Tag: UK

Directed by Craig Strachan [Other horror films: N/A]

As far as I can tell, there’s only a few things going for Wild Country, and none of them are enough to pull the movie up above average, or even anywhere close.

For one, I do appreciate the fact it’s a Scottish movie – gives it a bit more flavor, and though the accents take a bit to get used to, subtitles were in the copy I watched, so it was never too difficult to decipher the conversations. Related, this was filmed somewhat near Glasgow, and the fields and such did look quite beautiful and pastoral.

The special effects are pretty good here, especially for a lower-budget picture. It’s never the main focus, but you do see throats ripped out, a guy almost chomped in half (with some ribcage showing), and a few gory aftermaths here and there. Again, it’s never the focus, but for what they had, the special effects weren’t shabby at all. The werewolf design, though, is a different question.

Lastly, and this might be what draws most people to this film, you have about 15 minutes of Peter Capaldi. I know Capaldi best from his run as The Doctor on Doctor Who – I always felt he was an underrated Doctor who was dealt iffy stories. Seeing him here was sort of amusing (and it’s worth mentioning that while I have seen this before, when I first saw it, I didn’t know who Capaldi was), but he only pops up at the beginning and the final ten minutes minutes, so he doesn’t really add that much aside from the value of seeing a familiar face.

Samantha Shields did pretty good as the lead, and though she didn’t have much experience, her performance here was quite decent. She worked well with Martin Compston, who also stood out positively. As for the other three central performances, being Nicola Muldoon, Kevin Quinn, and Jamie Quinn, I had no great issues with them, but they didn’t really add a whole lot to the movie.

Being a lower-budget werewolf movie, I can appreciate that it didn’t try to overstay it’s welcome, as the film runs at an hour and 13 minutes. Funnily enough, I still think it runs a bit long, but that’s just due to not caring for some of the pacing here.

And related to that, the ending of this film was somewhat abysmal. It didn’t come as a surprise – somewhat early on, once the action gets going, you can sort of see where it’s going. Even so,it just struck me as a bit ridiculous, and just didn’t really do much to make me care for the movie any more.

Overall, some aspects of Wild Country are worthy of respect, such as some of the performances and special effects. At the same time, it’s not a movie that I enjoy too much, and while it might be worth a single watch, it’s not something that would likely make someone’s top werewolf outings.

5/10

Directed by Andrew Green [Other horror films: N/A]

So at the time of this writing (7/22/2021, should the reader be interested), Nine Lives has a rather poor rating on IMDb. Sporting a 2.3/10 with 3,372 total votes, Nine Lives is probably one of the worst received British horror movies ever made. I know when I first saw it, it didn’t do much for me.

Seeing it again, though, I personally think that maybe people are being a bit harsh.

Don’t get me wrong, this is certainly not a good movie in many senses (aside from the setting, which is pretty solid, and the occasional decent performance), but I found a lot of it moderately tolerable, and again, while it’s not good, I don’t really understand exactly why this has gotten such terrible ratings. I mean, yeah, it’s not great, but is it as awful as 2.3/10? Maybe to some people, but I don’t see it.

The biggest issue I have with this movie is how it just throws nine characters into our faces with little context, and it took about thirty minutes for me to really get the characters and their relationships down. True to the title, there are indeed nine lives, so look forward to meeting Emma, Jo, Laura, Pete, Tom, Tim, Andy, Lucy, and Damien.

Of these nine, I actually enjoyed four of them, being Amelia Warner (Laura), Patrick Kennedy (Tim), James Schlesinger (Damien), and David Nicolle (Pete). Warner was pretty cute here, and she had some strong scenes, but out of all of them, I think Nicolle stood out the most. A big part of this, I’ll be entirely honest, is that I liked his Scottish accent, and he reminded me of Iain De Caestecker (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) consistently.

When it comes to the other five, none are terrible, but they don’t do anything for me. Lex Shrapnel (Tom) was fine, but didn’t do that much. Paris Hilton (House of Wax and Repo! The Genetic Opera) was playing the same character she always seems to, so yeah, that’s fun. Ben Peyton, Vivienne Harvey, and Rosie Fellner didn’t have much in the way of personality, but like I said, they’re not terrible.

The story is somewhat weak, what with a body-hopping spirit (?) going through a group of friends and killing them (with some weak-ass kills, such as simple stabbings that aren’t even on-screen), and while we get some backstory on this spirit, it just feels shallow a lot of the time. I think that part of it might be that Nine Lives is around 85 minutes, and just feels too long. If ten minutes, hell, even 15, were cut, I think it’d help things out.

Also worth mentioning is the final scene, following the chaos of the finale. We get some first-person narration from a survivor, and it’s just so damn dramatic that it’s legit funny. I mean, I laughed twice during it, and then rewatched it. It reminded me of the final scene from Bates Motel in just how corny it was, but like Bates Motel’s ending, I really enjoyed it. It was terrible, but it was funny, so no complaints.

Nine Lives isn’t a good movie, but honestly, I don’t get the hate. Personally, while I think it’s weak in plenty of aspects, I could easily see myself watching this in the future just for the entertainment value. It may put me in the unenviable position of having to give this one an almost okay score, but screw it; I’ll find a way to live.

6/10

Directed by Norman Lee [Other horror films: The Monkey’s Paw (1948)]

Based on an Edgar Wallace novel by the same name, this is a movie that I’ve been wanting to see for some time now. Sometimes known under the title Chamber of Horrors, The Door with Seven Locks is a quality dark house mystery movie, and while it may not be special in many ways, I do adore much of the film.

Lilli Palmer isn’t a name I actively know, but she did a pretty good job as a strong female lead, and worked well with Romilly Lunge. Of course, Leslie Banks (Zaroff from The Most Dangerous Game) comes hard with a very sinister presence, and his gang of criminals (none of whom were that memorable) was occasionally fun to watch scheming. I could have done without Gina Malo, who was used primarily for comedic effect, but David Horne had some strong moments here.

What really makes this movie work, and work better, in my opinion, than The Dark Eyes of London (which was also based off an Edgar Wallace novel), is the strong and engaging mystery. There are a decent amount of moving parts you have to pay attention to, but I don’t think it even gets too bogged down or convoluted, and I think the answers we get toward the end were, while perhaps not too surprising, perfectly welcomed.

The action sequences, from a fist-fight between a masked man and a police officer to a criminal literally getting a rug pulled out from under him (such a classy move), were all pretty solid. Even toward the end, when the last antagonist standing gets trapped in the oddest iron maiden (“Iron Maiden? Excellent!”), there were some pretty tense moments.

While it’s unlikely to become a favorite unless you’ve some nostalgic connection to it, The Door with Seven Locks still hits many of the right spots, and if you’re a fan of these types of movies, it may be worth checking out.

7/10

Directed by Walter Summers [Other horror films: Chamber of Horrors (1929)]

Perhaps better known under the title The Human Monster, this British horror film from the late 1930’s certainly possesses some interesting ideas, and even a few decently thrilling scenes, but I don’t think it’s enough to really stand out amongst the other films that were coming out around the same time.

Certainly Bela Lugosi (Dracula, Mark of the Vampire, The Devil Bat) gave a great performance, and his character Dr. Orloff even had a sort of surprising development toward the end, but his good performance, and the solid performances of others, wasn’t really enough to pull the story past the finish line.

Hugh Williams made for a somewhat generic lead. I didn’t have an issue with him, but he struck me as somewhat uninspired. That’s not quite as bad as Edmond Ryan’s character, though, who was pretty much only here to crack jokes, which has it’s place, but I never felt his character really deserved to be there. Greta Gynt was as solid as any other leading actress of the time, and Wilfred Walter was pretty good as a hulking, deformed menace.

At times, the plot does seem a bit muddled, what with a bunch of insurance policies, underwriters, and potential forgeries going on, but once the movie got going, it got going, and we got some good scenes, such as a man being drowned in his bathtub, another man getting electrodes shoved into his ears (this was off-screen, of course, but we did hear the scream), and a great donnybrook at the end with deadly consequences.

The movie isn’t without it’s charm. A lot of this comes from Lugosi, who is just fun here, and some of it comes from the fact the film’s British (a scene toward the end, with a police car racing to help a damsel in distress, was cool, as it was a first-person view, swerving in-and-out of double-decker buses), but the charm alone, even with the memorable scenes, don’t save it.

I still think that, if you’re a fan of classic horror, The Dark Eyes of London is worth a shot, but I do think there are better movies from around the same time, such as The Face at the Window or The Devil Bat, and this just ends up rather forgettable.

6/10

Directed by Freddie Francis [Other horror films: The Brain (1962), The Day of the Triffids (1963), Paranoiac (1963), Nightmare (1964), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), Hysteria (1965), The Skull (1965), The Psychopath (1966), The Deadly Bees (1966), They Came from Beyond Space (1967), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (1970), Trog (1970), Gebissen wird nur nachts – das Happening der Vampire (1971), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Creeping Flesh (1973), Son of Dracula (1973), Tales That Witness Madness (1973), Craze (1974), Legend of the Werewolf (1975), The Ghoul (1975), The Doctor and the Devils (1985), Dark Tower (1987)]

Amicus’ second anthology horror film (following 1965’s Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors), Torture Garden is a film I’ve seen once before, but didn’t particularly care for. Seeing it again does confirm, to me, at least, that it’s one of the weakest of Amicus’ anthologies that I’ve seen.

I find the framing story as fun as any other, and the route it takes, while predictable, is still fun, but none of the four stories throughout the film really interest me. No doubt that two of them (‘Terror Over Hollywood’ and ‘The Man Who Collected Poe’) had potential, but I don’t feel either one was necessarily executed that well. Of the four, I guess I’d say that ‘The Man Who Collected Poe’ was the best, but really, all four of these felt somewhat underwhelming, especially compared to Amicus’ later entities, such as Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror.

The first and third stories (‘Enoch’ and ‘Mr. Steinway,’ respectively) had their own issues – for ‘Enoch,’ it just felt sort of been-there done-that, and ‘Mr. Steinway’ felt undercooked (and that ridiculous ending, while almost fun, just felt, well, ridiculous), and while some performances stood out in each (Michael Bryant, who later starred in The Stone Tape, for ‘Enoch,’ and John Standing, later in Nightflyers, for ‘Mr. Steinway’), these stories felt weak in ways that reminded me of another weak Amicus outing, being their final anthology, From Beyond the Grave.

Good performances are common throughout the film, of course. Jack Palance (Man in the Attic, Alone in the Dark, and Without Warning) was somewhat enjoyable, though his character’s personality threw me off. Of course, Peter Cushing is always a joy to see, no matter how flawed the particular story was. Others that are worth a mention include Robert Hutton (The Slime People), John Phillips (The Mummy’s Shroud), Michael Ripper (who was in The Mummy along with quite a few other Hammer outings), and of course the enjoyably hammy Burgess Meredith (who I primarily know from the Batman series, but was also in Burnt Offerings and Magic).

Of course, worth-while performances can only go so far if their stories don’t do them justice, and I don’t think any of these really did, aside from maybe Meredith’s role in the framing story (though even that edit cut toward the end just felt poorly done). Little in any of the stories aside from wasted potential stuck me as memorable (especially ‘Terror Over Hollywood,’ which I really think could have been interesting in a Michael Crichton way), but aside from the framing story, which threw in a surprise or two, nothing here is going to stick with me.

Naturally, being a big fan of some of Amicus’ later work, this doesn’t give me pleasure to admit, but I found this even weaker than the aforementioned From Beyond the Grave, if only because one of those stories was actually about average. As of this writing, the only Amicus anthology I’ve not seen is Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, but as that’s the first of this kind, I’m definitely hoping for a little more out of that one. As for Torture Garden, despite some quality performances (Meredith, Cushing, and Palance alone had quality star power), I just don’t think it did that much right.

5/10

Directed by Peter Sasdy [Other horror films: Journey Into Darkness (1968, segment ‘The New People’), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Countess Dracula (1971), Hands of the Ripper (1971), Doomwatch (1972), The Stone Tape (1972), I Don’t Want to Be Born (1975), Witchcraft (1992)]

Based on the 1968 novel of the same name by John Blackburn, this British film can be quite engaging at times, but I think that some elements hold it back, such as the conclusion and the eventual answer to some of the questions the ongoings in the movie put forward.

Certainly anytime that Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing share a scene, it’s a good time (previous to this film, they appeared together in movies such as The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Mummy, The Gorgon, Night of the Big Heat, I, Monster, Dracula A.D. 1972, and Horror Express), and that’s no different here. I’ve always personally preferred Cushing, but both of these actors put in great performances here, story issues aside.

Save those two, it’s hard to really point to anyone else that stands out. Georgia Brown (who later appeared in a segment of Tales That Witness Madness) was decent, but I didn’t think the finale really gave her character a lot to do. I didn’t love Diana Dors (Craze and Berserk) character, but she also did okay. Despite his short time on-screen, Keith Barron was reasonably solid, and of mild interest, though he’s difficult to pick out, Michael Gambon appears in a few scenes also.

If the movie could survive from solid performances alone, we might be talking about an early 70’s classic, but unfortunately some story elements suffer here. I definitely enjoyed the mystery that they had going on, and I did enjoy some things about the finale (which almost felt like The Wicker Man, though nowhere near as epic or memorable), but the solution to the mystery just didn’t interest me that much, and there’s also a bit of over-explanation toward the end by an antagonist, and it just felt off. One of the final scenes is great, but it’s not a flawless ride getting there.

Of course, being the sheltered American lad that I am, I enjoyed the British and Scottish accents and countryside, and though I didn’t care that much for the film overall (which is, on a side-note, about the same reaction I had to this one the first time I saw it some years ago), it still has that British charm to it, which may not amount to much when it comes to rating, but it was something that I appreciated.

Generally, I think that Nothing But the Night is okay. Below average, no doubt, but still worth seeking out if, at the very least, you’re a fan of Cushing or Lee (or the pair of them together). For me, I didn’t dig where the story went, and I think to an extent, things fell apart a little toward the end, but it’s not a movie that I’d never give another chance to, if only for the names involved.

6/10

Directed by Michael Winner [Other horror films: The Nightcomers (1971), The Sentinel (1977)]

Scream for Help is a movie that I’ve only seen once before, and honestly, a movie that I remembered very little of. Pretty much when it came to mind, I just thought of it as the spiritual prequel to The Stepfather (not unlike how I think of 1985’s Blackout). In truth, this really can stand up on its own, because while it’s not an amazing movie, I definitely think a lot was done well.

Problematically, much of the first half deals with a lot of melodrama, what with a step-father’s affair being found out by his step-daughter, and while I can get the emotional upheaval this would cause the family, it’s not always the most engrossing stuff.

Again, though, there’s still decent scenes here, such as the somewhat surprising and intense hit and run that happens quite early into the film. No doubt too there’s tension at different portions of the opening, and while things don’t really pick up until the final thirty minutes, there’s plenty of things going on that are likely to keep your interest.

What sort of interested me was how the story also largely dealt with a teen girl’s coming-of-age, in a way. Over the course of the film, she experiences her first love and experiences her first love-making, and of course love saves them all in the end. Of course, it also led to most of their problems in the first place, but like most teenagers, it’s a confusing time for us all.

Rachel Kelly was pretty convincing as a teenager naive in the ways of lust. I mean, no doubt was her character occasionally ridiculously melodramatic, but she was pretty fun, and she possessed quality strength. Her mother, played by Marie Masters, didn’t interest me as much, but she still did decent enough. Forgettable also was Corey Parker, but I loved how his character, the very day after his girlfriend dies, gets with the girlfriend’s best friend, so a quality example of man.

Speaking of which, while his girlfriend, played by Sandra Clark, didn’t last that long, she was still pretty decent, which was a bit of a surprise given that this was her sole role in anything. David Allen Brooks (who pops up much later in Jack Frost 2) was pretty good here, and Rocco Sisto was even better, but Lolita Lesheim (who provided a bit of nudity) was just okay. Still, decent performances from most of the central cast, especially Rachel Kelly.

While traditional horror scenes were a bit light at times (and the finale felt far more thriller than it did horror), there were a few here and there, and like I said, plenty of tension throughout the whole of the film. Also, there was a kick-ass explosion at the end, which was pretty cool, and while the electrocution wasn’t up to par, it was still fun given the character in question who was electrocuted deserved it.

A lot could be said for the idea that this movie feels far more like a coming-of-age thriller than it does the pure horror movie that you might hope it’d be, and I can certainly see it, to an extent, but no matter what Scream for Help is classified as, I think it’s a movie that has a decent amount going for it, and if you’ve not yet seen it, it may be worth it, even if it’s not amazing.

7/10