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.
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? 
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. 
One things us Brits do well is quirky horror. it might not be the bloodiest horror, it might not be the most frightening - but it's always memorable. And that's very applicable to The Shout.
and you can see Peter Lorre as the mad Dr. Gogol in this terrific clip:
In 1972, Alfred Hitchcock returned to London to make his last significant movie, the disturbing tale of a serial killer on the streets of the capital - Frenzy. And well over 30 years on, Frenzy still retains a darkness and menace, even with a few obvious flaws.
By the early 70s, everyone was getting just a little bored with Hammer's continual remakes of Frankenstein and Dracula (not that it stopped them making more), so new ideas were needed. And although most of these weren't commercially successful, for me the latter years of Hammer were some of its more interesting.
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.
(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 "whistled" theme tune to Twisted Nerve by Bernard Herrmann is one of those pieces of music you would recognise instantly. The inspiration behind the Twisted Nerve record label, it was used in Tarantino's Kill Bill and more recently in a TV ad for the Carphone Warehouse. But 40 years on, the film itself is still largely unknown.
The BBC's fascination with vintage British horror continues apace this weekend, with three obscure showings on late night TV - Satantic Rites Of Dracula, Psychomania and The Ghoul, a rarely-seen 1974 flick, one of just three made by the short-lived Tyburn company.
Stuart Gordon's 80s cult horror Re-Animator returns to DVD next month - this time in its uncut form (including scenes originally removed by the British movie censors) and with a host of extras.
If we're on the hunt for controversial British cinema, a movie headed up by British stalwart Frank Finlay and sixties pin-up Suzy Kendall isn't likely to be the place to start looking. However, Assault is exactly where you'll find it.
Hammer revisited the Frankenstein tale on numerous occasions, with The Horror of Frankenstein generally regarded as one of the worst. But wait...it's not all that bad.
For reasons known only to themselves, BBC2 has taken to showing obscure British horror movies in the early hours of Monday morning. So, following on from 
Around 1974, I'm guessing a law was passed outlawing the making of strange and bizarre horror movies in the UK. What other reason could there be for the glut of such movies between the mid-60s and mid-70s...then nothing.
In the late 60s and early 70s, weird and quirky horrors were very much the order of the day for British movie studios - and probably none more so than Tigon's The Beast in The Cellar.
Described brilliantly as a "historical epic on a tight budget", Rasputin The Mad Monk is the role Christopher Lee was born to play, but sadly with a story that doesn't quite match his abilities.
The sets were occasionally wobbly, the plots sometimes more so - but for many, Hammer is still the benchmark for classic horror movies. And if you want the perfect introduction, you should pick up the Ultimate Hammer Collection DVD Box Set, which brings together 21 classic horror, sci-fi and fantasy films from the Hammer vaults, along with a host of extras.
You could argue that by the early 70s, Hammer was struggling to find new angles for the traditional horror movie - after all, how many times can you mould heaving bosoms, angry mobs and vampires into a new story? Well, they could go contemporary (like Dracula AD 72) or they could attempt a different type of horror tale, as was the case with Hands Of The Ripper, now reissued in Special Edition format.
Another Hammer special edition release, but not obvious Hammer territory, as the company tackle Jack The Ripper's legacy in Victorian England with Hands Of The Ripper.
A suitable case for treatment...
