All posts by Rod Lott

Thriller

Twisted Nerve (1968)

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twistednerveSo memorable is Bernard Herrmann’s whistled theme to Twisted Nerve that Quentin Tarantino wisely appropriated it to equal unsettling effect in Kill Bill: Vol. 1. While good, the British thriller itself is not close to being as “sticky.”

Hywel Bennett lost his penis in 1971’s Percy, but here, he loses his mind. As Martin, the young man fancies shifting into an alternate personality — that of the 6-year-old Georgie — in order to weasel his way into the life of Susan (Hayley Mills, The Parent Trap), a beautiful, 17-year-old librarian.

twistednerve1It works. In a real credibility-strainer, no matter the lengths taken by the screenplay to set it up, he goes to live with her for a week in the boardinghouse run by Susan’s single MILF (Billie Whitelaw, The Omen). Ingratiating himself to the fellow residents, Georgie refers to himself in the third person, laughs at burps, makes nonsensical jokes (“Batman is a fat man, ha-ha!”) and eventually dabbles in fatal stabbings.

Twisted Nerve is pinched by the permissiveness of its times. While it can do little more than hint at Martin’s suppressed homosexual urges and the Oedipal draw Whitelaw’s character feels toward Georgie, it operates on the theory that “mongolism” (now called Down syndrome) equates to psychopathic. Today, we know that’s not just poor science, but pure offense.

The title refers to “a ganglion gone awry,” and although director Roy Boulting (There’s a Girl in My Soup) is able to keep the film on its rails (thanks to the performances), it does become less and less special the more it drones on. It could be twice as suspenseful by losing a quarter of its two hours. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy

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hellraiserfilmsRecently I read Stefan Jaworzyn’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Companion, which sets out to cover the entire franchise (up to its 2004 publication date, at least), yet does it in a way that’s lazy, shoddy and unfriendly to the reader. By contrast, Paul Kane’s The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy shows how a retrospective on a horror-film franchise — or on any genre, really — should be done. It’s not difficult.

Jaworzyn’s book is not new, and neither is Kane’s, but the latter is now available in a reprint — and in a much more affordable paperback edition, at that — from McFarland & Company. Needless to say, any Hellraiser fan worth his or her satanic salt should own it.

Benefitting from a wealth of interviews, Kane recounts Clive Barker’s creation of the world of the Cenobites in The Hellbound Heart and his aim to bring that novel to the big screen himself, having been less-than-enthused about what filmmakers had done with adapting his work prior (see: Transmutations or Rawhead Rex — or don’t, as Barker would prefer).

We now know he succeeded, but in real life, conclusions aren’t so foregone. Turns out, there’s a real story to be told of the 1987 hit’s making, including battles over the budget and its rating. Hollywood’s response was not to give Barker creative freedom on his next project … but to offer him Alien 3.

Kane could’ve stopped there, but instead continues giving the same thorough, behind-the-scenes treatment for each and every sequel (except 2011’s Hellraiser: Revelations, made after the book’s original 2006 publication), whether released theatrically or straight to home video. Among them, the greatest tale of production belongs to the tortured one of the series’ fourth, 1996’s Hellraiser: Bloodlines, the one that sent Pinhead into space and took three directors to complete, if you count the infamous Alan Smithee disowning pseudonym to whom it’s credited.

Smartly avoiding start-to-finish, beat-for-beat synopses, Kane instead follows each film’s story of conception with an exploration into the themes it presents and probes. Luckily, the author does a damn good job of it. Rounding out the book is a brief look at Hellraiser‘s entry into other media, most notably comics.

Jesus wept … for joy! —Rod Lott

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Contests

Wanna Win The Guillotines?

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guillotinesUPDATE: Winner is Caleb Forrest!

We’re giving away a copy of The Guillotines on Blu-ray to one lucky summabitch in these United States of America. How to enter? Easy!

Just leave a relevant comment on any review on this site before next Saturday, Aug. 24. That’s when one lucky commenter will be picked at random to have this movie shipped to his or her door. Winner will be notified via email, so make sure the email address you leave to comment is a valid one.

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Horror

Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)

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tombsblindHaving recently located her thriving mannequin-manufacturing biz to Lisbon, Betty (Lone Fleming, 1977’s It Happened at Nightmare Inn) reunites with Virginia (María Elena Arpón, The House That Screamed), her roomie from boarding school. Virginia’s square-jawed boyfriend, Roger (César Burner, Green Inferno), immediately suggests the three of them take a train trip to the countryside.

En route, Virginia gets jealous of a growing flirtation between her beau and her BFF, so she leaps off the choo-choo. Instead of walking the tracks back to the station like a normal person, however, she heads off perpendicular to them, through spacious fields to the ruins of Berzano, a medieval town now abandoned for good reason: Because up from its cemetery pop the ghosts of the Knights Templar, depicted here as skeletons in soot-covered hooded robes. (Where the risen knights keep their horses goes unaddressed.)

tombsblind1Yes, Virginia, there is a supernatural force of evil awakened! You’ve disturbed the Tombs of the Blind Dead! The first in writer/director Amando de Ossorio’s four-film series, the Spanish Tombs comes unearthed with a twist on the ol’ zombie conceit: On account of having their eyes pecked out by crows in the 13th century, these guys can’t see a lick; with a thirst for blood, they track their victims by sound, from dire screams to a quickened heartbeat.

Even though the Blind Dead move like semi-frozen molasses, they are terrifying characters. The way their bones pop through graves and shuffle through the maze-like ruins is a dirt-cheap effect, yet highly effective, encouraging viewer cries of “Run, bitch, run!” as they close in on their clueless prey. Other than an ugly rape scene, de Ossorio demonstrates keen instincts on what works, right down to an ending that proves more disturbing by letting your mind fill in its blanks. —Rod Lott

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Action

Mean Johnny Barrows (1976)

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meanjohnnyIn (and as) Mean Johnny Barrows, Fred Williamson (Black Caesar) plays a decorated Vietnam solider dishonorably discharged from the service for punching a soldier who made him step on a live land mine. Back in California, Unemployed Johnny Barrows can’t seem to find a job. I don’t think it helps that all he wears are jeans so poorly acid-washed that it looks like he peed in them.

Eventually he gets tied up with the mob, hired to be a hit man for $100 grand and a piece of land. One of his assignments is to take out gangster Tony Da Vince, played by Roddy McDowall. After watching the Planet of the Apes star attempt to act like an Italian mobster, I now know where Dana Carvey found the inspiration for his Pistachio Disguisey character in The Master of Disguise; McDowall is more convincing kissing the curvy mob moll — and that’s saying something.

meanjohnny1By the finale, Ambidextrous Johnny Barrows infiltrates a mob boss’ hideout with a shotgun in each hand. Minutes later, he’s defeating an opponent with a well-aimed Chinese star to the eye, making him Master Ninja Johnny Barrows.

Directed by Williamson himself, Mean Johnny Barrows also stars slumming white folk Stuart Whitman (Night of the Lepus) and that noted blaxploitation staple Elliot Gould (Ocean’s Eleven). The actioner ends as all actioners should: with the words “Dedicated to the veteran who traded his place on the front line for a place in the unemployment line – peace is hell” superimposed over a freeze frame of a honky bitch getting blown to smithereens. —Rod Lott

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