanski) who rents an apartment and is haunted by the knowledge that the previous tenant committed suicide there. He begins to suspect that the other tenants in the building may have had something to do with the suicide and as his suspicions grow, he seems to loose his grip on reality. The Tenant is currently available on NTSC Region-1 DVD from Amazon

- Kimberly Lindbergs

Cult Clip: Mad Love (1935)

The great German character actor Peter Lorre appeared in a lot of terrific thrillers during his lifetime and one of the best films he made is Mad Love (1935; Karl Fruend). In this creepy classic Lorre plays a crazy surgeon named Dr. Gogol who is obsessed with a beautiful actress that happens to already be married to a concert pianist. When the woman's husband is terribly injured in a train accident that crushes his hands, she asks Dr. Gogol to help save him. Dr. Gogol replaces her husband's hands with those of a murderer and afterward tries to drive the man mad in order to have his wife all for himself.

Mad Love is currently available on NTSC Region-1 DVD as part of Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection and you can see Peter Lorre as the mad Dr. Gogol in this terrific clip:

- Kimberly Lindbergs

Tartan Grindhouse unveils new budget horror titles

Tartan's horror arm, Tartan Grindhouse, has a new range of titles set for an autumn launch and at a budget price - Basket Case, Society, Bride Of Re-Animator and Killer Barbys vs Dracula.

Basket Case needs no introduction, with one man and his basket seeking revenge on the doctor responsible for their plight. 25 years old and still with the ability to shock. This reissue tags on a trailer and image gallery, all for a £7.99 price tag from October.

November sees the reissue of Brian Yuzna's bizarre 80s debut Society, along with Yuzna's Bride of Re-Animator and a first-time UK release of Jess Franco's Killer Barbys vs Dracula - a mix of punk, vampires and the spaghetti western apparently, which sounds like a seriously tempting prospect. The latter titles all retail for £9.99. Hopefully we'll have reviews before the DVDs hit the shelves.

Find out more at the Tartan Video website

DVD Review: Sleeping Dogs (2006)

Comedians don’t generally translate well into script-writing, especially when it comes to film. Not nowadays, anyway. Britain’s seen enough of its finest comic talents who trod the boards on Saturday Live or The Secret Policeman’s Ball go on to make crappy big-screen adaptations of their best-loved characters (Kevin And Perry Go Large, Ali G Indahouse) to reinforce the point. Trouble is, most characters are a one-note joke – you can’t do a lot with a character that’s so ubiquitous thanks to a catchphrase or an action. Borat only really succeeded because he was a “sleeper” character, and as such was able to get away with a lot more than Ali G, for example, couldn’t. We knew what Ali G would say, but not Sacha Baron Cohen’s other creation.
   
Even in America, comedians tend to shy away from writing their own film scripts because they’re either too outrageous or they prefer the safety of television, where they only have to fill half an hour and they call the shots. Jerry Seinfeld, for example, will never make a Seinfeld film. There won’t ever be a Cheers or Frasier movie. Dave Chappelle, who was so successful with Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, only went with a ‘concert film’.

Coming Soon: Grindhouse Trailer Classics

Grindhouse seems to be a word to  drop for just about everyone operating on the shock/horror genres thse days, but if you want to know the real meaning of the term, you might want to check out Grindhouse Trailer Classics.

Essentially, it's a two hour collection of promo, trailers and clips from movies operating outside the mainstream in the 60s 70s - so expect sex, drugs, violence, destruction, monsters and freaks, all compiled by an expert of the genre - Marc Morris (co-author of Shock! Horror! Astounding Artwork from the Video Nasty Era).

With titles like They Call Her One Eye, The Thing With Two Heads, Three On A Meathook, Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Blood Sucking Freaks, The Corpse Grinders and Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman, you should know what to expect. And if that's not enough, there's also a feature on the history of grindhouse, along with  sleeve by horror artist Graham Humphreys, the artist behind the theatrical poster campaigns for The Evil Dead and A Nightmare On Elm Street, and whose artwork has graced the album sleeves of bands such as The Cramps and The Lords Of The New Church.

Grindhouse Trailer Classics will be released on DVD by Nucleus Films on 24th September 2007. Expect to pay around £14.99.

More about the DVD at Amazon.co.uk

DVD Review: The Night of the Sorcerers (1973)

Voodoo! Zombies! Vampirism! Leopard Women! Amando de Ossorio’s Spanish horror film The Night of the Sorcerers (a.k.a. La Noche de los brujos, 1973) has all of this and more, but even with all those terrific elements the movie failed to keep me entertained.

The film revolves around a group of naive jungle explorers who find themselves camping near a sacrificial alter used by a group of mysterious “sorcerers.” These voodoo practicing natives enjoy capturing women and torturing them before cutting off their heads and drinking their blood. Afterward the women return from the dead as leopard skin clad she-demons who roam the jungle in slow-motion trying to find more unwilling victims for the ghostly sorcerers.

The movies basic premise is interesting, but it never really comes together. It often feels like Amando de Ossorio can’t decide if he wants to make a kinky sexploitation film or a horror movie. The film suffers from its uneven direction that never fully exploits the films basic horror elements or erotic themes. The special effects are occasionally worthwhile, but they’re often hampered by the films low-budget and half of the films great international cast seems to be sleepwalking through the film.

DVD Review: The Black Cat (1934)

In the 1930s, special effects weren't that special - menace had to come from the actors on display. And the best in the business were Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, who teamed up for the first time in The Black Cat.

Based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, this is a dark tale of revenge and satanism, with Lugosi as Dr. Vitus Verdegast, one of many men betrayed by Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff) during the Great War. Most died at the hands of the enemy, but Verfegast spent 15 years as a prisoner. And now he's back, seeking news of his wife and daughter - and seeking revenge on Poelzig.

On his way to Poelzig's amazing modernist home (built on the site where he betrayed his comrades), Verdegast shares a train with an American couple Peter Alison (David Manners) and his wife Joan (Julie Bishop). During a car ride over to their respective destinations, the driver crashers the vehicle - forcing them to get help at Poelzig's home.

10 Rillington Place (1971)

A film about a serial killer is never going to be  a laugh a minute, but 10 Rillington Place is surely one of the most dark movies you'll ever encounter.

It's based on the true story of John Reginald Christie, who murdered a succession of women throughout the 1940s and 1950s - including his own wife. And the most chilling aspect of the movie is that it's entirely based on fact, with an attention to detail that even extended to shooting the movie in Rillington Place in Notting Hill - the place where the murders took place.

The film is dominated by Richard Attenborough's portrayal of Christie - a balding, timid man who worms his way into the confidence of his victims, selling himself as a trained doctor, with cures for common ills - using his gas to disable his victims before sexually assaulting and killing them.

Cult Clip: Ghost Story (1974)

Some weeks back, mentioned a film I was desperate to see reissued - Ghost Story, also known as Madhouse Mansion and starring Marianne Faithful, seen in a flashback by one young reveller being committed to an asylum - and the horrors it brought.

Well, amazingly, scenes from this lost gem have appeared on YouTube. The one below should give you a flavour of it. No way of getting a copy, except maybe on eBay - or unless it appears on the BBC's Sunday night horror slot.

DVD Review: The Nightcomers (1971)

Henry James’ classic horror tale The Turn of the Screw has been adapted for the screen many times. Most film adaptations follow a somewhat similar formula and use the basic story found in the book as their focus. In my opinion the best of these adaptations is Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (1961) which remains one of the most disturbing horror films I’ve ever seen some 45 years after it was made.

Michael Winner’s The Nightcomers (1971) takes a very different approach to Henry James’ original material. The film is a sort of prequel to The Turn of the Screw and it attempts to explain the events that lead up to the mysterious deaths of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint.

The Nightcomers begins with the new Master of Blye House (Harry Andrews) in Cambridgeshire getting custody of the recently orphaned children Miles (Christopher Ellis) and Flora (Verna Harvey). The Master has no interest in caring for the two children and he neglects to tell them of their parents’ sudden death. He hires an attractive young governess named Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beacham) to care for them before he leaves for London and without much supervision the children become deeply drawn to the mischievous groundskeeper Peter Quint (Marlon Brando). Together Quint and Miss Jessel unknowingly become surrogate parents to the neglected children.

DVD Review: The Third Secret (1964)

I'm not often surprised by a movie, but Charles Critchon's exceptional film The Third Secret (1964) really caught me off guard and impressed me with its compelling story and dramatic cinematography. In some ways it's a very old fashioned mystery and the film looks like it could have been made 10 or even 20 years earlier. Instead of being a distraction, I found the dated feel of the movie, as well as the somewhat stilted performances in it, perfectly suited to the film's style.

The Third Secret stars Irish actor Stephen Boyd and he gives an over-the-top tour de force performance as an American television commentator named Alex Stedman who's living and working in Britain. When Alex gets word that his psychiatrist has committed suicide he begins to unravel, but he puts his emotions on hold after the young daughter of the dead doctor begs him to help solve the mystery of her father's death. The girl doesn't believe that her father committed suicide and she's determined to find out who murdered him in order to honor his memory and claim her inheritance.

Together the two embark on a dark journey that will invade the private lives of the doctor's disturbed patients and finally unveil the terrible mystery of The Third Secret.

DVD Review: Vengeance Is Mine (1979)

Over the years Criterion has gained a reputation for releasing some of the greatest Japanese cinema on DVD to the delight of international film audiences. One of their most recent releases is the impressive true-crime drama Vengeance Is Mine (a.k.a. Fukushû suruwa wareniari, 1979) made by the talented director Shohei Imamura. Part crime story, part horror film and part family drama, Vengeance Is Mine is a complex film that deals with multiple issues in a thoughtful and extremely effective way.

Vengeance Is Mine is based on the real-life crimes of one deeply disturbed man named Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata). The film opens with the police capture of Iwao Enokizu, who is then led to an interrogation room and forced to confess his multiple offenses. From there the film backtracks to reveal the bleak and troubling story of Enokizu’s life and crimes.

The character of Iwao Enokizu is brilliantly brought to life by the skilled Japanese actor Ken Ogata. He gives Enokizu plenty of charm so it's easy for audiences to see his appeal as he smartly seduces his victims. He seems perpetually unsettled and off balance, which makes it impossible for viewers to know what kind of horrible crime he will commit next.