"Where Science and the Occult Clash!"

NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT (1973)

Here is a film starring Christopher Lee and featuring a Police investigation on a Scottish island that isn't THE WICKER MAN. The climax - where Lee is tied around the neck and arms and propelled into a bonfire by minors - mirrors Edward Woodward's demise in Robin Hardy's cult favourite, which was actually released nine months later.

AGAINST the backdrop of several Trustee murders who support an orphanage on a Scottish island, one young girl, Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong), is taken to a London hospital after a coach crash and suffers psychological issues. Psychiatrist Dr Haynes (Keith Barron) and journalist Joan Foster (Georgia Brown) interview the girl's wayward biological mother Anna Harb (Diana Dors), a prostitute and convicted murderer. When Haynes is killed, the hospital's senior member Sir Mark Ashley (Peter Cushing) and friend Colonel Charles Bingham (Christopher Lee) take their enquiries to the orphanage, as Anna also travels to the location hoping to reunite with her child. Ashley and Bingham eventually uncover the sinister truth: personalities are being transplanted into the children.

Based on the novel by John Blackburn and directed by Peter Sasdy, NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT was the only film from independent Charlemagne, set up by Lee and former Hammer producer Anthony Nelson Keys. A commercial failure, the picture suffers from a laboured script by Brian Hayles - mostly known for his television work and creator of The Ice Warriors for DOCTOR WHO - and also wastes its outstanding cast, as no character is fully fleshed out. Cushing and Lee are almost playing themselves, and Dors is totally unhinged with her red wig. In fact the acting standout is thirteen year old Strong, and it was a shame no substantial big screen roles came her away, the actress becoming forever known as Cassandra from ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES.

Barely seen in America, NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT became THE RESURRECTION SYNDICATE, a title which unveils its premise. The picture was also released on video as THE DEVIL'S UNDEAD.

As a thematic exercise NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT is troublesome in its use of children, portraying orphans and castaways as scientific guinea pigs and exploitative commodities. Apart from Haynes, the leads are using the unfortunate youngsters for their own needs: Anna views Mary as property which has long been denied to her, Foster and Ashley see the minors as their particular professional interests, and Bingham engages in the mystery for his murdered friend but relishes the thrill of the chase. As an interesting side note, with Blackburn's novel published in 1968, a similar theme is explored in the 1971 United States offering THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN. Here, in an inversion of the thesis, a coven are kidnapping souls of children to transfer into their bodies.

School of Shadows

SCHOOL FOR SEX (1969)

HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS (1983)

SCHOOL FOR SEX unfairly lures the viewer into a cliched catastrophe; even its director/producer/writer Pete Walker calls it "terrible."

MOST British sex comedies are unsexy and unfunny, but Pete Walker's SCHOOL FOR SEX - sold on its title alone - is also terminally boring. After the sudden death of his parents, bounder Giles Wingate (Derek Aylward) - on a suspended sentence for embezzlement - inherits a country estate. Yet his wealth is soon diminished by a series of gold-digging wives, leading him to take revenge: setting up a "school for sex" which trains young female offenders to fleece money from millionaires for a third of the profit. Wingate converts his house for the venture and employs ex-boxer Hector (Nosher Powell) and dipsomaniac Duchess of Burwash (Rose Alba) as staff; with a steady flow of girls from a corrupt probation service, anti vice campaigners finally lead Wingate back to court.

Similar to COME PLAY WITH ME, SCHOOL FOR SEX was a triumph of marketing, hiding the embarrassment underneath. One of Walker's biggest box office successes, the film was particularly popular in the United States and France, where punters - high on the sexual revolution - were duped with fake promises of underage sex even in the more risqué export version (in fact, American success is enshrined: during the opening of SHAFT, when Richard Roundtree strides down 42nd Street, he passes the Rialto Cinema advertising "first New York show, SCHOOL FOR SEX.") Yet, while Walker draws on the permissive age, the result is a regressive opposite; we are still in the realm of the stereotypical British farce, pigeon-holing carnal urges like a pre-war sex tussle.

In Pete Walker's only film as a "director for hire," Christopher Lee, John Carradine, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price occupy the HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS. 

Fourteen years later, Walker's final release HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS is also renowned for cranking up the boredom and living in the past. Publisher Sam Allyson (Richard Todd) makes a $20,000 bet with author Kenneth Magee (Desi Arnaz Jr) that he cannot write a novel in the classic tradition within 24 hours. Allyson arranges for Magee to write at the secluded and empty Baldpate mansion in Wales as not to be distracted. The writer is soon interrupted by Allyson's secretary Mary Norton (Julie Peasgood), holidaying couple Andrew and Diana Caulder (Richard Hunter and Louise English), and buyer Corrigan (Christopher Lee). The main source of disruption however are the Grisbanes, with father Elijah (John Carradine) and daughter Victoria (Sheila Keith, in a role originally intended for Elsa Lanchester) initially posing as caretakers. It transpires that the Grisbanes are the house owners - welcoming back sons Lionel (Vincent Price) and Sebastian (Peter Cushing) - for a final night of retribution on their murderous sibling Roderick.

Based on the 1913 novel Seven Keys to Baldpate by Earl Derr Biggers, which became the hit stage play by George M. Cohan, this often adapted story is given a Gothic makeover but wastes a stellar cast. Scripted by Michael Armstrong for Cannon, HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS is too much of a throwback for 1980s blockbuster cinema, and consequently was a box office failure. The Seven Keys to Baldpate foundation itself was old school, with its gangsters, stolen jewels and femme fatales, and morphing into a comedic chiller only changes the nature of the cliched failure. The production escalates into a number of absurd twist endings, but Price, Lee and Cushing play off each other delightfully, and are obviously relishing this opportunity of screen time together. In fact Lionel's dialogue "All of us, locked in the past forever ... now we too must crumble into dust" acts an obituary for the films that made them famous. Unfortunately there is little chemistry between Arnaz and Peasgood, though the actresses' theatrical delivery could be seen to make sense in hindsight.

Louise English as bickering Diana Caulder in HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS. The actress, singer and dancer is best remembered as a regular on THE BENNY HILL SHOW.

The photography of Norman Langley attempts to capture a Roger Corman/Poe vibe, but cannot shake the crusty ambience that sank that other "out of time" failure THE MONSTER CLUB. It is ironic that Walker should bow out with such blandness, after making his name with gratuitous sex and violence (English's acid demise is the only nastiness here). Another factor against the Walker grain is the moral of the climactic cop-outs; Magee - known for pulp novels - learns that he should be more empathetic to his craft and value characterisation over cash. However post-production tinkering over the more comedic elements, in order to promote the work as a horror film, did not create any winners.

Space Invaders

NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT (1967)
THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE (1967)

Sizzling Jane Merrow as secretary Angela Roberts in NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT. A seasoned stage, TV and film actress, her most famous role, as the mistress of King Henry in THE LION IN WINTER, earned a Golden Globe nomination.  

NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT completes a loose trilogy of science fiction films directed by Terence Fisher from the mid 1960s (following THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING and ISLAND OF TERROR). Based on the novel by John Lymington, this tepid alien invasion yarn from Planet was first adapted for a now lost ITV PLAY OF THE WEEK from 1960, the telescript actually forming the foundation for the movie version. On the Orkney island of Fara, author Jeff Callum (Patrick Allen) and wife Frankie (Sarah Lawson) run The Swan Inn; when Callum's new secretary arrives - Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow) - sexual tension rises in tandem with a heat wave, even though it is the middle of winter. The wanton Roberts has had an affair with Jeff, and with temperatures rising daily, Callum, mysterious scientist Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee) - who has converted his room at The Swan into a research centre - and Dr Stone (Peter Cushing) try to halt the spread of omelette-like creatures. 

Four years after debuting in Britain, NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT was theatrically released in the United States as ISLAND OF THE BURNING DAMNED on a double bill with GODZILLA'S REVENGE. The blobbish space visitors challenge the worst of American cinematic aliens, glowing motionless before being washed away by rain (they are certainly up there with the carpet monster from THE CREEPING TERROR). With refreshingly abrupt dialogue, it is more a domestic melodrama than a SF epic, the performances all raise the bar to an undeserved level (Lee at his arrogant best, and Cushing's dignified doctor - despite the searing temperatures - leaves his coat on in best English tradition). Unlike the visual flourishes in his Hammer Gothics, Fisher had little time for science fiction, generating only pockets of suspense in any of his otherworldly terrors.

Similar to his attitude of the horror genre, Milton Subotsky turned science fiction into childsplay for THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE.

Released the same month, THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE ("to enslave Earth!") is another SF B-movie helmed by a genre director (in this case Freddie Francis), for one of Amicus's worst productions. Written by Milton Subotsky from the book The Gods Hate Kansas by Joseph Millard, it uses many of the sets and props from DALEKS - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD. Described by Subotsky as "almost a Cold War parable," the film starts with blue meteorites landing in a field. They are investigated by the government department of Dr Curtis Temple (Robert Hutton), who has a metal plate in his head due to a motor accident. This renders him impervious to alien mind control and an unleashed space plague, as he attempts to infiltrate the visitor's compound. It transpires that the aliens are using humans as slave labour on the moon to repair their spaceship, an operation headed by The Master of the Moon (Michael Gough).

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE originated from a deal struck between Max Rosenberg and producer Joseph E. Levine; if Amicus could make two pictures for £200,000, Levine would finance and distribute them. Consequently, Montgomery Tully's THE TERRORNAUTS - another nadir in Amicus SF - was awarded £80,000, with the rest allocated here. Woefully mechanical, Subotsky would dismiss the problems by blaming distractions putting together the studio's next portmanteau, TORTURE GARDEN. Francis's film arguably shows the greatest British hallmarks in a science fantasy setting: not only do the aliens apply for a bank loan, it is ultimately all a great misunderstanding, and ends on a firm handshake. More interesting is the casting of Pakistani actor Zia Mohyeddin as Temple’s best friend Farge, who has to melt down his silver cricket trophies to manufacture the laughable anti-mind-control colander.

Daleks, Daloids and Phaleks (Part I of II)

DR WHO AND THE DALEKS (1965)

DALEKS - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD (1966)
DALEKMANIA (1995)

In December 1966, Dell Movie Classics published a comic strip adaptation of DR WHO AND THE DALEKS with art by Dick Giordano and Sal Trapani. This was the first appearance of any printed story related to Doctor Who in the American market. 

MADE during the rise and fall of Dalekmania, these two cinema adventures - starring Peter Cushing as a non-canon Doctor Who - are concise versions of THE DALEKS and THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH. Faithful to the BBC programmes, the lead character however is portrayed as a bespectacled Grandfather figure, a dotty human inventer rather than William Hartnell's crotchety alien. And although they are credited on-screen as AARU films because of finance from Regal International's Joe Vegoda, both films are widely accepted as Amicus releases.

Originally to be directed by Freddie Francis, DR WHO AND THE DALEKS was a financial rather than critical success. Hastily scripted by Milton Subotsky, who described the production as "a science fiction comedy," its greatest asset is its vivid 2.35:1 colour photography. This gives the previously monochrome Daleks a hierarchy of red, blue and gold, and real scope by making the most of Shepperton's expansive sound stages. DALEKS - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD is much more sombre, though both entries have a cast that dwells on relations (granddaughter Susan (Roberta Tovey) appears in the two movies, while her older sister Barbara (Jennie Linden) is in the first film, and Doctor Who's niece Louise (Jill Curzon) the second). This matinee-mentality is completed by comic relief: accident-prone Ian (Roy Castle) is Barbara's new boyfriend, and constable Tom Campbell (Bernard Cribbins) inadvertently joins the crew for the later tale.

Despite rescheduling due to Peter Cushing's virulent bout of flu, DALEKS - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD is the more rounded of the two films.

With Vegoda buoyant on the initial box office success, Subotsky was less excited about a sequel, correctly perceiving that Dalekmania was already waning. Darker and more violent in tone, DALEKS - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD had the adverse effect on its audience to the day-glo yarn set on Skaro. Despite improved critical reaction and its bigger budget (thanks in part to Sugar Puffs, where product placement can be seen throughout the feature), costs were not recouped and plans for a third picture shelved. A far superior piece, the gritty INVASION strips away the juvenile escapism to reveal characters in real peril, a world away from the Thals' golden hair and heavy eye shadow from the first movie.

Kevin Davies' hour-long DALEKMANIA documentary - which has accompanied home disc releases on numerous occasions - is a charming look at this motion picture birth and death. The framing device of a ticket taker - played by Davros himself, Michael Wisher - welcoming two excited children perfectly sets the scene for a series of interviews where the players recount fond memories of their time within the most neglected part of WHO history. Amongst the participants we have Thal Barrie Ingham - delighting that his portrayal has appeared in a comic strip - and stuntman Eddie Powell, recalling his on-set accident while being exterminated. Most touching though are Roberta Tovey's recollections of working with director Gordon Flemyng and particularly Cushing, where it is alleged the actor only agreed to make the second film if Tovey also returned.

Unnatural Born Killers

CORRUPTION (1968)
PREVENGE (2016)

For CORRUPTION, Peter Cushing's trademark commitment and professionalism is tested in this notoriously nasty offering.

SHORTLY before making the lowest point of his filmography - THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR - Peter Cushing made his most controversial. This Titan production, directed by Robert Hartford-Davis, sees "The Gentleman of Horror" cast as respected surgeon Sir John Rowan. When his aging model fiancée Lynn (Sue Lloyd) starts an impromptu photo session with Mike (Tony Booth) at a swinging Sixties party, the photographer and impeccably suited surgeon's clash of personality boils over into a fight, where an arc light falls onto Lynn's face in front of horrified onlookers. Developing "an entirely new way of controlling the endocrine system to promote tissue growth," the doctor's yearning for pituitary glands to restore Lynn's looks leads him to murder, under the increasing demands of his wife-to-be. While at a Seaford holiday retreat a group of beatniks invade, and Rowan's colleague Steve (Noel Trevarthan) and Lynn's sister Val (Kate O'Mara) piece together the string of outrages. 

Dubbed "gratuitously violent, fearfully sick, but it was a good script" by Cushing, the posters to CORRUPTION stated that "no woman will be admitted alone to see this super-shock film." Rowan's murder sequences are still jaw-dropping today, amplified by the use of hand-held close-ups. With hair flapping around his sweaty crazed glare, the actor's slaying of a topless prostitute - stabbing her repeatedly on the floor before smearing his bloodied hands on her breasts then removing her head - is not only British horror's most shocking sequence, it also points towards the Seventies sleaze to come. The delirium is added another two layers with the arrival of Georgie and his gang in Seaford - an out of left field final act which sees a massacre by an out-of-control surgical laser - and amid production bickering, the "is it a dream?" ending.

After GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE and SIGHTSEERS,

Alice Lowe continues her outlandish comedic career with PREVENGE.

Written, directed and starring Alice Lowe, PREVENGE defies description - in a good way. Too easily labelled a sardonic, jet black comedy, it is also a meditation on loss and the mental process of pregnancy. Shot in two weeks to accommodate Lowe's real-life condition, and enveloped by an outstanding Goblinesque score by Toydrum, textures increase with subsequent viewings to reveal - almost - an art film. Ruth (Lowe) is a pregnant woman who goes on a killing spree, seeking revenge on the people she claims accountable for her partner's death on a climbing trip; struggling with her conscience and prepartum psychosis, the unborn child speaks to Ruth from the womb, coaching her to kill ("If you don't do as I say blood will be shed, one way or another.")

Lowe's performance flicks between deadpan, psychotic, angst and turmoil (possibly in equal measures). The casting is strong with numerous fan-favourites: DAVID BRENT LIFE ON THE ROAD's Jo Hartley as the Midwife, GAME OF THRONES' Gemma Whelan as Len, and THE WITCH's Kate Dickie as a businesswoman who succumbs to a throat-slitting straight out of Argento. One sequence is spontaneously filmed in Cardiff on Halloween night, and it is this ethic which makes PREVENGE seem consistently fresh in style if not always in content. The murders are effective, but the visuals seem to unfold in some other brooding universe, and Lowe has mischievously likened the feel to BLADE RUNNER. Yet you can see her thinking; in Ridley Scott's milestone, Vangelis' jazz-influenced score underpinned the yearning of remembrance, driving the narrative similarly to Toydrum's often thunderous electronica.

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.

Ghoulish Murders at the Dark House

THE GHOUL (1933)
MURDER IN THE RED BARN (1935)
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (1936)
CRIMES AT THE DARK HOUSE (1940)

Boris Karloff carves a hieroglyph onto his chest in THE GHOUL. Assumed to be lost since screenings in 1938 - at least in a viewable print - a perfect negative of this Gaumont-British film surfaced in a forgotten vault at Shepperton in the early 1980s.

THE pictures here exist in two twilight zones of cinema, development arcs that bridge silents to talkies, then defuse staged melodrama to open up more erudite levels of performance. THE GHOUL sees Boris Karloff return home after achieving stardom with Universal - in a film influenced by those golden horrors - while the three Tod Slaughter releases play as last gasps to Victorian Gothic, a tradition of spectacle illustrated by the lurid Penny Dreadfuls and Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors. In THE GHOUL - very loosely adapted from Frank King's 1928 bestseller - Egyptologist Professor Morlant (Karloff) believes that his devotion to Anubis and possession of 'The Eternal Light' jewel will resurrect him and give him immortality. He forces his manservant Laing (Ernest Thesiger) to bind the jewel into his palm on his deathbed, but after being entombed in the family mausoleum with the stone stolen from his grasp, Morlant returns from the grave to stalk those he suspects betrayed him.

In front and behind the camera, THE GHOUL was given star treatment. Together with Karloff and Thesiger, the sterling thespian cast also includes Cedric Hardwicke as Morlant's attorney Broughton, and a young Ralph Richardson as snooping parson Hartley. Cinematographer Gunther Krampf creates a musty ambience, and Louis Levy provides a stirring score. But it is hardly the classic heralded by critics upon its R1 DVD restoration in 2003, as viewers will find their patience tried by T. Hayes Hunter's languid pacing, pregnant pauses and over-stated dialogue and dramatics, as the picture crawls to its non-supernatural, SCOOBY DOO climax. Karloff, who, to the film's detriment, disappears for a large portion of the prolonged 80m running time, obviously uses his role as Im-Ho-Tep from Karl Freund's THE MUMMY as the prototype here, with the distinctive make-up - devised by the specifically imported Henrich Heitfeld - swathed in thick wrinkles and scar tissue so prominent as to occlude one eye almost completely.

Tod Slaughter in his breakthrough picture, MURDER AT THE RED BARN. Although Karloff, Lionel Atwill, Charles Laughton and Claude Rains were successfully exported to Hollywood, Slaughter was Britain's first home-grown horror star.

Born Norman Carter Slaughter in March 1886 and adapting the name Tod in 1925, this English actor and stage proprietor became infamous for his melodramatic performances in macabre theatre and film adaptations. It is said he briefly retired from acting to become a chicken farmer at the start of the 1930s, but he was soon back touring with his trademark repertoires. Exploiting his toothy grin, throaty voice and amphibious façade, Slaughter was publicised as 'Mr Murder' in the 1931 New Theatre run of 'The Crimes of Burke and Hare,' and shortly after played urban legend Sweeney Todd for the first of over 2,000 performances. Consequently, the persona of an over-the-top lunatic gripped his character similar to the career not necessarily enjoyed by Bela Lugosi with Dracula. By the early 1950s the public's appetite for sensationalism had abated, and Slaughter went bankrupt. He continued to act in stage productions such as 'The Gay Invalid' opposite Peter Cushing and was still performing to the very end, dying of coronary thrombosis in 1956. This timescale conveniently connects the coming of Hammer and the more sophisticated performances of Cushing and Christopher Lee.

In 1935, at the age of 49, he started in a run of poverty row pictures with MURDER AT THE RED BARN. Based on the true story of 1827, Slaughter plays Squire William Corder, who seduces farmer's daughter Maria Marten (Sophie Stewart) then murders and buries her beneath a barn floor - "you shall be a bride, a bride of death!" - after discovering she is pregnant. This does not fall into Corder's plan at all, as he aims to marry a wealthy spinster to pay off a dicing debt. In the darkly humorous finale, Corder's own dog marks the spot where Marten is buried, the Squire forced to dig to incriminate himself knowing one of his pistols lies by the body; there is further irony when Corder is hanged by a volunteer executioner, Gypsy Carlos (Eric Portman), Maria's lover. Flaunting its stage origins by starting with a Master of Ceremonies in front of a painted backdrop, Slaughter's portrayal of the seemingly cordial Squire morphing into a gambling murderer provided a template for a career of maniacal dual personalities.

Californian Sleazemeister and rockabilly musician Johnny Legend presented this DVD double-bill of SWEENEY TODD and CRIMES AT THE DARK HOUSE.

A year later Slaughter reprised his most famous stage role for the screen. In SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, the eponymous character "polishes off" wealthy customers who sit in a mechanical barber's chair which dumps them head-first down into the basement; there, the victims are ready to have their throats cut ("a lovely lot of throats, the lot of 'em ... rich and mellow to the razor.") Neighbour Mrs Lovatt (Stella Rho) disposes of the bodies by processing them in pies for a share of the stolen money (but similar to Marten's pregnancy in MURDER AT THE RED BARN, this is only implied). Todd has an eye for Johanna Oakley (Eve Lister), who is in love with seaman Mark (Bruce Seton), and in a Slaughteresque twist both these characters adapt a more literal disguise to fool the demon barber, eventually plunging him down his own trap door to an infernal damnation. This is Slaughter's consistently most entertaining picture, with the actor at his cackling, vindictive and money-grabbing best, and rife with double entendre (at one point he leers at Mark "when I'm finished with you, you won't know yourself.")

Loosely based on Wilkie Collins' 1859 ground-breaking detective/mystery novel The Woman in White, CRIMES AT THE DARK HOUSE opens in the gold fields of Australia, where Slaughter creeps into a tent to kill Sir Percival Glyde by hammering a tent peg into his ear. Assuming Percival's identity in order to inherit his English estate, on arrival back in Blighty the scheming prospector discovers that the Glyde's are in fact bankrupt. Benefiting from higher production values - which included future Hammer designer Bernard Robinson's first gothic sets - there is also a more convoluted but dramatically satisfying storyline, encompassing an insane illegitimate daughter, a blackmailing doctor, mistaken identities and the obligatory impregnation and murder of a maid. Slaughter may be at his most archetypal for SWEENEY TODD, but CRIMES sees his most polished, sly and sexually sardonic performance. Almost every line is delivered in a suggestive manner, and his lascivious excitement at bedding his new reluctant bride is particularly depraved.

Crash and Tyburn

LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF (1975)
THE GHOUL (1975)

LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF on the cover of the last issue of Monster Mag (Vol 2 #4, August 1976).

SON of cinematographer and director Freddie Francis, Kevin Francis founded Tyburn in an attempt to recreate the Hammer Horrors of his childhood. A slaughterhouse employee turned Hammer staffer - he had provided the outline for TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA - the problem was that it was 1973, and horror cinema was becoming immersed in a new realism. Freddie would helm the two pictures here, yet his well documented disdain for the genre - and even greater contempt for its fans - would be mixed with a problematic working relationship with his son. LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF sees wolves adopt a young boy named Etoile, who is discovered by a freak show fronted by Maestro Pamponi (Hugh Griffith). After growing up, Etoile (David Rintoul) makes his way to Paris where his ability to communicate with animals impresses a zookeeper (Ron Moody) who offers him a job. When Etoile becomes infatuated with prostitute Christine (Lynn Dalby), his resentment for her clients makes him transform into a werewolf. Piecing together the mystery, police pathologist Professor Paul (Peter Cushing) becomes convinced that a man-wolf is responsible.

As with CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, the picture is based on Guy Endore's 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris, and is also written by Anthony Hinds. It was announced under the misleading title of PLAGUE OF THE WEREWOLVES, and even though the film may return the story to its Parisian setting, this tepid production portrays its wolf attacks with mundane rapid cuts, red-tinted POV shots and close-ups of bloodied fangs. Thankfully the performances are earnest and entertaining: Cushing is unsurprisingly the star as he gradually unravels the crimes, Dalby gives a sympathetic performance as the archetypal tart with a heart, and Moody passes amicably as the abrasive zookeeper. Of the supporting players Roy Castle is typically irritating as a squeamish and bumbling photographer, while Michael Ripper makes the most of his cameo as "Sewerman."

Don Henderson as THE GHOUL. Prior to becoming an actor, Henderson was a detective sergeant with Essex police; ironically his most celebrated role was as fictional crime stopper George Bulman, who appeared in three TV series: THE XYZ MAN, STRANGERS and BULMAN.

Using sets built for THE GREAT GATSBY, THE GHOUL is a much more feverish affair. The film opens with four upper class twits - Geoffrey (Ian McCulloch), Angela (Alexandra Bastedo), Billy (Stewart Bevan) and Daphne (Veronica Carlson) - embarking on a car race to Land's End. But as fog closes in on Daphne and Billy, the blonde is whisked away by unhinged gardener Tom (John Hurt) to the remote mansion of defrocked clergyman Doctor Lawrence (Peter Cushing). Lawrence has returned from India with a family secret and a mystical servant (Gwen Watford), and unbeknown to Lawrence’s visitors, his son (Don Henderson in sandals) resides in the attic and suffers from uncontrollable bouts of stabbing and cannibalism.

Moving between misty marshlands and interior splendour, THE GHOUL exists in a hazy otherworld, with Cushing's commanding performance providing the actor with several art-imitating-life moments as he mentions his departed wife. As with CITY OF THE DEAD, THE GHOUL shares striking similarities with the structure of PSYCHO. We have a strong-willed blonde literally racing cross-country before stopping to rest at a location where she is murdered; even the killing is Hitchcockesque with a knife cutting through curtains (here, it is mosquito netting that surrounds her bed). Daphne's car is also disposed of with a push (a cliff rather than a bog) and Geoffrey is dispatched Martin Balsam-like falling backwards down stairs. The production also plays like a recycling of Hammer's THE REPTILE, with its English family corrupted by an evil Indian sect.

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.

Do You Dare Spend a Night in the ...

MADHOUSE (1974)

"In our day in Hollywood, the monsters didn't need makeup ... they just came as themselves." The MADHOUSE cover to Famous Monsters of Filmland #109 (August 1974).

MADHOUSE begins with friends gathered to celebrate the horror movie career of Paul Toombes (Vincent Price), whose signature role is Dr Death, a character co-created by writer/actor Herbert Flay (Peter Cushing). Toombes has decided to settle down with fiance Ellen (Julie Crosthwait), an actress who has been previously linked to producer Oliver Quayle (Robert Quarry). However, the night ends in tragedy as Toombes finds Ellen beheaded, a murder undertaken by someone wearing the cinematic garb of Dr Death. Though never convicted of the crime, Toombes is institutionalised. Twelve years later, Flay convinces Toombes to resurrect Dr Death for a new television series to be made in England; before long the body count begins, leaving Toombes to wonder if he is enacting the events of his character in real life. Eventually consumed with guilt, he locks himself into the studio, turns on the cameras, and sets fire to the set. In fact it has been frustrated actor Flay who has been committing the murders; a burnt Toombes returns to kill Flay and cavort with his spider-obsessed, basement-dwelling wife Faye (Adrienne Corri), who has had long-standing feelings for Toombes.

This joint Amicus/American International venture plays both as a requiem for Price's association with AIP and the nature of the 60s/70s B-movies that became suppressed by the release of THE EXORCIST. COUNT YORGA star Quarry - who had appeared with Price in DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN and was originally cast in the Herbert Flay role - was being groomed to replace the horror star, and this was one of many frictions: Price was also experiencing an impending divorce, the budget-cutting Twickenham Studios provided indifferent production values, and director Jim Clark wrote a despairing letter to Price complaining about Milton Subotsky's interference in the editing room. The feel of MADHOUSE also isn't helped by the extent of footage used from Roger Corman's Poe pictures to illustrate Toombes' career; in fact, so much so that Corman almost deserves a co-directing credit. As Denis Meikle observes in Vincent Price: The Art of Fear, "[Price] comes closer to playing himself in this film than in any previous one ... and with the footage having been supplied by Corman's Poes, Price must at times have felt like a dying man, watching his life pass before his eyes."

Pulp potboiler Devilday acted as the source material for MADHOUSE. The film dropped the satanic overtones of the book, and makes its lead character more sympathetic.

With Price and Quarry being snide on and off screen, the supporting cast supply a number of welcome diversions. Natasha Pyne is enthusiastic as Toombes' PA Julia Wilson, and Linda Hayden leaves an all-too-brief impression as stalking actress Elizabeth Peters, who is despatched by pitchfork. In a further eerie pursuit, Peters' parents Alfred (Ellis Dale) and Louise (Catherine Willmer) follow the actor across twilight lawns before both being skewered on the same sabre. But the real meat lies in the final ten minutes, where Flay sees Toombes step down from the screen of his own snuff movie and subsequently murder and become Flay, utilising some startlingly effective make-up as Cushing's distinctive cheekbones are melded with Price's heavier facade. 

MADHOUSE was loosely based on the novel Devilday by Angus Hall, a smutfest of late 60s/early 70s Satania. In the book Toombs is a sadistic heroin addict, a latter-day Aleister Crowley whose film career is in meltdown after being suspected of inserting an icicle up a vagina (paralleling Fatty Arbuckle's notorious scandal of 1921). Opening with a quote from Poe's Marginalia, of men who "soared above the plane of their race," during the course of the novel the faded star - as "the dark and dreaded" Dr Dis - enjoys relations with jailbait groupies, and appears at a Black Mass so that the congregation can (literally) kiss his ass. At the climax, he is killed by a falling rock, and a swarm of fans scavenge his corpse for souvenirs; but years later the book's narrator glimpses Toombs in a Rolls-Royce, leading him to suspect that the notorious actor's LaVeyan mayhem will resume. 

Cushing Centenary (Part II of II)

ASYLUM (1972)
--AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS! (1973)

ASYLUM's Richard Todd is attacked by that favourite of Amicus plot devices - the severed limb - for the cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland #97 (April 1973).

DIRECTED by Roy Ward Baker and with Robert Bloch adapting his own tales, ASYLUM was the fifth of Amicus' seven portmanteau pictures and one of the silliest, despite a strong framing story. Dr Martin (Robert Powell) arrives at Dunsmore Asylum and meets wheelchair-bound Dr Rutherford (Patrick Magee). Rutherford tells Martin that he will be considered for employment if he can deduce who is Dr Starr - the former head of the facility - now among the inmates. Attendant Max Reynolds (Geoffrey Bayldon) admits Martin to the cells where he interviews each in turn: in Frozen Fear, Bonnie (Barbara Parkins) tells of lover Walter (Richard Todd), who suffered the consequences of murdering voodoo-studying wife Ruth (Sylvia Syms); The Weird Tailor has Bruno (Barry Morse) recount how Mr Smith (Peter Cushing) requested an elaborate suit made from a mysterious fabric; and Lucy Comes to Stay is a split personality story featuring Barbara (Charlotte Rampling). The final tale - Mannikins of Horror - is not viewed in flashback but sees Martin encounter Dr Byron (Herbert Lom), who is working on soul transference to small automatons.

Bloch had constructed the flow of stories to build tension slowly, intending the order to be The Weird Tailor, Lucy Comes to Stay, Frozen Fear and Mannikins of Horror. After seeing a first edit, Amicus co-founder and financier Max Rosenberg ordered the stories to be re-arranged, on the basis that distributors would need a more action-orientated start. Both Bloch and Baker were unhappy about the restructuring, but it is hard to see the film vastly improved no matter what the order (the Lucy Comes to Stay segment would grind any release to a halt). ASYLUM packs out-of-work British star quality - most of whom in their twilight years - into very little, and it is up to Cushing, yet again, to bring depth into his small role of a grieving father planning to resurrect his son. As Tim Lucas states in Video Watchdog, the film "...suffers from an out-moded script, more appropriate to 1940s horror radio than 1970s horror cinema," another example of Amicus' juvenile approach.

Catherine Fengriffen (Stephanie Beacham) is drawn into the mystery and madness of --AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS!.

Amicus assembled much the same cast and crew - including director Baker, stars Cushing, Lom, Magee, and the crawling hand - for the peculiarly titled costumed gothic --AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS!. This meandering effort is set in the late 18th century, where newlywed Catherine (Stephanie Beacham) moves into the mansion of her husband Charles Fengriffen (Ian Ogilvy). Almost immediately, the bride is plagued by visions, including an eyeless, one-handed phantom. We learn that the family curse originates from Silas the woodsman (Geoffrey Whitehead) having his hand chopped off on his wedding night by Charles' lecherous ancestor Henry (Lom), who also deflowered the woodsman's young bride. Family doctor Whittle (Magee) summons psychiatrist Pope (Cushing), who witnesses the birth of Catherine's baby, an infant that sports Silas' facial birthmark and hand less stump.

Based on David Case's 1970 novella Fengriffen: A Chilling Tale, the use of Oakley Court Manor - a location that would soon become THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW castle - provides a rich backdrop for such a meagre-budgeted film. Cushing's character does not appear on screen until half-way, and although this is a welcome adage, without doubt it remains Beacham's film; the actress gives the most rounded performance made the more evident by the fact that Catherine is surrounded by soon-to-be-murdered ciphers. Even husband Ogilvy seems a bit-part among the turmoil of his own family's sordid history, though he belatedly comes alive in an unsettling rage at Henry's tomb during a downpour. The final shot of Catherine with her mutant son clashes wildly with the confusing opening narration, which recollects these historic events in a forced sereneness, rather than the bludgeoning horrors that unfold.

Cushing Centenary (Part I of II)

THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (1960)
THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1968)

100 years young today; Peter Cushing's Dr Knox commands the screen in THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS.

"THIS is the story of lost men and lost souls. It is a story of vice and murder. We make no apologies to the dead. It is all true." So begins THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS, John Gilling's take on Burke and Hare. The film is not only one of the finest British horror films, but a production that may well have provided Peter Cushing with his best ever performance. Capturing the squalid atmosphere of 1828 Edinburgh, the film sees "brilliant, aggressive, provocative" Dr Knox (Cushing) use "resurrection men" Burke (George Rose) and Hare (Donald Pleasence) to supply fresh cadavers for his medical students. When one of these students Chris (John Cairney) becomes involved with feisty prostitute Mary (Billie Whitelaw), the communion begins a chain of events that brings the murders too close to home: Burke is hanged, Hare avoids prosecution only to be blinded by the angry mob, and Knox sees the error of his ways.

Knox is the only person that ultimately changes. Beginning with a flow of intelligence, authority and conviction, this rationality for his beloved medical cause ("men of medicine are the modern miracle workers ... you are entering the most honorable profession in the world") is eventually melted by the fears of a young girl. After instructing Chris that "emotion is a drug that dulls the intellect," Knox quietly tells niece Martha (June Laverick) "as a child, I believed in God and the devil; it took a child to show me what I am now." Cushing's posture and delivery is pitch-perfect across his character arc, and his disagreements with the medical council are laced with a wondrous snideness ("now, if you would be so good as to incline your heads slightly to the right, you will observe the door; please use it.") Cushing is complimented by sly performances from Rose and Pleasence, who further inject the film with sardonic black humour. 

The Vampire-Beast Craves Blood. Together with Japan's Mothra, the creature of THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR is part of a pretty exclusive club of moth-related monsters.

On the other end of the scale, Vernon Sewell's THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR was described by Cushing as perhaps the worst film he ever made. Two murders have left the police perplexed, with the only witness insane and several petal-like scales left at the crime scenes. Inspector Quennell (Cushing) is drawn to the house of entomologist Doctor Mallinger (Robert Flemyng, replacing Basil Rathbone after his fatal heart attack two weeks before principal photography). When a further slaying implicates Mallinger and his daughter Clare (Wanda Ventham) the couple flee, but Quennell traces them and - together with daughter Meg (a stilted Vanessa Howard) - travels to a remote fishing village. It is discovered that Mallinger has created a Death's Head moth/female human hybrid, which drinks blood and kills when sexually aroused.

An erratically-edited programmer, Tigon's THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR suffers from a formulaic script by Peter Bryan (though there is a bizarre departure with an amateur theatrics sequence), threadbare special effects (that makes the moth on a par with Roger Corman's THE WASP WOMAN) and alleged comic relief (from Roy Hudd as the cliched mugging mortuary attendant who enjoys eating lunch among the corpses). Flemyng's mad scientist is blatantly suspicious from the opening lecture scene, and Cushing's customarily stoicism allegedly included extensive re-writing by the actor himself. In America, distributor Pacemaker re-christened the film THE VAMPIRE-BEAST CRAVES BLOOD, followed by some even more deranged hyperbole by the publicity department: "A ravishing Psycho-Field with diabolical power to turn into a Giant Death Head Vampire, to feast on the blood of her lovers before clawing them to death."

Composite Beings and Zombie Bikers

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (1970)
PSYCHOMANIA (1972)

In SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, two hikers out on the moors are being shot at by Nazi-like soldiers. The female ambler is  played by a pre-LUST FOR A VAMPIRE Yutte Stensgaard, who is subsequently taken to a castle for torture.

BOTH these pictures come from a period in British horror where more outlandish themes were being explored rather than the increasingly dated Hammer Gothics. Gordon Hessler's SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is a conspiracy thriller like no other, an AIP/Amicus co-production that features a delirious mix of body parts, gallows humour and police pursuits. With the major draw of Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, the film basically is another take on the Frankenstein legend. Opening with a runner collapsing in a London park and finding himself waking in a strange hospital where he's missing a leg, the story weaves its way through three main plot threads: rogue general Konratz (Marshall Jones) murdering his way into power of an unnamed Eastern bloc country; serial vampire rapist Keith (Michael Gothard) preying on young women he picks up in 'happening' nightclubs; and Dr Browning (Vincent Price)'s Composite programme, a plan to infest the world with controllable beings of organic and synthetic tissue.

Based on the 1966 SF novel The Disorientated Man by "Peter Saxon" - in reality a pen name used by W.Howard Baker and Stephen Frances - the film rights were picked up by Milton Subotsky, who turned in his usual old-fashioned treatment which was re-written by Christopher Wicking. The resulting screenplay is remarkably faithful to the book, apart from dropping an alien explanation for a paranoid political message. Price fares best of the top-billed stars, with Lee and Cushing given disposable roles: the former as a government official and the latter as a very disposable military superior. However it is Gothard and Alfred Marks - who apparently ad-libbed much of his dialogue as Inspector Bellaver - who give the most memorable performances. Marks shines in the grand pantheon of disgruntled police inspectors that populate British horror, and in a part described by Jonathan Rigby in English Gothic: a Century of Horror Cinema as resembling "a bionic Mick Jagger", Gothard carries out a very unpleasant alley attack and later there is a celebrated car chase sequence. Its all infectiously ridiculous, capped by a maniacal climactic battle between Browning and Konratz, filled with a vulcan-like shoulder squeeze and hearty swings of a gas cylinder.

John Cameron's score is the highlight of PSYCHOMANIA, essentially a rock soundtrack that achieves the gravitas of a sweeping orchestra.

Don Sharp's PSYCHOMANIA tells of Tom Latham (Nicky Henson), the leader of The Living Dead motorcycle gang, who terrorise the Home Counties and hang around standing stones called The Seven Witches. Tom's mother (Beryl Reid) is a medium aided by butler Shadwell (George Sanders), and there is a mystery surrounding the death of Mr Latham ("why did my father die in that locked room? Why do you never get any older? And what is the secret of the living dead?") When Tom achieves "the ton," he crashes off a bridge and dies; the gang bury him upright on his bike, and he comes back to life a couple of days later, terrorising the local populace and convincing his gang members that in order to come back from the dead you only have to believe you will. Only Tom’s girlfriend Abby (Mary Larkin) refuses.

PSYCHOMANIA's incoherent and kitsch charm mixes the trademark tranquil eccentricity of British horror with Frog cults and zombie bikers, becoming a metaphor for teen rebellion and anger at the establishment (all the members of The Living Dead want to do is cause trouble and "blow some squares’ minds"). The film was almost universally blasted by critics on release - The Times wrote that PSYCHOMANIA was only fit to be shown at an "SS reunion party" - but today this Benmar production is a guilty pleasure. Like Tom's early exchange with Shadwell, there are more questions than answers: what actually occurred at Tom's birth?; what is the history of the magic room?; who is Shadwell servant to?; and did Mrs Latham's powers turn seven witches into the standing stones? Henson is the lifeblood, but Sanders' bizarre presence has the distinction of seemingly being the film that drove the actor to suicide. Leaving behind an aptly Wildesque note, Sanders wrote "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."