lulu-17985 Reviews

Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1967)

What this is, is a parody-Spoilers ahead

[6/10 · 20 September 2016]

It may be unintentional, but the more I think about this movie, the more it makes sense. It pretty much sends up many Gothic horror tropes-a decaying house, along with a decaying, mentally disturbed family, and a sympathetic-and, in this case, empathetic-caretaker who tries, in vain, to protect the family from outsiders, even though the caretaker isn't a family member him or herself. It even parodies the sex and violence used in movies to try and catch an audience's attention, with Virginia's off screen mutilation of the poor telegram messenger via what would have been, in "normal" circumstances, an "innocent" and silly pretense to be a spider. We also have the "auntie" stripping down, for no clear reason, and then being chased around in her black lace underwear just for shocking effect-but the one thing that I really found disturbing was how they more than implied that-once her disturbed distant kinsman, Ralph, "had his way with her," she was anxious for "more."

There have been other movies mentioned that this one is similar to. The one that stands out, to me, in similarity, is "Arsenic and Old Lace," Though much darker in tone, like the earlier movie, this one uses humor to soften the troubling subject of criminal insanity addressed in the film. It also reminds me very much of "The Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck," which would be created after this movie, though it would end up released about the same time. That one was an unabashed send up of Hammer Studios' vampire movies, as well as Roger Corman's "Poe" movies for AIP. It even has the "twist" ending like the preceding "Spiderbaby" production.

One of the standout moments, to me, is the one straight dramatic moment when-in a discussion between Lon Chaney's character and his troubled charges-you realize that they aren't so nuts that they don't understand that they are different, and they actually communicate a sorrow and regret about their situation.

Sadly, not many people remember Lon Chaney, Jr. was nominated for an academy award because he ended up doing so many forgettable movies for various reasons, not the least being his own battle with the bottle. I'm glad that, in this movie, his character is portrayed as displaying an amazing calm in the midst of the insane zoo he was trying to wrangle-and not told to try and recreate Cary Grant's manic performance in the similar role in "Arsenic and Old Lace." I think he did a good job with the part.

They really didn't explain much about the kid's dad. He obviously must not have suffered the genetic aberration himself, but gambled that he would not pass it on to his own offspring-a gamble he obviously lost. Since they also had "crazies" in the basement, I wonder if they were his siblings?

If all you want is a "popcorn" movie, I think this one works just fine for that. If you're looking for Ingmar Bergman, then you should pass on this one. Also, though I know kids nowadays aren't "protected" from certain subjects like we oldies were, as a parent I would think about the implied cannibalism and rape/sadomasochism in the film before letting a kid watch this. A really sensitive kid might pick up on the implied cruelty amidst the silliness.

The Brides of Dracula (1960)

Almost sixty years later...

[8/10 · 28 August 2016]

I have to agree with those who point out that this movie was probably put out as Saturday matinée or drive-in material. As someone who was a kid in that era, I'll go out on a limb here and say that it was the "daring-do" that appealed to most kids of the era, and the good guys winning over the bad ones. You went to the movie to be entertained. The target audience of this movie wasn't going to sit there and analyze every scene and all the set decor, and the Hammer crew knew that. They knew most people weren't experts on European architecture, so their representation of castles and inns were pretty rudimentary in some ways. They went about trying to create a relatively believable world in which to tell their story, and as far as I am concerned they did a pretty good job. So, it is a good idea to remember that when looking at this movie through 21st century eyes.

One thing I'd like to address is the fact that so many reviews have people criticizing the movie because the vampire, Baron Meinster, is being held captive by shackles when he should have been able to just turn into a bat and escape. However, there is some folk lore where iron can be used to repel or incapacitate a vampire, and I expect that is what is being implied here. Also, vampires being "super beings" is also really a modern idea, so I think the criticism of Van Helsing holding his own against Meinster is also unfair.

I believe that the story here is pretty straightforward. You have the decent young lady traveling to a school for other younger ladies to become an instructor there. Since she's traveling alone, she probably is supposed to be without any family, since that is something that would have been realistic at the time-since respectable families wouldn't let their female members travel alone because of safety concerns. Also, there's been criticism about the guy who shows up, pays the driver, and then disappears. I think we can logically deduce that this guy is on the Baroness' payroll to watch the roads, and if a vulnerable young lady(as in, alone)is spotted in a coach, then he pays the coachman to abandon the girl at the local inn. Then the Baroness shows up and offers the young lady lodging for the night. Hey, the local aristocracy shows up and offers you a stay in their elegant castle. How many people would turn that down? Of course, the young lady, Marianne, never realizes that the Baroness intended for her to be her vampire son's next meal. Instead, Marianne is enticed through her own curiosity to see just exactly what the weird deal is with the son, and then is tricked by him into helping him escape. She soon learns what a big mistake that is, and then all heck breaks loose until the hero, Van Helsing, shows up and saves the heroine, vanquishes they enemy, and makes everything okay.

I'm not going to give a play by play of the movie, as there are plenty reviews here that do that. I do think that David Peel made a convincing and very menacing villain. Once Marianne was duped into helping him escape, it didn't take long to see that the fear in his mother's eyes was totally justified. That was one cold-hearted dude.

I enjoyed the action scenes in this movie. I thought that Cushing and Peel were very convincing as antagonists determined to destroy one another.

The ending is another thing that gets criticized. According to an interview I read by the director, Terence Fisher, the idea was that the "truth" of the cross was just as effective as a physical crucifix. This of course, is based on the Christian doctrine that, as a result of Christ's supernatural sacrifice by dying by crucifixion, all things on earth are subject to his spiritual authority-especially evil spirits or beings controlled by evil spirits. So, when Van Helsing twisted the windmill sails to resemble a cross, Meinster died from divine retribution, since Van Helsing was basically calling upon Christ to deliver them by invoking the symbolism of the cross. The character did the same thing in The Horror of Dracula, by using two candlesticks in the shape of a cross-though in that case it just slowed Dracula down. There is a later Dracula movie where someone also uses objects to form a cross, but I can't recall which one at the moment.

This is a good movie, and one I think can be enjoyable if you just let yourself enter into world they create and let them tell you a story, with no other expectations. Yes, it's a product of it's time, but I think even now it still can entertain on the level that it was created to entertain on.

The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)

Not much horror-even for a Hammer film

[3/10 · 2 August 2015]

I'm not going to rehash the plot of the movie, because that has been done by most of the earlier reviews. I'm going to just touch on what I think worked-and what I think didn't.

In terms of the atmosphere, cinematography, etc., I think they did a good job. It had the foreboding, eerie set up, for the most part. (Also, from this point, things might get a little spoilery.)There were so many things they did in this movie, IMO, that they really didn't set up properly. This movie is definitely formulaic-and I'm not criticizing it for that. What I am going to find fault with, though, is leaving part of the formula out. 19th century husband leaves his new wife sitting in their useless motorcar because they ran out of gas, and he needs to go get help. OK. It's also not necessarily bad that she got uncomfortable and decided to try and catch up with hubby, at least if they had bothered to have something unsettling happen before she decided to get out-but they didn't. Stuff happened after she got out of the car. Of course, part of this was so she could run into the stern Professor fellow who gave her a cryptic warning, which, of course, also did not help calm her already frayed nerves.

Another thing I found out of sync was the "inn." It seemed like it was designed to be the "Ritz" of small Bavarian inns, but why? I don't know if we were supposed to deduce that the village once was more prosperous and merited such an establishment, but it seemed out of place. It would be like finding a deserted town in the Nevada desert that still had a fancy Hilton hotel there welcoming whatever guest might wander in- which is pretty much what happened here. Also, the innkeeper moderated from seeming happily oblivious to what was going on to being complicit- even if they were being coerced(and I think that was certainly implied.)The wife's behavior became more understandable once they showed the scene where she was grieving over her daughter-a scene which I thought was very effective, and probably the best acting in the whole movie. Even the main couple's faces expressed their understanding that they had almost intruded on a private, sad moment as they quietly withdrew to leave the poor women to grieve. Speaking of the main couple, they were naturally, happily naive. The man, of course, was one of means-inherited, naturally. He wasn't a snobby sort, though he certainly had no problem with the local "uppity-ups" recognizing his obvious value and integrity, sight unseen. Again, this isn't necessarily something that was unrealistic in terms of the "upper"class being, perhaps, as too trusting when dealing with someone they have assumed is also "upper class."

Let me skip on to what I found was the biggest flaw in the show-and that was how "ho hum" the bad guys-and gals-were. The predecessor to this movie was, I believe(at least in terms of vampire movies)Brides of Dracula-and I found the vampire in that to be more intimidating, even with his fake, fluffy red wig and foppish appearance-than most of the vamps in this movie. It was almost laughable when the "hero" managed to grab his wife and run out of a whole room full of vampires-with almost none of them in pursuit except their one, I assume, human lackey. We in the audience needed much more exposition as to why this Drac wannabe had a castle full of other vampires who seemed to have nothing better to do than to either quiver in fear for various reasons, or carp at their "master." I mean, the village was supposedly pretty deserted- so, who was left for this house full of vampires to victimize and "feed" on? Even the visitors to the countryside were supposed to be rare- and the two naive victims had made a wrong turn to start with to end up out of gas in the middle of some obscure Bavarian forest. The one actor who did a decent job, IMO, was the "Van Helsing" type-Professor Zimmerman. In what screen time he was given he managed to convey that he wasn't just a grumpy drunk-but that there was a good reason he was the way he was, as well as a method to his madness.

Last, but not least, I feel the climax could have been done much better. I saw it mentioned that, for some reason, they decided not to release this movie around the same time as the famed Hitchcock movie, The Birds-not because Hammer didn't want to compete with that movie(though that certainly would make sense)but because of the similar, mind-blowing "event." I can see the slight similarity, but the Hitchcock film did not shy away from showing, as much as they were allowed by the movie codes, how gruesome being attacked by a huge flock of birds could be. Likewise, this movie could have added to the discomfort-and certainly the horror-if they had portrayed, like The Birds, at least as much as possible(taking into consideration the aforementioned codes and the Hammer budget)a much more mutilated bunch of vampires being chowed down on, I assume, by a horde of vampire bats(the irony not supposed to be lost on we, the audience.) This was just about as "toothless," in terms of scares, a vampire movie was I have ever seen-and I've seen a bunch, at my age.