The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Plague of the Zombies (1966) – J. Gilling

By 1966, England’s Hammer Film Productions was already churning out Dracula, Frankenstein, and Mummy sequels but also producing other strange tales that echoed Universal’s glory days of the 1930s and ‘40s. The Plague of the Zombies shares a family resemblance to Bela Lugosi's White Zombie (1932) in that these zombies are virtual slaves working in a mine for the Squire/Master. And like that film, this feels much more like a voodoo movie (though not as pure as the Lewton-Tourneur I Walked with a Zombie, 1943) than what we have come to know as the zombie film. What differs here is that the zombies are reanimated corpses, reanimated by voodoo, rather than humans who have been zombified by magic but who might later return to human. As such, the film looks forward to George Romero’s classic series (beginning with Night of the Living Dead, 1968) where the dead rise and shuffle about, much as they do in this film (but with less explicit mayhem here). Andre Morrell stars as Sir James Forbes, a professor of medicine, called to Cornwall to assist his former star pupil who is now struggling in the remote town plagued with mysterious deaths. As always, Hammer’s film sports production values par excellence, with a perfectly realised Cornish village decked out in 1860s period fashion.  Beyond Morrell perhaps there is no actor as charismatic as a Lee or Cushing here (the Squire calls for one of them) to elevate the proceedings yet further but this is still a solid outing for the fabled studio.

 

Red Rooms (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Red Rooms (2023) – P. Plante

There’s a long tradition of sadistic directors encouraging viewers to identify with unseemly characters, epitomised by Hitchcock’s choices in Rear Window (1954), where Jimmy Stewart’s Jeff does some recreational spying on his neighbours, uncovering some unsavoury business.  Here, director Pascal Plante introduces us to Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy), an edgy haute couture model, already deep into fascination with accused serial killer Ludovic Chevalier, attending his murder trial every day (which requires sleeping outside the courthouse each night to get a place in the gallery).  Chevalier is accused of creating snuff films and offering them on the dark web to viewers in exchange for bitcoins in what are known as “red rooms”.  It’s hard not to think of Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) and the illegal broadcasts offered there.  Soon, we realise that Kelly-Anne is already well familiar with the dark web, raising her own stash of bitcoin with cold-hearted online poker playing. Perhaps Kelly-Anne has something in common with this serial killer? When she takes another groupie under her wing, the naivité of the younger girl might be forever lost. As the film progresses, viewers are forced to contemplate how much they would be willing to watch the snuff films in question, wondering whether the film will actually show them, and of course, why they would be watching a film where this is even a possibility. It’s hard not to feel dirty, even if the film’s conclusion offers an unexpected twist that might recast Kelly-Anne’s hitherto unknown motives.

 

Winter Kills (1979)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Winter Kills (1979) – W. Richert

I wonder if the Coen Brothers were thinking about Winter Kills when they cast Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowksi? Although he’s much younger here, he also plays a much put-upon “straight” character caught up in zany episodic situations beyond his control. In this film, he’s the much younger half-brother of the assassinated president who is provided with evidence that contradicts that single-shooter theory put forward by a Government Commission.  With pressure from his father (John Huston), he descends into the rabbit hole.  If this plot sounds like a thinly veiled retake of the events surrounding JFK’s shooting, it shouldn’t take long to confirm when faced with characters like “Joe Diamond” (Eli Wallach), in lieu of “Jack Ruby” of course (all from Richard Condon’s novel).  And it also doesn’t take long before the serious subject matter starts to give way to some blackly comic moments, as Nick Kegan (Bridges) finds himself confronting a range of eccentric characters played by well-known character actors: Sterling Hayden, Ralph Meeker, Richard Boone, Toshiro Mifune, Anthony Perkins, even Elizabeth Taylor (in a well-paid cameo). Not unlike the real thing, the conspiracy theory laid out here includes various red herrings and dead ends (with most informants meeting unfortunate fates after providing evidence).  Letting things wash over you without worrying too much about details is probably the best strategy.  And, in the end, the film ties things together with a truism about power and money that doesn’t feel wrong. A lost half-baked classic of sorts.

 

One from the Heart (1981)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

One from the Heart (1981) – F. F. Coppola

I’ve finally gotten around to watching this famous flop (the 2003 re-release, I think) by Francis Ford Coppola – the follow-up to Apocalypse Now, retreating to the newly purchased Zoetrope Studios to do everything off-location (as it were).  So, he built Las Vegas’s famous Strip, neon and all, from scratch, and set out to use all of the latest technological cinematic methods (including the first use of “video assist”, something that my long-lost friend Tim O’Toole used to commandeer back in Minnesota) to create this highly stylised colourful musical.  Tom Waits wrote all of the songs on the soundtrack, which accent or comment upon the action, assisted by Crystal Gayle – but this is definitely the bluesy ‘70s Waits rather than the weirder more experimental persona he later adopted (think Foreign Affairs more than Swordfishtrombones).  Did I say “highly stylised”? The film’s plot, which finds Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest as a couple breaking up on their fifth anniversary, is just a schematic framework on which to hang the set-pieces, art design, and music. I didn’t mind this, occasionally thinking of (the much better) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, where the dialogue is entirely sung, unlike here).  That was probably Coppola’s aim, to recreate the lavish musicals of the past, but it’s hard to get emotionally involved here.  Although Garr and Forrest give it their best shot, they never seen made for each other or even interested in each other (instead, as others have noted, they might be better partnered with Raul Julia and Natassja Kinski, with whom they have one-night flings). Ultimately, it’s a bit of a mess but every other scene seems to contain eye-popping technical wizardry, clearly expensive enough to have bankrupted Coppola. Still worth a look. 

 

Oddity (2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Oddity (2024) – D. McCarthy

Irish director Damian McCarthy’s second feature is one of those horror films that I’ve been seeking, the kind with an emphasis on spooky supernatural events that don’t involve a surplus of blood and gore.  Any violence happens off-screen (although there is the occasional after-effect shown).  Instead, we are treated to the foreboding chilling (and gently teasing) suspenseful feeling that a jump-scare could be coming – or worse, the revelation that there are evil or malevolent forces that can reach us from beyond the grave (or elsewhere).  In this case, those malevolent forces might, thankfully, only target those who deserve their wrath.  The film opens with what turns out to be a flashback – Dani Odello-Timmis, wife of Dr Ted Timmis (a doctor in a psychiatric clinic; played by Gwilym Lee), is alone in their unfurnished stone house in an isolated part of Ireland.  An ex-patient of Dr Timmis knocks on the door to warn her that a stranger is in the house and she should let him in to assist.  Fast forward one year and it turns out that Dani was killed.  Her blind and psychic twin sister, Darcy (also played by Carolyn Bracken), who runs an antique shop full of cursed and haunted objects, believes that Dani’s death was not as straightforward as it appeared to be.  Things come to a head when she arrives to spend the night at the house with an ominous wooden golem, much to the chagrin of Dr Timmis and his new girlfriend.  This film gave me the creeps in more than one spot and the ending is pretty much perfect, although perhaps making the film just a little too tidy (for a supernatural thriller).

No Sudden Move (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

No Sudden Move (2021) – S. Soderbergh

There’s no doubt that director Steven Soderbergh is a master of his craft, alternating between experimental arthouse works and crowd-pleasing mainstream fare. No Sudden Move finds him mining the rich neo-noir vein (specifically the mob subgenre), setting up a plot that sees one twist after another (and also a slow dripfeed of information to the audience that casts unexpected light on characters’ motivations and relationships).  Don Cheadle plays Curt Goynes, a player currently on the outs with the Detroit gangs (and freshly out of prison for his involvement in a scheme gone wrong). He and Benicio del Toro are recruited by mob lackey Brendan Fraser to “babysit” an auto exec’s family while the exec steals an important document from his boss’s safe.  Needless to say, things don’t go to plan but Goynes seizes every opportunity he can and soon he and del Toro are involved in a high stakes gamble with big fish too big to care.  Echoes of Chinatown (including on the soundtrack) are unavoidable as seemingly little crimes breakaway to reveal a larger darker reality.  Along the way, Soderbergh risks losing viewers with these overly complicated machinations and despite the cool acting, perfect mise-en-scene, and vintage lenses, the film’s ironic denouement ends things with a whimper rather than the reverberating feeling that the powerful always win which must have been the aim.

 

Nightwatch (1994)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Nightwatch (1994) – O. Bornedal

A Nineties serial killer thriller out of Denmark that was a huge hit there but didn’t get released in the US while a remake was being organised.  The film has an iffy tone, almost comedic at times, darkly (but too causally) taking in prostitution, lads’ pranks, and even necrophilia.  Martin (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is a law student who takes a job as morgue night watchman right at the time when a serial killer is prowling Copenhagen.  His best friend Jens (Kim Bodnia) is an edgy jokester who might be crazy enough to be the killer.  His girlfriend, Kalinka, is played by Sofie Gråbøl (who years later would star as Detective Sarah Lund in the Danish police procedural series The Killing).  The morgue certainly is spooky and young Martin is shown the ropes by the retiring night watchman and has other details filled in by the homicide detective who visits regularly (particularly when a new victim is brought there). Perhaps there is something European about the odd tone of the film because it remains weird even as the film descends into a stock-standard “killer chases our heroes” climax, culminating with a silly wedding scene.  I know humour is often used to cut the tension in horror films but something feels not quite right here.  An undertone of ‘90s misogyny (passive not intentional) leaves a bitter aftertaste.  Apparently, there was a years-later sequel in 2023.