Bond Back to Earth (Part II of II)

OCTOPUSSY (1983)

Negotiating on a picture-by-picture basis, Roger Moore appears in his penultimate Bond, despite screen tests by James Brolin and Michael Billington. With the announcement of an unofficial THUNDERBALL remake, Moore provided a safer pair of hands under the circumstances.

THE contrasting visuals of Berlin and India form the backdrop to the thirteenth official James Bond film, released the same year as Sean Connery's rival outing NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. In an original screenplay only fleetingly inspired by Ian Fleming's short story collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights, Roger Moore returns for his sixth 007 adventure. Renegade Soviet General Orlov (outrageous Steven Berkoff) forms an allegiance with charismatic smuggler and exiled Afgan prince Kamal Khan (Louis Jordan, a close friend of Cubby Broccoli). Orlov plans to detonate a nuclear bomb on a US military base in Germany, surmising that a subsequent withdrawal will leave Western Europe open to his loyalist forces. Khan double crosses fellow smuggler Octopussy (Maud Adams) and uses her travelling circus to unwittingly transport the bomb to the base, which Bond manages to deactivate at the last second.

Swedish model and actress Adams is perfect as the titular role; others considered included Sybil Danning, Faye Dunaway and Persis Khambatta (Barbara Carrera was actually offered the part, but chose to work on NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN instead). Reviving an ancient Octopus cult, and living in a palace guarded by an all-female team of athletic assassins, Adams effortlessly brings the character to life. Octopussy is also fleshed-out with a back-story: she is the daughter of disgraced British agent Dexter Smythe, who 007 allowed to commit suicide rather than face the scandal and humiliation of a court martial; Smythe was found responsible for the theft of Chinese gold from North Korea, and the murder of two guides. 

Maud Adams featured in three Bonds. As well as her star turn here, Adams was Scaramanga's ill-fated lover in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, and an extra in A VIEW TO A KILL.

Despite the grounded intentions of director John Glen, silly gags, crude innuendo and racist lines ("that'll keep you in curry for a few weeks") still clash with some astounding sequences. While Bond's Tarzan yell, gorilla outfit and Barbara Woodhouseesque command of "sit!" to a tiger are low points, the sequence where 009 (Andy Bradford) is stalked and murdered by knife-throwing twins Mischka and Grischka (David and Tony Meyer) is tense and sinister, as is the use of a yo-yo buzz saw which kills Bond's ally in India Vijay (tennis professional Vijay Amritraj). Also, the opening credits sequence involving the Acrostar Mini Jet and a heat-seeking missile still stands up as one of the best, beautifully executed by a seamless mix of real jet, full-scale replicas and miniatures. This is a particular relief after the Blofeld debacle of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, although completely unconnected to the main narrative.

With the "Battle of the Bonds" a non-starter as NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN suffered production delays, OCTOPUSSY posted strong numbers with its summer release. Overall it is a very odd entry, and usually included in that ever-increasing number of 'Better of the Worst' Bonds. In order to reinforce the fact that you were watching the only official 007 movie of 1983, the Bond theme is even used to break the Fourth Wall, when Vijay plays it on a snake-charming flute.

Devils of Death

DEVILS OF DARKNESS (1965)
THEATRE OF DEATH (1967)

Horror films have always used the colour red to inflame the senses, but even smart ceremonial robes can't ignite DEVILS OF DARKNESS.

THE only claim to fame for Lance Comfort's DEVILS OF DARKNESS is that it was the first British horror film to feature vampirism in a modern setting. Yet this Planet MARK OF THE VAMPIRE imitation is a painfully dull affair, as stone-cold Paul Baxter (William Sylvester) encounters a Brittany-based Satanic cult headed by suave, self-styled "Leader of the Living Dead" Count Sinistre (Hubert Noel). The vacation takes a turn for the worse when Keith and Dave (Geoffrey Kenion and Rod McLennan) succumb to a cavern housing a group of coffins, and Keith's sister Anne (Rona Anderson) is found dead in a lake. Returning to England with a talisman that Sinistre has conveniently dropped, Baxter enlists the aid of scientist friend Dr Kelsey (Eddie Byrne) in exploring black magic. But when Kelsey adds to the body count, it transpires that the only other survivor from the French trip - antique shop owner Madeleine (Diana Decker) - is helping Sinistre to get a foothold in this country, as The Count focuses his attentions on red-head model and shop assistant Karen (Tracy Reed).

The opening French section is littered with 'ALLO 'ALLO style accents, but starts promisingly in an eight-minute pre-titles sequence where Sinistre - in bat form - takes gypsy Tania (Carole Gray) as his bride (there is also a sumptuous Hammeresque shot of Tania's coffin, her head wreathed in roses). Unfortunately, when the picture shifts to Blighty, even Madeleine's impromptu beatnik parties are staged and stodgy; but fangless Sinistre seems at home under his artist guise living in Chelsea (unlike DRACULA A.D. 1972, at least Noel actually mingles with society). Not only is everything pedestrian, there are no star turns (even seasoned performer Sylvester would have to wait three years to achieve his particular screen immortality, as Dr Floyd in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY).

"Fanaticism bordering on insanity;" Christopher Lee controls the THEATRE OF DEATH from Pennea Productions, a film originally released in the United States as BLOOD FIEND.

Playwright Samuel Gallu's THEATRE OF DEATH is another contemporary vampire tale with French connections which aims at Hammer acolytes. Svengali-like Philippe Darvas (Christopher Lee) is the director of the Theatre de Mort in the Paris backstreets, carrying on the Grand Guignol theme of sensationalist entertainment. As police surgeon Charles Marquis (Julian Glover) protects his former patient and Theatre employee Dani Gireaux (Lelia Goldoni) from a spate of murders, Darvas' protegee Nicole Chapelle (a pasty Jenny Till) is revealed as the killer, a haemotagiac whose thirst was initiated when feeding on her brother's blood as her Romanian family fled the Nazis in the Alps. With Lee killed off-screen at the half-way mark, he takes most of the interest with him; what remains is a drawn-out mystery thriller with too many red herrings and a late, out of leftfield sting. This reveal is at least different, and grounds the picture more successfully than the usual supernatural trappings in Comfort's film.

Paranormal Activity

THE OMEGA FACTOR (1979)

Burning ambition: this fondly remembered supernatural series 
ignited the wrath of moral crusader Mary Whitehouse.

BBC Scotland's THE OMEGA FACTOR is a forerunner to THE X-FILES, but without the budget or pretention. Born from the ashes of the cancelled second series of journalist drama THE STANDARD, here the lead protagonist is occult writer Tom Crane (James Hazeldine). Crane's latent psychic abilities lead him into Department 7, a government agency which investigates the paranormal, where he is partnered with family acquaintance Dr Anne Reynolds (Louise Jameson, a recently resigned Leela from DOCTOR WHO). Crane joins the organisation as a means of finding rogue psychic Edward Drexel (Cyril Luckham) and assistant Morag (Natasha Gerson), both involved in the death of his wife; yet, after Drexel is killed, Tom becomes increasingly aware of another shadow enterprise, one which strives to assemble the cream of extrasensory perceptive individuals.

For a programme steeped in otherworldly abilities, THE OMEGA FACTOR feels strangely grounded because of its lack of money and threadbare effects. This enhances Hazeldine's already standout performance, mixing his drive to avenge his wife's death, to come to terms with his own powers, and the vain attempt to assimilate within Department 7 with a secretive superior, namely psychiatrist Dr Roy Martindale (John Carlisle). Like any anthology shows - here with a wide range of writers and directors over ten episodes - there is an inherent unevenness in style and quality, encompassing a heady and diverse set of topics: spectral analogue technology (VISITATIONS), sonic weaponry (NIGHT GAMES), sleep deprivation (AFTER-IMAGE), poltergeists (CHILD'S PLAY), and even astral projection to political means (OUT OF BODY, OUT OF MIND). 

James Hazeldine and Louise Jameson are the Mulder and Scully 
of BBC paranormal drama, with added intimacy. 

POWERS OF DARKNESS is the episode the show is most remembered for, infamously labelled "thoroughly evil [and] one of the most disturbing things I have seen on television" by Mary Whitehouse. History student Jenny (Maggie James) is possessed by a witch, culminating in an altar ritual involving a dead blackbird and a Demon. Mixing a seance, drug use, knife violence and human combustion, this fed into Whitehouse's disgust at any portrayal of Eucharist abstraction, and general distrust of popular entertainment. Two weeks later BBC Scotland Head of Drama Roderick Graham admitted that the BBC's own standards of decency had been breached during ST ANTHONY'S FIRE, where a woman kills her husband with a bread knife. The BBC's Guidance Notes on Violence, which dictated permissible levels, specifically mentioned that dramas were to avoid violent acts that could be easily copied. Graham stated that "the point has been forcibly made to those who were responsible for the programme".

The penultimate entry, DOUBLE VISION, is unnerving because it is so understated. Tom keeps seeing his dead wife Julia (Joanne Tope) in and around Edinburgh; in DON'T LOOK NOW fashion, when running after her, the red-coated figure darts around corners and remains constantly out of touching distance, like the dream sensation of a goal forever out of reach. For the husband to discover this was an elaborate ploy leaves an unsavory taste, as the show leads to its THE PRISONER-like conclusion. The final episode - called ILLUSIONS - ends fittingly on a closed door, leaving further adventures to be picked up in a series of Big Finish audio dramas, where Jameson returns as Reynolds, now head of the department.

"Watch Out for Your Asp!"

THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (1988)

Once Adam Ant's partner, Amanda Donohoe is in her element as a worm-worshipping vamp. Gaining notoriety in Nic Roeg's CASTAWAY, the actress also appeared in Ken Russell's next film THE RAINBOW.

LOOSELY based on Bram Stoker's final book, Ken Russell's bombastic spoof horror opens with Scottish archaeology student Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi) excavating an old convent. On grounds now occupied by a Derbyshire B & B run by Trent sisters Mary (Sammi Davis) and Eve (Catherine Oxenberg), Flint unearths a large snake skull and serpent mosaic, which are tied to a local myth. The legend states that a monster was slain in Stonerich Cavern by John d'Ampton, the ancestor of current Lord of the Manor James d'Ampton (Hugh Grant). When the pocket watch of the Trent sisters' missing father is found in the Cavern, James surmises that the legendary creature may still be alive. Soon James, Angus, Mary and Eve are drawn into a deadly game with Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe), an immortal priestess to the snake god Dionin.

Dialogue is laced with sexual innuendo ("playing with yourself can't be much fun"), and the fusion of loopy dream/hallucination sequences and garish 80's monster effects (the giant worm's jaws were made from Volkswagen Beetle parts) make THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM a curio even by Russell's standards. Joseph Lanza expertly sums up the tone in Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films, by describing the film "as if a dotty, old, and salacious English auntie is telling it from an attic where her more prim relatives have exiled her." The scenery-chewing, mincing Donohoe casts a long shadow over the other leads, but bit parts from Paul Brooke - as lazy eyed P. C. Erny - and Stratford Johns - playing James' eccentric manservant Peters - crackle with life. 

Lady Marsh steals the excavated skull of Dionin. The prop was constructed by adding sculpted sections to a real cow head.

With Russell's forked tongue firmly in cheek, it is one delirious sequence after another. Marsh - in PVC boots and black underwear - seduces a half-witted boy scout, and later her strap-on defloration of Eve is interrupted by Dionin itself. One of the shot on video hallucinations has nuns being gang-banged by Roman centurions as a snake wraps itself around Christ on the cross, and kilted Angus plays bagpipes while battling a possessed Erny (which ends in a Fulciesque eye-gouging). Treading the fine line between kitsch and downright embarrassing, James' fever dream sees Eve and Lady Sylvia wrestling in air hostess outfits, the red-tipped pen in his hands standing to attention. Its a glorious mess that was debunked by critics at the time, but over the years the picture has gained a cult following worthy of Dionin, and stories even circulate of chic Los Angeles parties where revellers dress as their favourite characters.

Russell's initial flirtation with Stoker occurred after making TOMMY in 1975, when British cinema's enfant terrible wrote an adaptation of Dracula. The venture lost its impetus when a number of similar projects were released in the late 1970's, such as John Badham’s big-budget DRACULA starring Frank Langella, and Werner Herzog's remake of NOSFERATU. Whereas Herzog's vampire longed for death, Russell's Count rejoiced in possibilities of the forever, a master of the undead who loves the arts so much he seeks to bring great artists back to life; "how jealously God guards his immortality. Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Tchaikovsky: as soon as they challenged him with their visions of heaven, he cut them down - until we started to fight him." Russell claims that Mick Fleetwood was so eager to play his Dracula, that the musician offered to drain a pint of blood from his body each day throughout the shoot. But as Paul Sutton notes in his introduction to the full script published by Bear Claw in 2012, "Ken Russell's Dracula is a cloaked portrait of Ken Russell himself."

Sixties Sorcery

THE SORCERERS (1967)
CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR (1968)

"You enjoyed it, didn't you?" In an allegory for the thrills of cinema itself, THE SORCERERS tells of an old couple who invent a machine to live vicariously through a young man.

MICHAEL Reeves was a true cineaste and perhaps the greatest lost talent of the British film industry. Although he only directed three pictures, the Sutton-born Reeves increasingly became frustrated about the difficulty of getting projects off the ground. Suffering from depression and insomnia, on the 11th of February 1969 he died at the age of twenty-five from an alcohol and barbiturate overdose which many - including lifelong friend Ian Ogilvy - believe to have been purely accidental (indeed, the coroner's report stated that the level of barbiturate dosage was too marginal to suggest any dark intention). There is nothing critics like more than to mythologise an untimely artistic death (Brian Jones would follow five months later), but there is no mistaking that Reeves was a precocious talent. This is a man who travelled to Hollywood at the age of sixteen, sought out the address of his favourite director - Don Siegel - and subsequently gained employment. But after the critical and commercial success of WITCHFINDER GENERAL in 1968, Reeves seemingly lost his way. Starting to drink heavily, the boy wonder was also taking uppers and downers, and those close offered a variety of reasons: the development hells, the strain of his on-set clashes with Vincent Price, a failed romance, and an underlying nihilism.

There is much to enjoy in Reeves' second feature under consideration here, which followed the British/Italian REVENGE OF THE BLOOD BEAST shot in 1966. THE SORCERERS is a trippy slasher movie made as the 1960s neared its dizzying end. Retired and discredited hypnotist Professor Marcus Monserrat (Boris Karloff) and wife Estelle (Catherine Lacey) are an elderly couple who, through hypnosis, can "live" through young people and feel their emotions. Marcus picks up a bored youth - Mike Roscoe (Ogilvy) - at a Wimpy bar, who partakes in a ground-breaking experiment at the Monserrat household. When the pensioners choose to 'tune in' their fun begins mundane enough - Estelle instructs Roscoe to steal a fur coat - but soon she becomes hooked on the strength of her manipulative powers, forcing the hipster into carrying out a series of increasingly gruesome acts (such as a scissor murder of Audrey (Susan George)). As Marcus becomes mentally and physically overpowered by his wife, the husband manages to break the spell by causing Mike to die in a fireball of a car crash; the film ends on the image of the Monserrat's charred remains miles away at their home.

"... as though Boris Karloff's going to pop up at any moment." Barbara Steele's only home-grown horror - and Boris Karloff's last - CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR also wastes the talents of a bored Christopher Lee, who wears his own tweed jacket throughout.

By 1967 exploitation guru Tony Tenser had left Compton-Tekli and formed Tony Tenser Films, which would soon be renamed Tigon. THE SORCERERS was a co-production with the American company Curtwel - run by the husband-and-wife team of Patrick Curtis and Raquel Welch - and it is an effectively edited and lively lensed film which confronts cinema's inherent voyeurism. It also deftly contrasts gyrating youth culture with the dreary existence and tired home décor of the older generation; quieter sequences are governed by the sound of a ticking clock, as if to signify the both the passing joy of youth and the beginning of the end. Reeves makes the most of a derisory budget (£11,000 of the total £50,000 went to Karloff), though Monserrat's laboratory set is achingly threadbare. Karloff - sporting a pinstripe suit and goatee - gives a strong performance in his twilight years, still managing to sustain a erudite presence but also very much under the shadow of past glories. But it is Lacey who is the star, her demented wide-eyed enjoyment of Roscoe's building mania made even more disturbing by the fact that it is portrayed through violence rather than sexual yearning.

If Karloff was fading here, Tigon nearly finished the star off totally during Vernon Sewell's CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR, where Boris contracted pneumonia during night scenes filmed in freezing rain. Based uncredited on H.P. Lovecraft's The Dreams in the Witch House, Robert Manning (Mark Eden) goes in search of his brother, who was last known to have visited Craxted Lodge, Greymarsh. Manning is invited to stay by Eve (Virginia Wetherell) - the niece of Lodge owner Morley (Christopher Lee) - but is haunted by nightmares. When wheelchair-bound Professor Marshe (Karloff) informs Manning about a cult based around Lavinia Morley (Barbara Steele), and Robert discovers that he is descended from Lavinia's chief accuser, Craxted Lodge is burned to the ground, and Morley - exposed as the head of the followers - is consumed in flames. Starting with a written extract about hallucinatory drugs, the film descends into an unintentionally hilarious attic ritual, where Lavinia is aided by a man wearing an antlers head cap and leather underpants, and a woman with nipple-patches and horsewhip. The camp continues at a swinging party at the Lodge, which includes an exotic dancer pouring champagne over her breasts, but this is where the fun ends. Eden and Wetherell are functional at best, and the climactic notion that Morley and Lavinia are the same person - which would have made sense under the shooting title THE REINCARNATION - is left unexplored.

Bloodsucking Freaks

INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED (1970)

In a non-speaking role, Imogen Hassall is bewitching 
as the leader of a perversion-driven vampire cult.

DIRECTLY after THE BLACK TORMENT in 1964, director Robert Hartford-Davis and cinematographer Peter Newbrook quit Compton and formed Titan. After making the musical GONKS GO BEAT, Michael Bentine's THE SANDWICH MAN and Norman Wisdom vehicle PRESS FOR TIME, the studio turned out their lasting legacy in 1968 with the seedy CORRUPTION. A brutal picture which sees Peter Cushing as a surgeon killing in order to restore his young fiancée's facial tissue, Cushing departed to make another low point in his filmography with Tigon's THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR. Titan, however, went on to nearly complete their greatest folly, a take on Simon Raven's novel Doctors Wear Scarlet - INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED.

If you ever wanted to see Patrick Macnee and Imogen Hassall ride donkeys in a British vampire picture, then INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED is the film for you. Richard Fountain (Patrick Mower) - an Oxford don and the Foreign Secretary's son - falls into the clutches of Chriseis (Hassall) while researching ancient Minoan rites in Greece. Chriseis heads a non-supernatural bloodsucking cult of socialites who murder innocents as a form of sexual perversion. In an attempt to avoid a scandal, a search party flies to Mikonos in a desperate search for Richard, which contains Major Derek Longbow (Macnee), British Foreign Office assistant Tony Seymore (Alexander Davion), friend Bob Kirby (Johnny Sekka), and Fountain's somnambulant fiancée Penelope (Madeleine Hinde). After apparently halting the cult's influence over Richard, the don returns to his sheltered life, but we discover that the marks left by Chriseis still resonate.

Also known as BLOODSUCKERS and FREEDOM SEEKER, INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED is based on Simon Raven's 1960 novel Doctors Wear Scarlet. Raven - a Luciferian provocateur who was also a journalist and television writer - rejected faith and possessed a deep contempt for the English unwillingness to offend.

According to David Pirie's The Vampire Cinema, INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED was a long-gestating project of Terence Fisher, who was never able to interest Hammer in its subversive content. With the rights acquired by Titan and Hartford-Davis at the helm, it was the beginning of a painful production and editing process. While shooting in Cyprus funds were exhausted, leaving the picture unfinished. With a compressed narrative and lame narration introduced to cover the cracks, the director disowned the picture and prints only exist under a directorial psydonym (Michael Burrowes) or with no director credit at all. The ending was also shot against Hartford-Davis' wishes, where Kirby and Seymore go to Fountain's coffin to administer a stake through his heart. This climax vilifies the rest of the film, which had explained vampirism as a psychological distortion, rather than reverting to cliché. Also jarring is an extraordinary six-minute sequence of a hallucinogenic orgy - including an uncredited Francoise Pascal - which was either cut or excised completely for overseas prints.

Mower’s character is revealed as impotent - and possibly bisexual - making vampirism his only means of satisfaction. Richard's liberating climactic outburst at a Oxford dinner not only frees him from the stifling academic system championed by provost Dr Walter Goodrich (Peter Cushing) - Penelope's father - but also plays as a rousing counter-culture statement of the times ("the thieves who come to take our souls ... smooth deceivers in scarlet gowns.") As Tim Lucas points out in his Video Watchdog review, INCENSE would play well with Fisher's THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, where Mower plays another privileged upper class individual who falls under the power of persuasion. As well as Cushing - who is used far too fleetingly - Edward Woodward appears as an anthropologist who tries to explain vampirism where the drinking of blood serves as surrogate orgasm.

Experiment in Fear

THE QUIET ONES (2013)

"What did you expect? My head to spin around?" Debutant Olivia Cooke's performance is the highlight of Hammer's otherwise messy THE QUIET ONES. Similar to the 1970s era of Classic Hammer, where the studio struggled against an onslaught of progressive American cinema, the production ignores an interesting premise to portray a bias of shock.

THIS "Hammer production" actually encompasses five companies, five producers and four screenplay credits. No wonder the result is uneven, illustrating a collage of styles from found footage to retro supernatural terror. The picture begins at Oxford University in 1974, where chain-smoking Professor Coupland (Jared Harris) - assisted by students Krissi (Erin Richards) and Harry (Rory Fleck-Byrne) - is experimenting on troubled Jane Harper (Olivia Cooke). Coupland believes that the power of the human mind far outweighs any paranormal possibility ("you're not possessed, you're just unwell"), and the Professor hires cameraman Brian McNeil (Sam Clafin) to document events. But with funding suddenly withdrawn, the project moves to an isolated house where several manifestations take place and a scar on Jane's skin is unveiled. Brian researches the case of Evey Dwyer, a young girl raised in a satanic cult, but it transpires Jane is Evey, who unleashes her powers to murder the academics and leave Brian institutionalised.

The overused "based on true events" tag here relates to an exercise set in motion during 1972 by the Toronto Society for Psychical Research. The members aimed to explore the Tibetan Buddhist concept of "thoughtforms" by "willing" a ghost into existence. The group began by creating "Philip Aylesford", providing a backstory that he was an aristocratic Englishman living in the middle 1600s. After falling in love and concealing the gypsy Margo from his wife Dorothea, Aylesford commits suicide after being stricken with remorse by not defending his lover after she is burned at the stake. Initially meditating on the history of the character then holding séances, unsurprisingly there were no visitations, only an example of unconscious will within a proposed environment. This notion of a collective human hallucination is reduced to sensationalism for the picture: Jane/Evey not only seems to be mischievously channelling evil spirits akin to THE EXORCIST - after all, William Friedkin's tour-de-force was released in the UK in the year of the film's setting - but also sees the character emotionally lashing out in CARRIE vein, and a final third reverts to PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. At least the narrative makes effective use of Krissi's hot pants and Slade's 'Cum on Feel the Noize.'

Bowels of Hell

THE BORDERLANDS (2013)

An Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman go to a church... Graham Humphreys' poster art for THE BORDERLANDS ("Where faith goes to die.") For the film, unfriendly locals, a burning sheep and mysterious footage open up a bottomless pit of horror.

WHEN claims of a supernatural event are made at a remote church in the west of England, a Vatican-sanctioned team are sent to access the situation. Working under an organisation called The Congregation, Brother Deacon (Gordon Kennedy), Father Mark (Aidan McArdle) and technology expert Gray (Rob Hill) investigate the claims of Father Crellick (Luke Neal) that during a filmed baptism various religious artefacts are seen vibrating on an altar. Gray fits CCTV equipment to the church and the cottage where the trio are staying, with each of the members also wearing a headcam. As events take a darker turn with Crellick's suicide, the team start to question their own judgements when they - quite literally - start to travel into the labyrinthine bowels of hell. 

The found footage sub-genre can be conceptually and technically limiting, but with the right dynamics the format can be greatly enhanced. Such is the case with first time writer/director Elliot Goldner's THE BORDERLANDS, which excels both as a character study and an exploration of Olde England. Kennedy and Hill make for an unlikely dynamic duo - Deacon is a gruff hard-drinking Scotsman answering to the Vatican, Gray a talkative agnostic Englishman only in it for the money - but the actors gel on screen (McArdle is a stilted Irish head of operations, and this viewer yearned to see Reece Shearsmith in the role). The use of headcams make for a smoother and more sensible ride than the obligatory handhelds, which seem to remain relatively intact whatever the situation in similar pictures. The surveillance cameras maintain an eerie perspective within the church - capturing a vibe which melds THE STONE TAPE with EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING - but there is also a fertile depth into a Pagan time of more tangible beliefs, against the modern era where we need to believe.

Like all memorable horror, THE BORDERLANDS' locations, 
characters and themes form a successful whole.

What can be best termed British rural horror is defined by two main characteristics: quietly sinister country locals (when asking for directions and ignored, Gray snipes back "give my regards to Edward Woodward") and foreboding ancient terrors - often subterranean. Even though the countryside and the elements portray a deft mythology, counterculture has added another layer since The Beatles included Aleister Crowley on the cover of Sgt Pepper in 1967. As Vic Pratt states in his Sight & Sound article 'Long Arm of the Lore' (October 2013), "folk custom, witchcraft and the occult were no longer absurdities; they might almost be an option."

Making exemplary use of locations in Denbury, South Devon, THE BORDERLANDS climax is filmed extensively at Chislehurst Caves, Kent. The caves themselves are enveloped with a rich history of uses; originally a 22-mile stretch of man-made chalk and flint mines, this popular tourist attraction acted as an ammunition depot in the First World War and mushroom cultivation in the 1930s. Built by Druids, Romans and Saxons, this colourful past led it to be a music venue used by the likes of the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label had a launch party there in October 1974. Additionally, they have been used in the DOCTOR WHO adventure THE MUTANTS, and substituted for an underground space headquarters in INSEMINOID.

Masculinity and Madness

KILL LIST (2011)

The final third of KILL LIST descents into a WICKER MAN-like nightmare, with a climactic nod to A SERBIAN FILM.

IRAQ War veteran Jay (Neil Maskell)'s mood swings and unemployment are causing frictions with wife Shel (MyAnna Buring), and disrupting their connection to seven-year-old son Sam (Harry Simpson). After a dinner party with fellow vet Gal (Michael Smiley) and his new girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer) is also disrupted by an argument, Gal invites Jay to renew their partnership as hitmen. Made to sign a contract in blood, the duo are given targets by a strange syndicate: a priest who may or may not have links to paedophilia, a librarian with violent videos, and an MP who lives in a secluded mansion. After Gal is fatally stabbed by one of many pagan celebrants near the MP's dwelling, Jay is forced into a knife fight with a masked 'hunchback', which ends with him being crowned by the cultists.

This Warp X/Rook visceral genre-bending horror, shot around Sheffield, is the second feature from writer/director Ben Wheatley after 2009's DOWN TERRACE. The reactions and strange dialogue by people on the 'kill list', together with a bizarre visit to the doctors, enhance Jay's - and the viewer's - disorientation (the priest and librarian both thank their executioners). We share the emotional roller-coaster because the kitchen sink naturalism draws you to the characters before the brutality feeds in. Shel is trying to hold her family together despite financial worries and Jay's confrontational demeanour, while Jay struggles to control his psychosis (possibly post-traumatic stress, or mental scars from a 'job' in Kiev). A conclusion that the hitmen have been victims of an entrapment at the hands of the mysterious Client (Struan Rodger) still cannot explain all of the ambiguities, especially when the latter refers to "reconstruction."

Lambs to the slaughter: Michael Smiley and Neil Maskell play hitmen haunted by the past in this surreal offering.

KILL LIST is an artfully constructed shocker, exploring Wheatley's preference for a sinister Olde England. This metaphysical existence where the landscape has a deep-rooted preference for bad vibes is a notion further explored in his next film SIGHTSEERS, and taken to its zenith with A FIELD IN ENGLAND. The filmmaker is arguably the greatest British talent to emerge since Ken Russell or Lindsay Anderson, an audacious creative force which produces works that defy any fixed categorisation. Next up for Wheatley are the first two episodes of Peter Capaldi's DOCTOR WHO tenure, and a film adaptation of J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel HIGH-RISE, which offers him an urban setting to warp the human psyche.

Hammer Rides Out

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT (1968)
TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER (1976)

"The Goat of Mendes! The Devil Himself!" Eddie Powell dons the monster suit for Hammer's  THE DEVIL RIDES OUT.

TERENCE Fisher's THE DEVIL RIDES OUT is based on Dennis Wheatley's pot-boiling 1934 novel, and benefits from a Richard Matheson script which surgically cuts the fat from the author's most famous - but sprawling - work. It is also the most sumptuous-looking Hammer film produced by the studio after their move from Bray to Elstree. Set in 1920s London, Nicholas, the Duc de Richleau (Christopher Lee) and Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene, dubbed by Patrick Allen) decide to pay a visit to Simon (Patrick Mower), the son of a late comrade. The duo find him hosting a gathering of The Left Hand Path, and under the influence of satanic priest Mocata (Charles Gray), Simon escapes. Consequently, our heroes must seek out the mysterious Tanith (Nike Arrighi) - the daughter of a French countess - who is destined to join their friend at a satanic ritual. When de Richleau and Van Ryn rescue the seemingly doomed pair, Mocata sends his supernatural forces to obtain those promised to him.

Aleister Crowley served as technical adviser to Wheatley's book, and THE DEVIL RIDES OUT illustrates a series of genuine arcana. Ceremonial details, allegiances to nineteenth century magician Eliphas Levi and dialogue (the Susamma ritual is not Matheson but the actual incantation) are all Crowleyesque in tone. A penny-dreadful villain in the novel, Gray's Mocata is the living incarnation of what Fisher often described as "the charm of evil." His central battle of wills with Lee are perfectly played, and the casting of Arrighi is also noteworthy, as her quirky beauty is suited to a role for a woman seeking spiritual awakening. But even with these strengths, the film was not the box office success Hammer had hoped, and packs less dread today when viewed outside of the cycle of satanic movies that would sweep through cinema until the mid-1970s. Particularly detrimental are the special effects, and the orgy that presages The Goat of Mendes is too tame to seem even remotely diabolical.

Christopher Lee and Nastassja Kinski in TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER. A tour de force for Lee, even Astaroth's effigy - a crucified bat in the source novel but a spread-legged hermaphrodite mounted on an inverted black cross in the film - befits Dracula.

Crowley's mandate to bring the Devil's offspring to Earth was channelled into his 1929 work Moonchild. This inspired a 1953 Wheatley novel that acts as the springboard for TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER, the last Classic Era Hammer Horror. The film tells of excommunicated Father Michael Rainer (Lee), who is head of a cult which rears innocent minors in a closed Catholic convent to serve Astaroth. One of his charges - Catherine Beddows (Nastassja Kinski) - has been chosen as the Devil's representative when she comes of age. Catherine's haunted father Henry (Denholm Elliott) enlists occult author John Verney (Richard Widmark) - an obvious Wheatley alter ego - as the girl's temporary guardian, and with the aid of his agent Anna (Honor Blackman) and her gallery-owner boyfriend David (Anthony Valentine), aim to halt Rainer's plans.

Directed by Peter Sykes, TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER was afforded the largest budget for any Classic Era Hammer film, but it was a troubled production. Widmark allegedly punched an electrician on set and considered the subject matter distasteful and beneath him; Christopher Wicking's typically anarchic script was constantly being rewritten by THE DUELLISTS scribe Gerald Vaughn-Hughes; and stuntman Eddie Powell suffered burns when set on fire for David's church-bound demise. There was also controversy surrounding Kinski, the scandalous teenage lover of Roman Polanski at the time; her naked cavorting in the final scenes - as the actress was born in 1961 - made them highly illegal. Even the money shot - when Catherine presses the bloodied demon child into her womb - exists only to adhere to EXORCIST-style shock tactics. Equally disappointing is the notoriously flat ending: in the original rough cut, an alternate conclusion saw Catherine return to the Bavarian convent to perpetuate the evil of Father Michael, but all we get is Verney halting the wave of evil by throwing a rock at Rainer's head.

Hammer Has Risen From The Grave

WAKE WOOD (2011)

A reworking of W.W. Jacobs’ The Monkey’s Paw and Stephen King's Pet Sematary, WAKE WOOD also owes debts to DON'T LOOK NOW and THE WICKER MAN. But despite these reference points, the film successfully attempts a genuine Hammer resurrection.

HAMMER has been in a state of frustration since the 1980s. New beginnings always fizzled into oblivion, including a Warner Bros deal in 1993 which proposed a $100m programme of remakes, a deal with Firstsight Ltd announced at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, and 2003 had a schedule issued by Queensland-based Pictures in Paradise. Then in 2007 it was announced that Dutch media tycoon John De Mol - whose production house invented the BIG BROTHER reality show - had purchased the Hammer rights to over 300 films in the studio's back catalogue, and the company was restarted under the guidance of Simon Oakes. The first output under the new regime was BEYOND THE RAVE - made in conjunction with Channel 4  - which premiered free on myspace in twenty, four-minute segments during 2008. This contemporary vampire serial with blasting techno (selected by dance-music maestro, Pete Tong, innit) and hip street lingo couldn't have been further from expectations.

David Keating's WAKE WOOD was the first of the new Hammer films to be shot, but the last to be released, after Matt Reeves' needless English language version of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, LET ME IN, and Antti Jokinen's voyeuristic misfire THE RESIDENT. WAKE WOOD tells the story of Patrick (Aidan Gillen) and Louise (Eva Birthistle), who move to the Irish village of Wake Wood after their daughter Alice (Ella Connolly) is killed in a savage dog attack. One night, they stumble upon a ritual led by Arthur (Timothy Spall), and soon learn that the community has the power to bring the recently deceased back to life for three days. The couple desperately want to see Alice again, and so begins the latest ceremony where their daughter is "reborn" via the utilisation of another corpse - a farmer who died in an accident involving a bull - which is systematically pressed, cut, covered in mud and burnt to recreate a suitable husk. 

Arriving in Wake Wood for a fresh start, a young couple become trapped in a tortured existence with their undead daughter. 

Gillen and Birthistle are fine as the grieving parents - Birthistle should be used to menacing minors after THE CHILDREN and Spall evidently enjoys his turn as the village elder with nocturnal habits, but it is the wide-eyed Connolly was is the most effective as the dead soul, switching from wholesome child to murderous spawn with relative ease. Made in conjunction with the Irish Film Board and the Swedish Film Institute, WAKE WOOD is a slow-burning and emotionally draining film which draws heavily from past cult favourites. Refreshingly old school with its English eccentricities and grue, this may, however, restrict its modern appeal, and acceptance may be limited to those enveloped in Hammer nostalgia.

During their years of inactivity, many intriguing Hammer projects were mentioned, ranging from Jamaican voodoo film THE WHITE WITCH OF ROSE HALL, epic television anthology THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HAMMER, and a mini-series based on Peter Norden's Salon Kitty. Yet WAKE WOOD feels like the kind of film "new" Hammer should be making. With any reinvention of such a historic brand, production natures need to be tweaked, but a respect to their heritage is also important. Case in point is the new DOCTOR WHO, which is currently losing its prime time viewers in a whirlwind of riddles and bombastic CGI; it will be interesting to see over the coming years if Oakes will keep the ship away from revenue friendly crowd-pleasers, or commit to earthy releases with one eye on the past.

Houses of Horrible

BLOODBATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH (1983)
DR TERRIBLE'S HOUSE OF HORRIBLE (2001)

"What in hell is going on at Headstone Manor?" One of the most baffling things about BLOODBATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH is why Cleo Rocos doesn't take her clothes off.

BY 1983, Kenny Everett was one of the major stars of British television. Made to exploit this popularity, BLOODBATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH is a brave failure that sees the zany comedian play Dr Lukas Mandeville - a former surgeon with an on-off German accent and a metal leg - the spearhead of a group of scientists sent to investigate the strange activity at Headstone Manor ("Businessman’s Weekend Retreat and Girls’ Summer Camp"). Unknown to them, their presence is about to incur the wrath of a local coven of bumbling but determined Satanists, led by a 700-year-old disciple known only as The Sinister Man (Vincent Price).

Written by Ray Cameron and Barry Cryer, the film flopped disastrously in Britain but was a box office hit down under; in an interview to promote the film on Australian television, Everett attributed its lack of home-ground success to the fact that the British "have no class." But the main reason was the suicidal decision of giving the film an 18 certificate, alienating Everett's young fans but simultaneously fully exploiting its tit humour and comedic gore; in a tour-de-force scene of excess, for example, Mandeville attempts to retrieve his monocle after it drops into his patient during a flashback surgery sequence.

The Countess (Ronni Ancona) bares her fangs in Lesbian Vampire Lovers of Lust, from DR TERRIBLE'S HOUSE OF HORRIBLE.

BLOODBATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH is best viewed through a nostalgic haze; its all a juvenile mess, but an entertaining one, leading to a suitably perplexing climax. The cast is a checklist of familiar faces; the "distinguished international team of specialists" include Gareth Hunt and Don Warrington as the most bemused-looking gay couple in cinema history, Sheila Steafel as a butch lesbian, Pamela Stephenson, John Fortune, and Cleo Rocos, the latter redefining the meaning of non-actress. The film also revels in a lengthy list of movie parodies: Steafel in a school uniform (CARRIE), Stephenson being invisibly raped (THE ENTITY), a public house straight out of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, and Everett writhing on the table like John Hurt in ALIEN, before finding relief in a prolonged belch. 

When Steve Coogan's DR TERRIBLE'S HOUSE OF HORRIBLE first aired on the BBC in the winter of 2001, critical and public reaction was muted. Fans expecting a comedy akin to Alan Patridge were instead confronted with six quality homages to 1960s and 70s British horror, brimming with in-jokes and notable guest stars. And Now the Fearing apes the Amicus anthology, Frenzy of Tongs takes us back to yellow peril potboilers, and Curse of the Blood of the Lizard of Doom parodies the scientific-experiment-gone-wrong sub-genre. Lesbian Vampire Lovers of Lust is a sumptuous ode to the 70s Hammer vampire canon, Voodoo Feet of Death takes on the body-part-transplant movie, and Scream Satan Scream! is firmly ensconced in Tigon territory. Unlike the buffoonery of BLOODBATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH, there is a genuine love for the material being spoofed, which makes the series an incredibly affectionate viewing experience.

Beswick Rules

ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966)
PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1966)

Martine Beswick - a B-Movie queen before the term was created - as Kari in the bewildering PREHISTORIC WOMEN. Here is the actress on the cover of Britain's short-lived movie magazine Showtime (May 1966).

HAMMER'S biggest commercial hit and greatest folly, Don Chaffey's ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. was a success jointly because of Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion dinosaurs and Raquel Welch's doeskin and fur bikini. The feature is a hopelessly anachronistic melange of prehistoric man, volcanoes and reptiles; not only is the film a scientific abnormality, it is also an aberration in the context of the maturing cinematic landscape of the 60s. Away from Harryhausen's creations, ONE MILLION YEARS B.C.'s wafer-thin plot tells of a mixed-tribe love affair between Tumak (John Richardson) of the Rock People and Loana (Welch) of the Shell People. It is all marvellously silly stuff - Michael Carreras' screenplay is devoid of dialogue, relying instead on grunting and pointing.

The sequel to ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. was actually completed while the dino-epic was still in post-production. PREHISTORIC WOMEN - initially released in the UK as SLAVE GIRLS - was hastily devised by Carreras to optimise the costumes and Elstree sets made for the earlier film, and to include the talents of its supporting player, Jamaican-born model/actress Martine Beswick. This fatuous, non-dinosaur production opens with African big game hunter David Marchant (Michael Latimer) mysteriously transported back in time (or is he dreaming?) to the kingdom of a fabled white rhinoceros cult. He encounters Saria (Edina Ronay), one of a number of fair-haired tribe women oppressed by a group of dark-haired vixens led by the evil Queen Kari (played with infectious relish by Beswick).

Ray Harryhausen’s Allosaurus during the village raid sequence of ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. All of his stop motion creatures are filled with enough charisma to act the entire human cast off the screen.

With her angular facial features and stunning physique, Beswick commands attention every moment she's on screen, not so much stealing the film from the others as to rip it from them and devour it whole. Beswick first came to the attention in a pair of James Bond movies - FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (as wrestling gypsy Zora) and THUNDERBALL (as Jamaican spy Paula Caplan) - and in her first starring role here Beswick treats Queen Kari seriously, alternately seductive, childish and sluttish. When the warriors first push Marchant before the Queen, she parades in front of him naked, oblivious to anything remotely resembling modesty.

Produced, directed and written (under the pseudonym of Henry Younger) by Carreras, PREHISTORIC WOMEN is fittingly dismissed by critics and Hammer historians alike. However, the movie is a treasure trove for connoisseurs of camp; not only do the phallic implications of the rhino horn make for uneasy viewing, the climactic rhino-on-tracks is unintentionally hilarious. Additionally, the script is a litter of hyperbole, trumped by "the women are sad, and when the heart is heavy, the feet are not light - let there be no more dancing," a statement which the viewer can only wish for during the seemingly endless tribal dance numbers.

Wild in the Country

THE DARK (2005)
THE WICKER MAN (2006)

Explore undead children and menacing mutton in THE DARK.

JOHN Fawcett’s THE DARK - based very loosely on Simon Maginn's 1994 horror novel Sheep - buckles under the heavy influence of other bodies of film, especially the 1973 THE WICKER MAN and Nicolas Roeg's DON’T LOOK NOW. Cliff-jumping sheep point to a Jim Jonesesque cult on the Welsh coast, but far from being worried by these sheep, you’ll find yourself counting them during this often laughable film. It opens with Adèle (Maria Bello) and her daughter Sarah (Sophie Stuckey) visiting estranged husband James (a disinterested-looking Sean Bean). While out by the sea, Sarah vanishes and appears to drown; later, a young girl named Ebrill (Abigail Stone) - who apparently died over fifty years ago - suddenly materialises. Adèle starts investigating and her search leads to Annwn, a portal hidden under the sea.

In Welsh legend, Annwn ("afterlife") is said to be accessed by the living through a door located at the mouth of the Severn once a year. Inhabitants would welcome the living for feasting and celebration, upon the condition that they took nothing back with them to the human realm. Surviving from pre-Christian Celtic mythology, it's neither Heaven nor Hell in the Christian sense, as humans can enter spiritually or corporeally. Shot in Cornwall and the Isle of Man, the film looks stunning, yet only wakes from its slumber when Adèle crosses the watery threshold late on. On land, its haunted farmhouse and neighbouring abattoir settings are sadly unscary, and when things do turn grisly with harrowing flashbacks of child torture, it feels like the scenes are an intrusion from a different work altogether.

The unintentionally hilarious Hollywood remake of THE WICKER MAN - watch for Nicolas Cage in his bear suit.

When a major American studio release with two Oscar-winning stars opens without press previews, one assumes the distributor is trying to hide the film from critics. In the case of Neil LaBute's THE WICKER MAN - a pointless remake of the fabled cult curio - it's entirely possible that Warners wanted to conceal it from audiences as well. This reboot sees California motorcycle cop Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) receiving a letter from his ex-fiancée Willow (Kate Beahan), begging him to find her missing daughter. Malus heads out to the island of Summersisle, where he discovers a matriarchal society of beekeepers.

Robin Hardy’s original THE WICKER MAN serves as a working definition of a cult film: initially overlooked and offloaded as a support feature (to DON’T LOOK NOW), the unclassifiable project now has a sizeable following; when viewed today, it suffers from a flower power feel and a slew of honey-dripping folk songs. By throwing Hardy's meditation on pagan faith and Christian sacrifice out of the window, screenwriter/director LaBute rips the heart out of the ethos, turning Summersisle into a bizarre community where men are "drones" and the women mead-quaffing harpies led by Lady Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn in a Mel Gibson mudpack). The script is riddled with jaw-dropping declarations ("killing me won’t bring back your fucking honey!") and the production wastes an array of strong actresses (Leelee Sobieski, Francis Conroy, Molly Parker et al). But what's most curious is it's utter sexlessness - the nude dancing and orgies that made a palatable case for earth worship over Christian repression in 1973 is replaced by Cage’s hangdog investigator barking at and punching women in the face.

How Do

THE WICKER MAN (1973)

During the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, from which Halloween was derived, Druids burned huge sacrificial wooden effigies known as Wicker Men atop sacred hilltop sites. The Wicker Men were sometimes filled with animals, prisoners of war, criminals, and other sacrifices to Druid deities.

WHILE Terence Fisher, Peter Cushing and Madeline Smith were bringing Hammer’s Frankenstein saga to an unrelenting grisly end with FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL, Christopher Lee was filming in Scotland, working for free in a role specially written for him. Although marketed as a horror film, Robin Hardy’s THE WICKER MAN is a counterpoint to the flamboyant excesses of Hammer, and a genuine genre misfit, equally resembling a detective story, an erotic thriller, a religious allegory, an art film, and even a musical. Hardly the “CITIZEN KANE of horror” as labelled by Cinefantanstique magazine, it became lost in a tangle of bad marketing, careless editing, and public indifference. The work does however remain a solid cult favourite, its status reinforced by a series of outlandish behind-the-scenes stories: the master negative was apparently lost when it was inadvertently included in a shipment of disposable material buried beneath the then under-construction M3, and rumours circulated of inhumane acts towards animals. Lee even offered to pay for his critic friends to view the film when the bewildered new regime at British Lion refused to distribute it.

Edward Woodward, in a role intended for Cushing, is Sergeant Howie, a humourless policeman whose devout religious views cause him to look dimly upon any kind of heathen activity. When he receives an anonymous letter informing him that a young girl is missing on the beguilingly remote Scottish island of Summerisle, he flies out to investigate, consequently discovering a community of pagans - led by Lord Summerisle (Lee) - who worship the old Celtic gods and have rejected Christianity. In the schools, children are taught to venerate male genitalia, while at night outside the public house, couples copulate openly. Howie’s faith further comes under assault when a naked Willow (Britt Ekland), the sensual daughter of the innkeeper, offers herself to him in an adjacent room while singing the haunting 'How Do' (Paul Giovanni’s celebrated score often moves the story along rather than the dialogue). Convinced that the missing girl is intended as a sacrifice for the islander’s May Day celebrations, Howie realises too late that she is part of a scheme to ensnare “the right kind of adult.”

The cover for Optimum’s 3-disc DVD of THE WICKER MAN, containing the original 84m theatrical release, the 99m director’s cut, and the soundtrack CD.

Within this miniature Holy War, Howie is no Sherlock Holmes, but the viewer is convinced by his dogged persistence, although his dour disposition and puritanical outlook makes it difficult to fully sympathise with the character. This investigative outsider is just one of many horror film clichés playwright Anthony Shaffer spins into his games-laden script: the raucous pub that falls silent on his arrival, a journey by carriage to the castle of an overlord, and the midnight exhumation of a coffin, are all present and correct. But the climax - in which the Sergeant is improbably manoeuvred into, and burned to death, within a sixty foot Wicker Man, is one of British cinema’s most visually arresting final scenes.

Hammer's Cornwall Classics

THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES (1966)
THE REPTILE (1966)

The stunning Jacqueline Pearce, fresh from RADA, gives standout performances in both of these Hammer favourites.

FILMED back-to-back, and utilising much of the same production crew and sets, THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES and THE REPTILE were both directed by John Gilling. Each picture portrays an anti-colonial stance, and Hammer’s renowned class dynamic (that is, treading a noble path between the ignorance of the working class, bound by fear and superstition, and the unfettered power craving of the upper class). But the notion of the aristocracy as carriers of infection is crystallised in these two releases. Using the same basic story conceit as the Bela Lugosi favourite WHITE ZOMBIE, THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES belongs to the list of genuine classics in the studio’s back catalogue. Here, Sir James Forbes (Andre Morell), Professor of Medicine at London University, receives a letter from former pupil Dr Peter Tompson (Brook Williams). Now practising in Cornwall, Tompson tells of a mysterious malady which has overrun his village. The rash of deaths in the district, of which Tompson’s wife Alice (Jacqueline Pearce) is one of the latest victims, is ultimately traced to local Squire Clive Hamilton (John Carson). After returning from Haiti, Hamilton has become a black magician, using voodoo to reactivate the dead to staff his inherited, reopened tin mine.

Maximising its desolate setting, THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES is a model of economy and invention. The rural English setting, far from the usual Central European milieu, allows Gilling to use the pre-existing class structure to frightening effect; a film in which an aristocrat murders his lowly subjects in order to put them to work in daddy’s tin mine, unpaid as well as undead, would appear to operate on levels deeper than that of schlock horror. Indeed, the zombies' appearance, dressed in ragged brown robes, even suggests a link with medieval peasantry. The director shows sensitivity to Christian themes that characterised Terence Fisher’s work for Hammer; the Squire's enterprise is an immoral subversion of the Christ-story, and Tompson's recollection of his dream - "I dreamed I saw the dead rise; all the graves in the churchyard opened, and the dead came out" - is an allusion to Matthew 27:52-53. The great strength of the film, however, are the three performances from Morell, Pearce and Carson. Morell projects a moral bedrock that is necessary to carry the picture, expertly combining unflappable suavity with a deeply felt moral outrage. Pearce’s account of the living but ailing Alice is one of the most delicate performances in any horror film, and her all-too-brief reincarnation is one of the most terrifying. And Carson’s persona, a cool magnetism mixed with chilling repugnance, inevitably invites comparison to Christopher Lee.

THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES’ lumbering ghouls preceded NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD by two years. Squire Hamilton’s dilapidated characters opened the way for the armies of increasingly malevolent living dead that flowed in their wake; the first zombie appearance on the nocturnal hillside, together with the celebrated nightmare sequence - in which the undead dig their way out of the ground and advance with outstretched hands - are both highly influential.

THE REPTILE - scripted by Anthony Hinds - opens with a lengthy pre-credits sequence, in which a young Cornish landowner is lured across a moor by exotic music, only to be bitten to death by a lethally poisonous assailant. His property is inherited by his brother, Harry Spaulding (Ray Barrett), who learns that he died of causes described by locals as "The Black Death", symptoms of which are identical to those bitten by a King Cobra. In fact, neighbouring theologist Dr Franklyn (Noel Willman)’s daughter Anna (Jacqueline Pearce) has been cursed by the Snake People of Borneo, to transform into a half-human snake creature as punishment for her father’s professional exposure of their religious cult.

Slower and more stately than THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, THE REPTILE nonetheless is rich in atmosphere, and its carefully orchestrated tension belie its support feature status. Pearce, in another splendidly intense performance, makes for a fascinatingly sympathetic character, despite her clumsy – but oddly endearing – transformation make-up. The actress transcends the papier mache face mask by investing the Reptile with a sinuous grace, encased in a black gown of watered silk and a pony tail slithering incongruously down her back. Appearing as if to have strayed into the lurid landscape of Hammer Horror, Franklyn is more suited to M. R. James’ stories in which antiquarian scholars pay a terrible price for their academic zeal. The theologist’s Malay manservant (Marne Maitland) seems like the conventionally negative ‘Yellow Peril’ figure, but it is worth pointing out that though the evil in the film originates in the East, it only chooses to infiltrate England thanks to the blundering presumptions of a Westerner. Unlike Squire Hamilton, Franklyn hardly seems a villain at all, but both characters are tainted by their exposure to other cultures; as these two releases appear to illustrate, time spent in a foreign country invariably corrupts an Englishman's soul.