"No flesh shall be spared"

HARDWARE (1990)
DUST DEVIL (1992)

HARDWARE exists in a future shock world of killer robots and MAD MAX decor, surrounded by a pounding soundtrack. 

SOUTH African filmmaking auteur Richard Stanley made two British cult films in the early 1990s - one plagiaristic, one pretentious - but both surreally beguiling. HARDWARE opens with a scavenger nomad (Fields of the Nephilim frontman Carl McCoy) finding the remains of a robot in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. While visiting junk dealer Alvy (Mark Northover), zone trooper Mo (Dylan McDermott) and friend Shades (John Lynch) are also in residence; Mo buys the parts from the nomad and sells them on to Alvy, but retains a headpiece which he gives to artist girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis) as a Christmas gift. While Jill works the robot skull into a new piece, she is unknowingly watched by salivating voyeuristic neighbour Lincoln (William Hootkins); it transpires that the robot is actually a M.A.R.K 13 - part of a government initiative for human sterilisation - which goes on a re-animated, poison-taloned rampage. 

With Iggy Pop as DJ Angry Bob and Lemmy as a river taxi driver (in a role intended for Sinead O'Connor), HARDWARE has a carefree aesthetic and is a triumph of enthusiasm over budget. A trippy, violent movie inspired by Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! and Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley, Fleetway brought a successful lawsuit that the film copied one of its comic strips. A notice was added to later releases giving credit to the publisher and creators Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill; the work in question was SHOK!, which first appeared as part of the 1981 Judge Dredd Annual. Here, the action plays out in the Andy Warhol block of Mega City One, where the head of a S.H.O.K. Trooper is rejuvenated by the power supply of a talking upright hoover. 

DUST DEVIL merges horror and occultist mysticism.

Shot entirely in Namibia, DUST DEVIL is a meandering, darkly sensual serial killer movie which has more interest in desert landscapes than slayings. Wendy Robinson (Chelsea Field) - on the run from a disintegrating marriage - encounters a mysterious hitch-hiker who is actually a shape-shifting 'Dust Devil' (Robert Burke). This creature - which collects human fingers - preys on broken and suicidal individuals, and it is left to troubled police officer Ben Mukurob (Zakes Mokae) to track it down with the aid of a shaman. The murders are the work of the naghtloper, a demon who gains power over the material world through ritual murder. This entity must keep moving to work such ceremonies; if it is tricked to step over a kierie stick, it will be bound to one spot and its power can be taken.

DUST DEVIL: THE FINAL CUT of 1993 is the only version which shows any coherency. An extensive cut was screened for only a week in Britain due to the financial problems of Palace Pictures, and a similar release was put out by American distributor Miramax, who had pressured Stanley to make it "more like THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS." Initial audiences were bemused, particularly by a final act where most of the editing had occurred. Yet whatever version, the 'Dust Devil' is too abstract to form any new, lasting horror mythos ("there is no good or evil, only spirit and matter. Only movement toward the light - and away from it").

A metaphysical stylist, Richard Stanley is never too far away from supernatural ancient rites.

Stanley himself is a fascinating individual. Raised by a mother who he claims was a witch, the writer and director is fittingly descended from famous journalist and explorer of Africa Sir Henry Morton Stanley. After moving to London in 1987, Stanley directed music videos for the likes of Fields of the Nephilim and Public Image Limited, and it was while he was documenting the Soviet-Afghan War that HARDWARE was given the go-ahead. Making a slew of interesting documentaries and short films - including The Secret Glory of SS officer Otto Rahn's search for The Holy Grail - his most infamous claim to fame was being sacked from his own version of H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau. Replaced by John Frankenheimer, the true story of this catastrophic New Line production is expertly detailed in David Gregory's amazing LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY'S ISLAND OF DR MOREAU. 

Little Monsters

I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN (1975)
THE GODSEND (1980)

George Claydon and Joan Collins in I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN. This outrageous film typifies the output of mid-1970s British horror, reduced to hanging onto the coattails of themes made more skillfully elsewhere.

IN 1968, ROSEMARY'S BABY begin a new era of mainstream Satanic cinema, setting up the archetypal "Seventies Demon Child"; and after THE EXORCIST, major studios viewed The Devil as big business. Lucifer's screen time in both pictures is actually limited: an impregnation scene in the former, the appearance of Pazuzu the demon in the latter. Instead, we are watching movies that embrace paranoia, corrupted innocence and body horror within the family unit. The spawn of Mia Farrow and the infliction of Linda Blair propelled menacing minors and frayed social groups into a gamut of releases, forming the fatherly despair of IT'S ALIVE, the rise of Damien in THE OMEN, the telekinetic teenager of CARRIE, and the painful divorce of THE BROOD. With the release of THE SHINING in 1980, Stanley Kubrick's loose Stephen King adaptation added to this downward spiral by reducing family in the horror film to that of festering resentment.

Joan Collins is touched up and cursed by a vaudeville dwarf in Peter Sasdy's I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN. Nightclub dancer Lucy (Collins) leaves her sleazy life with boss Tommy (John Steiner) and colleague Mandy (Caroline Munro) behind by marrying wealthy Italian Gino (Ralph Bates) and living in Kensington. The birth of their son signals a series of violent injuries and deaths - which includes family Dr Finch (Donald Pleasence) - and in an EXORCIST-inspired finale, Gino's sister Nun Albana (Eileen Atkins) performs a ritual on the baby, while at the same time at the strip club the dwarf Hercules (George Claydon) goes full Tommy Cooper and dies on stage. Sasdy cannot keep a lid on the banal performances and overwrought plotting: if the baby is indeed possessed by the Devil, it is less problematic than insinuating that dwarfs have black magic powers. As the infant lays waste to his nursery and gums anyone foolish to get close enough, it is unclear that - due to the constant cross-cutting between the baby's face and Hercules - more physical killings require the spirited aid of the dwarf. 

THE GODSEND is anything but, a flaccid picture of 
questionable English parenting and guardian skills.

Ten years after collaborating on THE CORPSE, Gabrielle Beaumont and Olaf Pooley re-teamed to make THE GODSEND, a late entry in the Demon Child stakes which should have been titled THE GODAWFUL. Adapted from Bernard Taylor's 1976 debut novel, illustrator Alan (Malcolm Stoddard) and "ex-TV personality" Kate Marlowe (Cyd Hayman) meet The Stranger (Angela Pleasence), an otherworldly pregnant woman who gives birth in their house and then promptly disappears. This new addition to family - the baby cuckoo as it were, blond Bonnie (Wilhelmina Green) - systematically strives to kill the Marlowe's four children, while maintaining a hold over the mother. During her decimation, Bonnie also causes Kate's miscarriage, and gives Alan mumps which renders him sterile.

Stoddard and Hayman make for abysmal partners and parents, not breaking an emotional sweat until the death of their third child (amazingly, Hayman won the best actress award at the Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival). Although third-billed, Pleasence is effortlessly effective and genuinely eerie in what is essentially a cameo - her character spells out the cuckoo connection by stating that she "always goes south" in winter - and its always amusing to see EASTENDERS and XTRO veteran Anna Wing in an even more fleeting role. Bloodless and gutless, THE GODSEND loses sight of any suspense through its predictability, Green scowling at her inherited siblings and smirking at their off-screen demises.

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.

Paint It Black

OMNIBUS - SCHALCKEN THE PAINTER (1979)
ITV PLAYHOUSE - CASTING THE RUNES (1979)

Dou (Maurice Denham), once a student of Rembrandt, sells his niece to a Sepulchral for a casket of gold in SCHALCKEN THE PAINTER.

THE first incarnation of the BBC's A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS strand ended with pretentious episode THE ICE HOUSE in 1978. The two programmes here attempt to carry on the tradition, the first often confused as an official entry, and the second directed by the series' talisman on ITV. Actually screened as part of OMNIBUS, Leslie Megahey's SCHALCKEN THE PAINTER is a fictional exploration of real life seventeenth-century Dutch artist Godfried Schalcken. Adapted from Sheridan Le Fanu, Schalcken (Jeremy Clyde) is a student of Gerrit Dou (Maurice Denham) and admirer of Dou's niece Rose (Cheryl Kennedy); Schalcken is as lifeless as the canvas he devotes himself to, and loses Rose's hand to deathly stranger Vanderhausen (John Justin).

If the story has a message at all, it is that females can become detached objects and property; when Rou's niece is bound to the cadaverous Vanderhausen, it serves as a metaphor on the cruelty of woman as breeding stock. The slow narrative and detached composition has flatteringly been likened to Kubrick, but the programme stands more as a companion piece to another OMNIBUS adaptation, Jonathan Miller's WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU. Whereas Miller takes M.R. James and reflects supernatural image as mental breakdown, Megahey sees Le Fanu's tale as an artist's shattering loss of hope.

CASTING THE RUNES was released on Network DVD in 2007. This disc also included ITV Schools' rare adaptation of Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance, and the documentary A PLEASANT TERROR: THE LIFE AND GHOSTS OF M.R. JAMES.

In M. R. James' Casting the Runes - first published in 1911's More Ghost Stories - Edward Dunning is a researcher for the British Museum, who has recently appraised The Truth of Alchemy by occultist Mr Karswell. He begins seeing the name John Harrington wherever he goes, and learns that this individual had also reviewed Karswell's work, but died in a freak accident. Following the celebrated 1957 film version NIGHT OF THE DEMON directed by Jacques Tourneur, the story was adapted twice on British independent television: in 1968 as a third season MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION, and again as an eleventh season PLAYHOUSE.

Directed by A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS regular Lawrence Gordon Clark, CASTING THE RUNES was another attempt at a contemporary updating. Shot on videotape and 16mm film, the central protagonist is a woman, Prudence Dunning (Jan Francis), the producer of an investigative television programme that is critical of the practises of Karswell (Iain Cuthbertson). With a limited running time, this take suffers from scenes which have previously been so effective in other adaptations - there is no séances, and no Halloween garden party - and what remains creates an imposing but underdeveloped demonologist; Karswell is reduced to building a model dolls house and putting a live spider in one of the beds to satisfy this particular brand of curse.

Don't Look Back in Anger

Kenneth Anger's chaotic relationship with British rock gods

A follower of Aleister Crowley's Thelema religion, Kenneth Anger's filmic influence can be seen in the emergence of the music video, and the work of David Lynch and John Waters.

SANTA-MONICA born Kenneth Anger is equal parts Aleister Crowley disciple, avant-garde filmmaker, and gay Hollywood gossipmonger. Fixated with fading silver screen stars and homosexual male icons, his scandalous tome Hollywood Babylon lifts the lid on an endless array of tinsel town drug abuse and depravity, stories of deviance and death that would befit The Great Beast himself. Anger considered Rolling Stones guitarists Keith Richards and Brian Jones - and Anita Pallenberg, who had been a lover to both musicians - to be at the centre of his provocative path. Perhaps the Stones themselves saw Anger as a possible conduit for the rebellious tone of the late 1960's, yet looking at the cover of their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request, it isn't absolutely clear how serious the group were taking the magus (the band wear sorcerer garb that would only suit a pantomime).

Anger's infamous film LUCIFER RISING is a mesmeric ritual charting the shift of Christianity (Aeon of Osiris) towards a demonic land (Aeon of Horus). Anger considers movies as spell-casters, "a transparent excuse for capturing people," but this subscribes to Crowley's religious cycles, looking at a post-anointed faith. Mick Jagger was intrigued by Anger, and how occultism had the potential to inspire counterculture. The filmmaker tried to convince The Stones talisman to take the role of Lucifer, but Jagger baulked and offered his brother Chris instead. The more famous Jagger composed a gratingly discordant moog score, which would be used in INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER, a short that salvages initial LUCIFER RISING footage and splices scenes from The Stones Hyde Park concert for what is essentially a film about a funeral for a cat. Donald Cammell was also cast as Osiris in LUCIFER RISING, together with Marianne Faithfull as Lilith and Jimmy Page in a cameo as "Man holding the Stella of Revelation." On set, Anger repeatedly argued with Chris Jagger, resulting in the latter being fired, and Faithful fell off a mountain, luckily sustaining only mild concussion.

Mick Jagger's score for INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER was created from a newly acquired Moog synth and it shows; it has the much the same effect as turning on the instrument and leaving it running.

The soundtrack to LUCIFER RISING is another contentious affair. Anger met Page at a London auction where they were both bidding for Crowley memorabilia. Anger convinced Page to compose the soundtrack for his film, with the rock star giving Anger permission to move into the basement of his London mansion to use his editing suite. In October 1976 Anger got into an argument with Page's then wife Charlotte, who threw him out for allegedly giving guided tours to strangers. The magus consequently labelled Page as a washed out musician unable to meet deadlines, and removed him from the project. In fact the Led Zeppelin guitarist had the soundtrack in place before he ever saw any footage; Page had extended an existing piece that he thought would fit the film, centred around a "majestic drone" on a bass tanpura acquired from India. He then used chants and assorted instrumentation to create a twenty-minute track that takes up one side of the 2012 release Lucifer Rising and Other Soundtracks.

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.'

Their Satanic Majesties Request

THE HELLFIRE CLUB (1961)

TERROR (1978)

French A style poster for New World's THE HELLFIRE CLUB, more pulp adventure than demonic horror.

THE real-life Hellfire Club was famed for its debauchery and devil worship, the name given to several establishments in Britain and Ireland as meeting places for "persons of quality," who wished to take part in immoral acts. Founded in 1719 London, The Club motto Fais ce que tu voudras (Do what thou wilt) was a philosophy associated with François Rabelais' fictional abbey at Thélème, and later adopted by Aleister Crowley. Set in 18th century England, THE HELLFIRE CLUB tells of circus acrobat Jason (Keith Michell), in his attempt to reclaim the estate of his estranged father Lord Netherton (Andrew Faulds), leader of The Hellfire Club. Years earlier, Jason as a boy (Martin Stephens) is whipped by his father after walking in on an orgy, and together with his mother (Jean Lodge) flees with Timothy (David Lodge). Jason discovers that his cousin Thomas (Peter Arne) has stolen his inheritance, and together with lawyer Merryweather (Peter Cushing), plans to bring an end to the deceit and break the grip of The Club on King George II’s rule. 

Although billed as a guest star, Cushing's fussy but erudite character is pivotal to the fate of English society (the actor later adapted Merryweather's demeanor for his takes on Doctor Who and Abner Perry). Because of Cushing's presence and its lush staging, the film is often mistaken for a Hammer release; but there is no bite to the picture, limiting itself to a handful of orgies where most of the participants remain fully clothed. Directed by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman from a script by Leon Griffiths and Jimmy Sangster, it is more swashbuckling melodrama, using The Club as a pinning to hang its elaborate fight scenes and love interests (redheads Adrienne Corri and Kai Fischer). Like most cinematic heroes brandishing a sword, Jason is not only morally perfect but also irresistible to women, and Michell gives a likable performance as he gathers his circus comrades to do battle with the hierarchy.

With a running time of only 80 minutes, TERROR is a whirlwind of gore, semi-nudity and in-jokes. Amazingly, the film topped the UK box office charts for a week in early 1979.

TERROR takes a more traditional approach to the devil. Reuniting director Norman J. Warren with scriptwriter David McGillivray after SATAN'S SLAVE, TERROR is not so much an unashamed rip-off of Dario Argento's operatic gore noir SUSPIRIA but a star-struck reaction to it. The movie starts with a witch hunt and a beheading, subsequently revealed to be a "film within a film" being watched in the same house where hundreds of years before the events being portrayed on screen took place. The witch exacts her revenge on the ancestors of her persecutors, one of whom is the production's director, James Garrick (John Nolan). After a makeshift hypnosis goes awry, the curse takes on a more direct approach, including death by lighting equipment, murderous film cans (in reality nine faulty prints of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER specially supplied by Rank Laboratories) which leads to a very Argentoesque window-pane decapitation, and aspiring actress Carol (Glynis Barber) is impaled to a tree trunk.

The performances are generally competent, but James and Ann Garrick (Carolyn Courage) both have too little screen time to develop the family curse scenario. Instead, the focus is on Les Young's coloured filters to provide TERROR with a suitably garish tableau and enhance the hallucinatory disregard for logic. The opening "film within a film" acts both as a Hammer Gothic pastiche and a expostulation of it, but this is not the only nod to a cinematic heritage; the viewer is also treated to a fictitious softcore film called BATHTIME WITH BRENDA, scenes heavily indebted to experiences not necessarily enjoyed by Warren and McGillivray in their careers. Other points of interest are a nightclub act you won't forget in a hurry, and a red herring sequence culminating in a Peter Mayhew cameo.

"I Was Having a Problem Drawing the Alligator"

The From Hell Companion (2013)

Queen Victoria's physician Sir William Gull is revealed as Jack the Ripper as early as the second chapter of From Hell. Gull experiences increasing visions during his ritualistic murders, glimpsing future shock moments such as television and mobile phones.

THE sprawling, post-modern From Hell remains a work Alan Moore is proud of. The book's fourth chapter holds a special significance for the writer, as a line of dialogue - "the one place in which Gods and demons inarguably exist is in the human mind where they are real in all their grandeur and monstrosity" - sparked his interest in becoming a magician, fueled by drugs and imaginative concentration. Moore has never been a fan of tags, stating in a Mustard #4 Vol II (March 2009) interview "my experience of life is that it is not divided up into genre; it's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science fiction cowboy detective novel ... with a bit of pornography if you're lucky." Subsequently, From Hell is more than a graphic novel of the Whitechapel murders, rather a meditation on the mechanics of five socially-charged murders that expertly adhere to Moore's quest that his work acts "like a drug ... if you put the words in the right order with the pictures, you can create a psychedelic state." 

This Knockabout softcover is a selection of Moore’s original scripts and sketches for his alluringly brutal masterpiece, with annotations and commentary from the books' artist Eddie Campbell. Campbell provides a fascinating series of narrative-order anecdotes and confessions that only he can, having shared an exhausting decade-long journey that survived three publishing bankruptcies and spawned a vacuous film adaptation. Moore’s voluminous, capital-bashing scripts are overpowering in detail - for example, in a chapter three market scene, a single 3" x 2" panel could never start to depict an envisioned sexual relationship between two street urchins - and Campbell includes a word count for each of the entries like a badge of honour, the highest of which surpasses 2000. It is therefore refreshing that even though the reader is awash in the dankness of Victorian London, Campbell - despite an over reliance on references from Wikipedia - speaks comfortably and clearly about the problems with confronting such an onslaught and its transition to the comic page.

"Our story's written, Netley, inked in blood long dry ... engraved in stone." A new Eddie Campbell watercolour graces the cover of The From Hell Companion; in Campbell's epilogue, one closes the book sharing the illustrator's sentiment "all the people that I worried I could never quite bring to life now sadden me with their last glimpse."

What is evident when reading through this companion is that when the artist did diverge from the writers intentions, Campbell chose a similar clarity. Yet one wonders if the passionate descriptions are best suited to the comic book page; the completed From Hell could only ever have been a dilution of Moore's meticulous actions, foundations creating mood and tone that would possibly only stand justice in a series of hefty novels. The FROM HELL movie is just that, diluting the book's convoluted narrative in a way only a Hollywood blockbuster can. Moore has never championed the silver screen, insisting that the medium is inherently technical thus financial, creating a tendency to drive and immerse the viewer on a set path thus limiting personal interaction and development. Books and comics therefore are the arts of choice for the Northampton magus, where the reader isn't spoon-fed.

In the foreword, Craig Fischer and Charles Hatfield highlight the need for a companion book, to explain a project that is densely threefold: firstly, the connections between freemasonry, occultism and architecture; secondly, how these heady subjects are insight-fully woven into a story; and thirdly, how a personal friendship and artistic collaboration survives under such prolonged duress. Moore has always been more vocal and robust in his theories than his esteemed artist, but Campbell is equally fascinating as both an individual and illustrator; the Australia-located Scot surmises that the human condition cannot except a random universe, inventing its Gods and conspiracies to explain at least some order. Perhaps it is better to believe that evil is in control, rather than there being no control.

Loudun Calling (Part II of II)

THE DEVILS (1971) DVD release
AMELIA AND THE ANGEL (1958)

The BFI's DVD of Ken Russell's THE DEVILS is a strong contender for home video release of the year. The fact that the film remains controversial today is a remarkable tribute to the conviction of Russell and his creative acolytes.

AS the British Board of Film Classification celebrates its 100th year, it is fitting that the subject of one of its most volatile battles - Ken Russell's fearsome masterpiece THE DEVILS - was released as a 2-disc BFI DVD on the 19th of March. In this set, the BFI give us the original British X cut, and not the restored and extended 2004 version that has been seen at a handful of film festivals. The second disc of extras include Paul Joyce's 2002 documentary HELL ON EARTH, DIRECTOR OF THE DEVILS - featuring candid Russell interviews and unique footage of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies recording his score - and an audio commentary with Russell, critic Mark Kermode, editor Mike Bradsell and Joyce. For those wondering how this DVD includes HELL ON EARTH - which contained the missing "Rape of Christ" footage from the film, yet not include it in the feature itself – the part of the documentary containing the notorious sequence has also been excised by the powers that be at Warner Brothers.

The "Rape of Christ" - running just over two minutes - was long presumed lost until Kermode discovered the fabled footage in a single canister of film in England. This Holy Grail of censored material also contained other cuts, including Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave) performing lewd acts with a charred bone from Father Grandier (Oliver Reed)'s remains. The "Rape of Christ" segment itself sees Sister Catherine (Catherine Willmer) tearing and burning pages from the Bible while Sister Agnes (Judith Paris) frantically strokes a giant candle between her thighs. Naked nuns then abuse Christ as Father Mignon (Murray Melvin) scales a ladder and pleasures himself overlooking the orgy (here cinematographer David Watkin essentially creates a jerk-off zoom, as the camera darts in and out of the carnal activity to the rhythm of Mignon's strokes). This is all shown with repeated cuts of Grandier giving a solitary Communion, unaware of the pandemonium taking place within the walls of Loudun.

Mercedes Quadros - nine-year-old daughter of the Uruguayan ambassador to London - plays Amelia in Russell's AMELIA AND THE ANGEL.

The story of THE DEVILS is one that tells of battles not just with the censor, but also with the studio. Any film with a toxic mix of religion and politics would be a target, especially when originating from an increasingly conservative American financier (for the United States, it is rumoured that Warners ordered Bradsell to remove every nipple and pubic hair). After Russell showed his cut to the BBFC, the board couldn't release the film intact on grounds that "it would have been subject to the Obscene Publications Act," even though they aired no reservations with the shooting script. As stated in Joyce's absorbing - though re-edited - companion piece, not including the "Rape of Christ" rips the spine from THE DEVILS, as this scene is integral to the narrative both dramatically and philosophically: the debauchery shows the exploitative level of which the authorities aimed to achieve, reducing the easily manipulative nuns - women with no vocation or personal development - to play their game.

The DVD also includes Russell's redemptive 1958 short AMELIA AND THE ANGEL. This 16mm piece sees Amelia (Mercedes Quadros) scouring the streets of London looking for a replacement pair of angel wings for her school play, after she steals the initial set which are subsequently damaged beyond repair. Quadros, with her long dark hair and probing eyes, gives a performance which carries the simple narrative, and its many artistic flourishes skillfully shadow its minuscule budget and library music. On the outside, hand-held camera mimics a child's eye view of the crowded locality; here, Russell is clearly influenced by Albert Lamorisse's celebrated 1956 short THE RED BALLOON, about a little boy who triumphs over adversity in Paris's mean streets. Internally, the opening choreography of the angel ballet beautifully draws on Russell's own training as a dancer, the butterfly wallpaper in Amelia's room openly mocks her loss, and the ascent of a robed, bearded artist into the heavens on a ladder has a much more wholesome conclusion than Mignon's "Rape of Christ" activity. 

Loudun Calling (Part I of II)

THE DEVILS (1971)

Vanessa Redgrave cackles and leers as hunchbacked Sister Jeanne of the Angels. Her demonic voice, implements of masturbation and even a spider-walk were all seen two years before THE EXORCIST.

SYNONYMOUS with the word maverick, Ken Russell has been referred to as "the Wild Man of the BBC," "the infant terrible of British cinema," and a "fish and chips Fellini." Drawing from a wealth of historic and literary references, Russell made some of the most bombastic yet beautifully photographed films in motion picture history. His informed sensationalism not only horrifies but inspires, producing a body of work that is as much smothered in an impish yet intellectual sense of humour as it is in the director's passions and neuroses. After early work as a stills photographer, Russell made a number of ground-breaking programmes for the BBC's MONITOR and OMNIBUS strands, broadcasts which set the scene for television to be considered a serious art form; and in the 1970s and 80s, he practically invented the pop video and provided a template for MTV. Critics have consistently labelled Russell's work as pretentious and frequently vulgar, yet there is always a creative energy which jolts the viewer into his peculiar phallic-worshiping world of gods and demons.

Originally written for United Artists until "somebody actually read the script," THE DEVILS was picked up by Warners, and Russell's screenplay is based on a play by John Whiting - staged in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961 - and Aldous Huxley's 1952 book The Devils of Loudun. THE DEVILS - described by Joseph Lanza in Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films as "postwar British cinema's greatest marvel and nightmare" - tells the shocking true story of political and religious persecution in 17th century plague-infested France. King Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) and Cardinal Richlieu (Christopher Logue) conspire to create a new France where Church and State act as one, and troops are sent to destroy the fortification of Loudun, which is vital to Richlieu's plan to demonise the Protestant faith and ensure that Catholicism is embraced throughout the territories. Father Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), the charismatic Jesuit priest of St Peter's Church, successfully rallies the citizens and halts the destruction.

Oliver Reed shines as Father Urbain Grandier. An otherwise unrelated Reed UK film - 1973's trippy class war oddity BLUE BLOOD - was bizarrely released in Italy as THE DEVILS, PART II.

What sounds like a dour historical drama unfolds into a frenzied pageant of gender-bending libertines, debauched exorcists, enthusiastically administered enemas and sado-masochist nuns. Grandier settles down with the virginal Madeleine de Brou (Gemma Jones), whom he marries in an unorthodox ceremony conducted by himself. Unknown to the priest, Sister Jeanne of the Angels (Vanessa Redgrave) - the hunchbacked Mother Superior of Loudun's Ursuline convent - is sexually obsessed with him and prays to Jesus to "take away my hump." After Grandier rejects an invitation to counsel her order and news reaches Jeanne of his marriage, the sister concocts jealous lies about Grandier visiting her in the form of an incubus. With the aid of sadistic medics Ibert (Max Adrian) and Adam (Brian Murphy), the chief exorcist of the Catholic Church Father Barre (Michael Gothard) tortures Jeanne into confessing herself possessed, and Grandier is arrested for diabolism and burned at the stake. Blistering and boiling, Grandier perishes, as Loudun is felled by explosives.

Though performances are uniformly excellent, this is Reed's finest hour, a stoic portrayal that provides the film with a linear path between the outrages and extremities. An anti-intellectual and dyslexic, Reed relied on Russell's simplistic method of direction, instructing the actor to give a take "Moody 1, Moody 2 or Moody 3." Reed always acknowledged limitations in his inimitable style - telling the director to "piss off" when asked to recite sixteenth-century Latin - and even though he despised the stage, Reed delivers speeches of great gravitas here, but such power is even diluted in one scene by cutting away to the theatrics of the King taking shots at Protestants dressed as blackbirds. Its a contrast you can either hate or love; hate because it deflects from the rhythm of Grandier, love because it shows a contrast of convictions at the centre of the film. Whatever your conclusions, it means you are undoubtedly watching a Ken Russell film.

Sister Jeanne licks the wounds of Grandier 
envisioned as Christ in one of her feverish fantasies.

THE DEVILS acts as a perfect storm of Russell at the height of his creativity, the beautifully lit cinematography of David Watkin, sublime set design by Derek Jarman, and a discordantly effective score by Peter Maxwell Davies. Similar to the outrage that encompassed MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN, THE DEVILS was roundly condemned as being anti-Church, but both works show the genuine mistrust in organisations which have the power to corrupt and distort. As with much of Russell, controversy has clouded the true value of his work: the male wrestling sequence between Alan Bates and Reed in WOMEN IN LOVE generated a tabloid campaign of outrage while its literary origins helped it past the censors, yet THE DEVILS was a target for lasting interference from its inception. During the shoot at Pinewood, stories circulated about the extras - overstimulated by naked nuns and a general environment of permissiveness - who manhandled the actresses and committed at least one confirmed sexual assault. When THE DEVILS was released as an X certificate - deleting the infamous "Rape of Christ" sequence - it was still banned outright by seventeen local councils, and BBFC chief examiner John Trevelyan resigned from his post the following month.

Unsurprisingly, THE DEVILS caused religious uproar. The Festival of Light picketed cinemas, in Rome polizia confiscated prints, and the Catholic Film Office branded the film "C for Condemned," "for turning serious historical fact into a drug-induced cinematic experience" and its "objectionable use of religious symbols reduced to flippant pop iconography." THE DEVILS also produced a scolding critical barrage: Newsweek's Paul D. Zimmerman concluded that the work demonstrated how Russell "has gone beyond extravagance to insanity"; The Iconoclast said it had "all the taste and restraint of a three-day gang bang"; and The Evening Standard's Alexander Walker provided a more personal attack by claiming its vistas "look like the masturbatory fantasies of a Catholic boyhood." Russell later hit Walker over the head with a rolled-up copy of the offending review on a late-night BBC news programme, before storming out of the studio.

Genius, madman, or both? Exploring Catholicism, sexual excess and kitsch, Ken Russell described himself as the saviour of the British film industry.

Over the centuries, scholars have been divided in their attempts to explain exactly why a convent came to believe that they had been overwhelmed by sorcery. One theory has the nuns driven to their fervour by accidentally ingesting ergot - a fungus which contains an LSD-like chemical on rye bread which has been allowed to dampen and warm. Ergot has also been liberally mentioned as a driving force for the Salem witch trials, and inspiration behind the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. But the most widely accepted notion is that the nuns were manipulated by politicians and priests within a hysteria which endures under long-term stress in captive environments. Over forty years later, THE DEVILS, in itself, exists with an aura of social epidemic; it is the film maker's one and only political statement, and a timeless one. "This is not the age of manners" Russell told Time Magazine in 1971, "this is the age of kicking people in the crotch and telling them something and getting a reaction. I want to shock people into awareness. I don't believe there's any virtue in understatement."

Birth of Amicus

THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960)

In an astonishing final sequence, Tom Naylor uproots a graveyard cross and stumbles toward an intended sacrifice; as the shadow of the cross falls upon cowled satanic acolytes, they combust.

IN 1692 the small village of Whitewood, Massachusetts, sees the burning of Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel) and consort Jethro Keene (Valentine Dyall) for witchcraft. Jumping to the modern day, Professor Driscoll (Christopher Lee) recommends his hometown of Whitewood as an ideal place for student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) to research her paper on the black arts. Staying at the Ravens Inn Hotel - which is managed by Mrs Newless (also played by Jessel) at the exact spot where the burnings took place - Nan discovers that all the other guests only appear as darkness falls, hears chanting beneath the floorboards of her room, and is abducted into the catacombs. Nan’s brother Richard (Dennis Lotis) and her boyfriend Bill (Tom Naylor) investigate her disappearance; while Bill suffers a car accident and remains on the sidelines, Richard meets Patricia (Betta St. John), the daughter of the aging local Reverend (Norman Macowan), and discovers that Selwyn still presides over a coven in the locale.

Working alongside British company Vulcan, Americans Milton Subotsky (who co-produces and provides the treatment) and partner Max J. Rosenberg would later found Amicus, and many horror historians look upon THE CITY OF THE DEAD as the first unofficial Amicus release. If only that studio continued with such quality; amusingly Driscoll states early on "the basis of fairy tales is reality, basis of reality is fairy tales," which acts as a much more apt mandate for Subotsky's later films of the fantastic. At a time when Hammer had established the colour period horror film, THE CITY OF THE DEAD is a present era monochrome gem, drawing from the stage bound atmospherics of Val Lewton. Consequently, the film exists in a TWILIGHT ZONE-like alternative universe, directed with finesse by John Moxey, who is greatly assisted by the atmospheric photography of Desmond Dickinson. On the down side the picture suffers from laden performances and Ken Jones' jarringly inappropriate partial jazz score.

Released in America as HORROR HOTEL with the tag "just ring for Doom Service!," this seemingly acknowledged the film's narrative similarities to PSYCHO. A hit in Britain, the black and white film suffered in the US, with the distributor cutting the picture and inserting 3-D footage from Julian Roffman's THE MASK.

The major bone of contention with THE CITY OF THE DEAD is the connection to PSYCHO. Like Alfred Hitchcock's chiller, a young woman travels to a hotel, only be be killed in the middle of the feature. Another similarity are friends embarking to find her as heroine 2 narrowly escapes with her life; even the final shot of Mrs Newless' flame-ravaged corpse echoes the mummified Mrs Bates in her rocking chair. In his book English Gothic, Jonathan Rigby surprisingly fights Subotsky's corner by listing production start dates - THE CITY OF THE DEAD began on 12th October 1959 compared to PSYCHO's on 30th November - but, as Philip Nutman explains in Little Shoppe of Horrors #20, Robert Bloch's source novel was actually first published in 1959, with Hitchcock's film following the structure of the book. Amicus would later have a fruitful relationship with Bloch - and this certainly indicates that Subotsky would have been aware of the narrative - but the situation is clouded further by screenwriter George Baxt claiming it was his idea to prematurely kill Nan.

THE CITY OF THE DEAD was described by Lee as "an American Gothic with a Lovecraftian flavour," with Whitewood replacing that writers Dunwich as a cursed township. Indeed, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft have seldom been successfully transferred to the screen, struggling to find the right mix between hinted horrors and the money shot for expectant audiences. It is ironic that the most memorable slices of Lovecraftian cinema haven't been adaptations at all, rather films that have attempted to portray the author's trademark otherworldly ambiance. Yet while Whitewood may lack the true depth of the Cthulhu mythos, figures loom in and out of dense fog like chess pieces in a game of much greater scale. 

Pit of History

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967)



One of the best Hammer productions, QUATERMASS AND THE PIT is science fiction as audacious as 2001, with considerable less pretension. Here the film is being shown in a double-bill with CIRCUS OF FEAR.

SCIENCE fiction is a genre of ideas, apprehensive about the universe and our role within it; H.G.Wells was obsessed with human insignificance, and George Orwell our capacity for authoritarian evil. Away from the US style bug-eyed monsters and space cadets, British SF is sullied by a dark ocean of history and class struggle, yet today we live in a world of perpetual surveillance, apocalyptic pathogens and computer hyperconnectivity which has not only blurred fact and fiction, but eroded boundaries of national identity and personal space (in Fredric Brown’s one-page story Answer, when a new supercomputer is asked if there is a God, it replies "Yes, now there is a God.") London, in particular, has suffered at the hands of SF, with differing intellectual richness; DOCTOR WHO featured numerous "creature of the week" alien invasions, and on a more dystopian level totalitarian regimes have been evident in Nineteen Eighty-Four, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and BRAZIL. More bombastically, LIFEFORCE found the capital overrun by space vampires, and in REIGN OF FIRE a hibernating dragon is awakened by construction work on the London underground.

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT is the greatest "London under supernatural siege" picture, and a seminal ideas film. Based on Nigel Kneale's BBC series, Hammer's version  - directed by Roy Ward Baker from Kneale's screenplay - begins with the discovery of ape men skeletons during work at Hobbs End underground station. When a strange metal container is found, it is thought to be a German V2, but this is quashed when Professor Quatermass (Andrew Keir) finds insect creatures inside. He believes that these beings came from Mars five million years ago, and helped humanity to gain racial consciousness. The Martian psychokinetic energy lies dormant in mankind and the horned insect figures are remembered in human memory as The Devil. Working with Dr Matthew Roney (James Donald) and his assistant Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley), Quatermass uncovers Hobbs End as a hotspot for the paranormal and now - with the full uncovering of the spaceship - the dormant powers become active.

Penguin's 1960 QUATERMASS AND THE PIT novel was published with a cover illustration by the author's brother, Bryan Kneale.

Kneale has always been abrasive of the stealing of his ideas, particularly by DOCTOR WHO. But here the writer borrows from Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End - a novel about a race of aliens who resemble the classic image of The Devil - and also Clarke's The Sentinel, a short story which was expanded and modified into Kubrick's 2001. Although the releases are poles apart in budget, both films share a great deal thematically: the impact of alien intelligence upon human evolution and the consequences of that intervention being discovered. But while 2001's alien intelligence is arguably one of teacher and observer, Kneale suggests that Martian genetics are actively malevolent, transferring the Martians own instinct to kill the other into the ape men who they experimented upon. Consequently, the human urge to hate, despise and destroy is explained through the fact that, as is explicitly stated, “we ARE the Martians!”

Kneale's concept of induced human violence is linked with the equally sensational notion that rationalises our conception of haunting and The Devil, explaining apparitions ("ghosts... [are] phenomena that were badly observed and wrongly explained") and demonology in one handy revelation. Consequently, QUATERMASS AND THE PIT portrays our layered heritage of old, weird Britain with historical and supernatural clout unlike any other. The film is lensed by Arthur Grant in his trademark muted style, providing a perfect feel for a film so obsessed with bones and ancient mythology. The scenario of unearthing a long-buried evil is addressed with equal zeal in BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW, where a skull is uncovered by a farmer's plough; this artifact turns the young people of a 17th-century village into a cult with a penchant for erotic blood sacrifices. Shooting with an abundance of low camera angles, this amplifies the feeling of being watched by some ancient other.

Hampden House of Horror

HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR (1980)

The House That Bled To Death is a double-twist shocker featuring a priceless scene where a pipe spurts blood over children at a party. A family move into the dilapidated abode where a man had carved up his wife with an ornamental machete, though the new owners have an Amityville-like agenda of their own.

TELEVISION always served Hammer films well. After all, if it wasn't for the success of their adaptation THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT, it is likely that their vivid re-imaginings of Frankenstein and Dracula would have never been made. By the 1970s, Hammer's usual output of costumed gothique was in its death throes, slices of entertainment that seemed frozen in time. However, the studio's big screen spin-off of ON THE BUSES was a box-office phenomenon, leading the studio on a comedic vein which included LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR and MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE. Hammer's attempts to make TV projects of their own resulted in four separate ventures; the series under consideration here was followed by HAMMER HOUSE OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE, but earlier projects were TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN - an abortive pilot starring Anton Diffring - and seventeen episodes of JOURNEY TO THE UNKNOWN.

British horror had largely become past tense from the mid-70s; Tigon's last official release was the sex film COME PLAY WITH ME, and Amicus ceased production after THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT in 1979, the same year in which Hammer called in the receivers. But two former board members, Brian Lawrence and Roy Skeggs, assumed control and immediately began looking at ways to revitalise the company. Lawrence and Skeggs needed a new base of operations and leased Hampden House in Buckinghamshire - close to Hammer's spiritual home of Bray - to develop a new series for television. A former private house and exclusive Girl's School, the majestic property and surrounding areas are used ad infinitum, and most of the production, including the editing, was overseen there. Assembling their crew, the two men unsurprisingly drafted in a number of former Hammer employees, including directors Peter Sasdy, Alan Gibson and Don Sharp, visual effects man Ian Scoones, and James Bernard scored two stories.

Diana Dors and her brood in Children of the Full Moon, a long way from Oliver Reed and THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF.

Funded by ITC and screened between 13th September and 6th December 1980, the 13 episodes of the HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR were refreshingly bleak, mixing contemporary horror and titillation in the manner of Norman J. Warren (with Frankenstein and Dracula nowhere in sight). Hampered by meagre budgets, pedestrian scripts and flat direction, the fifty-minute stories are surprisingly watchable, thanks to their variety of topics - devil worship, time-travelling witches, cannibalism and Nazi pet shop owners - and stars such as Hammer favourites Peter Cushing, John Carson and Robert Urquhart, together with Brian Cox, Jon Finch and Warren Clarke et al (a young Pierce Brosnan appears as a randy jogger victim, a character so incidental that he's even denied an onscreen death).

HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR falls into that notion lovingly referred to as guilty pleasures. Even the worst entry, Carpathian Eagle, stars Suzanne Danielle as a psychotic seductress/writer who rips out the heart of her victims with a dagger. The best two episodes hold up as memorable slabs of TV horror: The Two Faces of Evil is a dazzling doppelganger yarn with a genuinely jolting prologue, and the delirious The Mask of Satan sees a morgue worker believing he has a disease engineered to bring Satan to Earth. The rest of the output fall somewhere in between; at least Rude Awakening attempts something different in its total abandonment of logic, with adulterous estate agent Denholm Elliott persistently accused of murdering his wife; and VAMPIRE CIRCUS helmer Robert Young brings some stylish flourishes to the voodoo-themed Charlie Boy.