The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) – P. Haggard

Part of the so-called “Unholy Trilogy” of folk horror films that also includes The Wicker Man (1973) and The Witchfinder General (1968) by other directors.  The genre also could be stretched to include Curse of the Demon (1957) or The Devil Rides Out (1968) and newer films such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Witch (2015).  It is a genre I like very much, full of uncanny creepiness in natural surroundings and an older paganistic (Satanistic/left-hand-path) challenge to reality as we know it.  The films ask you to accept that evil is real and terrifying supernatural forces are at work in our world, sometimes brought to bear on our lives by those humans who learn the magick needed.  In The Blood on Satan’s Claw, it is a group of teenagers who discover an evil creature that can be fed by unspeakable evil acts -- murder and rape – presented unblinkingly here in all their horror, enacted by little more than children.  So, with its nudity and violence, the film is also an exploitation flick, borne of its time, and ready and willing to shock the midnight movie crowd.  But if you can put the awfulness of the acts aside, the atmosphere created by director Piers Haggard and his team, depicting life in a rural English village in the 17^th century is spellbinding.  It is a time when witches were believed to be real and among us and witch-hunters sought them out.  The true history of these events is horrible and sad but the film shows us a world where black magic is real, violent, scary, and anarchic.  You really never know what can happen next. 

Cash on Demand (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Cash on Demand (1961) – Q. Lawrence

Well-scripted heist film that relies almost entirely on the acting abilities of André Morell and Peter Cushing.  Cushing plays the Scrooge-like branch manager who treats his employees badly and becomes the target of charismatic thief Morell.  In retrospect, it could have been performed on the stage, as it limits itself mostly to the bank and its front counter, manager’s office, and, of course, strong room.  Except for the use of Cushing and Morell, you might not realise that this was produced by Hammer Pictures at the height of their horror success.  But this film is still worth your time (only 80 or so minutes) given its tension-building twists and turns.  An unknown gem.

The Wind (1928)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Wind (1928) – V. Sjöström

Lillian Gish is a naïve Virginia girl who moves west to stay with her cousin’s family, no doubt dreaming of a better life – but instead she discovers howling winds and a jealous wife who is anxious to get rid of her as soon as she arrives.  A charming businessman seems the perfect suitor to take her away from this plight – but he turns out to be married and a creep on the make.  So, she ends up with a cowhand who she doesn’t love and becomes increasingly distraught, spending her days alone with that howling wind.  In fact, the wind is virtually another character in the plot, beating at the windows, blowing through the doors, making clothes and hats flap, and undoubtedly adding to the stress and tension of life and driving Gish out of her mind.  Director Victor Sjöström (who later played elderly Professor Isak Borg for Ingmar Bergman in Wild Strawberries) keeps the melodrama moving with a relative minimum of inter-titles, some spooky special effects (super-impositions of white horses representing the northerly winds) and excellent use of Gish and her expressive eyes for maximum impact.  Yet, yet, I enjoyed Sjöström’s earlier films, The Phantom Carriage (1921) and He Who Gets Slapped (1924), a bit more, despite the fact that, for many, The Wind is a masterpiece of silent cinema.  I wonder then whether the musical accompaniment I experienced (seemingly of Italian origin on my copy) showed the film in its best light; perhaps I should watch it again in a different version.

The Brothers Rico (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Brothers Rico (1957) – P. Karlson

To me, Richard Conte seems the epitome of the noir villain, probably due to his evil role as the crime boss in The Big Combo (1955).  So, when he shows up as a mob accountant turned small business man named Eddie Rico, you aren’t quite sure where he stands.  As it turns out, he’s on the straight-and-narrow – but his younger brothers are still involved with the mob.  And when a once-fatherly mob kingpin asks Eddie to find his brothers (who have gone missing) so that they can be “protected”, Eddie naively helps out (persuading his aging mum to tell what she knows).  Of course, mob kingpins are never that generous and nefarious ulterior motives soon appear; Eddie’s safe family life (he and his wife are about to adopt a child) is soon jeopardised.  Director Phil Karlson doesn’t do anything fancy visually with the material (and Martin Scorsese notes this in his introduction to the film, arguing that this makes it come across tougher); but he’s an old hand at noir and it shows (previous films include Scandal Sheet, 1952; Kansas City Confidential, 1952; 99 River Street, 1953; and The Phenix City Story, 1955).  This isn’t top tier but it’s solid.

  

Words and Pictures (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆

Words and Pictures (2013) – F. Schepisi

On the up side, Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche inhabit their somewhat clichéd characters and bring them to life.  He plays against type as an alcoholic English teacher, nerdy enough to love word games but feeling more and more like a fraud with his poetic inspiration long departed.  She shows us a character it seems like she has played before, a cold professional with high standards who has a secret soft and lovable side, struggling with rheumatoid arthritis that threatens to destroy her art career.  On the down side, these two actors/characters are stranded in a plot that tries to combine Dead Poets Society with, I don’t know, some romance movie (which is not a genre I tend to watch a lot).  They work for a private high school in the US (the film is in English and Owen sports an American accent) and he comes up with the (sophomoric) idea to have a “war” between words and pictures that pits his Honours English class against her Art Honours class (although they do share students).  It doesn’t take long before someone utters the “A picture is worth…” phrase.  There are a few predictable plot arcs (e.g., how long before his self-destructive behaviour threatens his job, his relationships, etc.?) and we do get the expected happy ending (more or less).  And the kids, you know, they get inspired.  I blame director Fred Schepisi who had a string of mainstream hits in the 1980s (Roxanne, Plenty, A Cry in the Dark) but not much of note since.  There may have been something promising here at the start, and some little moments do work, but the whole enterprise ends up rather embarrassingly middlebrow. 

  

Possession (1981)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Possession (1981) – A. Zulawski

Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill go insane as a couple experiencing a messy divorce.  And in fact, I’m not quite sure whether the real actors weren’t losing it too, given the obvious commitment to extreme experience that they demonstrate here.  There is a scene in the Berlin subway where Adjani seems to be having a seizure that is almost too much to bear. Both she and Neill spend much of the film covered in blood (the film was banned in several countries as a “video nasty”; although brutal, it isn’t sadistic torture porn or anything).  Basically, there appear to be two parallel narratives – the actual objective “facts” of the divorce and the subjective psychological experience of the couple that is somehow literally projected into reality as something horrible.  There is a monster that has taken possession of Adjani and she moves to a new apartment with it; some commentators think this monster represents her guilt for having an affair while Neill was away on business (he appears to be a Cold War spy).  Neill meets Adjani’s exact double (except with green eyes) who is apparently the school teacher for their young son, Bob.  He begins an affair with her – some think that she represents his ideal fantasized version of a wife/partner.  Eventually Adjani’s monster transmogrifies into another version of Neill.  It is all pretty WTF and intensely emotional – the plot is beside the point, just a series of encounters between Neill and Adjani and Heinrich (the man with whom she had the affair) as well as the detectives that Neill hires to follow her.  So, the objective narrative is pretty mundane but director Andrej Zulawski is more interested in the gut-wrenching subjective experience and unless you want to have one too, I’d be wary of this film.    

As Tears Go By (1988)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

As Tears Go By (1988) – K.-W. Wong

Wong Kar-Wai’s debut feature takes place in the well-known world of the Hong Kong triads (well known to those who enjoyed John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow, 1986, and scores of other similar HK gangster films).  So, the plot is largely familiar:  Big Brother Wah (Andy Lau) has trouble keeping his impulsive Little Brother Fly (Jacky Cheung) under control and they have conflict with Tony (Alex Man) a rival gang leader; meanwhile Wah is falling in love with his cousin Ngor (Maggie Cheung) but knows that he is wrong for her.  It all ends up in tears.  What is different here is Wong’s stylistic choices and chances (although John Woo was also no schlub in this department).  Not only does he throw in some unique shots (as many directors could or would) but he dares to film an entire fight scene in some sort of slo-mo rotoscoping.  Moreover, the use of colour (filters as well as art direction) is splendid and adds to the mood (as befits the director of In the Mood for Love, 2000).  Although Maggie Cheung has little to do, apparently this was her breakout dramatic role (after starring in lighter comedic roles, such as Jackie Chan’s Police Story films).  But in the end, this has got to be one for fans of the genre (and the macho ultra-violence it entails), as Wong’s style is laid on top of the plot (livening it up) rather than integrated well with it (as he was later to achieve, though still favouring style over substance).