| Author | Message | ||
     John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.155 |
I had kind of promised myself I wasn’t going to clutter up this message board with any more reviews of films that quite possibly only I would ever want to watch, but I had been wanting to see this 1966 British golem movie for about 30 years and finally caught up with it this evening. Having waited this long to see it I had expected to be disappointed, or perhaps mildly entertained by some mid-60s horror antics, but It! exceeded all my expectations and has to be one of the most brilliantly barmy pieces of British exploitation I have ever seen. So I feel it my duty to direct fans of such insanity to this top quality way of wasting 96 minutes. Not that you’d perhaps expect it from the first hour or so, which features a bravura performance from Roddy McDowell (who on the basis of this really was wasted acting under a rubber ape mask for the next 8 years) as mad museum curator Arthur Pimm who lives with his long-dead mummified mother, fancies Jill Haworth (her best film which isn’t saying much but she’s..er..displayed here to better effect than in either Haunted House of Horror or Tower of Evil.) and discovers he can reactivate the statue of the golem, even though it kills a couple of people before he performs the necessary ritual that brings it to life. But that’s par for the course in a film that says one thing one minute, then seems to discard the idea and do something completely contradictory the next, until fifteen minutes from the end. Then the film suddenly goes completely bonkers with McDowell driving a hearse containing the golem, his mummified mother and kidnapped Jill Haworth in her nightie into a country house where he proceeds to set fire to an old woman. The might of the British army is called in (well, six of them) and when old faithfuls like an anti-tank missile bounce off the golem now standing guard at the gates (Golem Indestructible! Artillery Like Peashooter!, the newspaper headline caption helpfully explains- the same newspaper in fact that has the headline ‘Golem Curse Continues!’ before any of the historical experts have actually identified it as such) the powers that be take the perfectly rational step of deciding to set off a nuclear bomb which flattens the house & Mr McDowell but not the golem who then decides to sod this film for a laugh and walks off into a convenient sea. The End. Cue the music, which throughout the movie is almost note-for-note the score composer Carlo Martelli wrote for Hammer’s Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb two years before. Add in a cameo from legendary zombie hunter Ian McCulloch and the golem’s random destruction of Hammersmith Bridge under the direction of McDowell in the belief it will get Jill to shag him (and why not?) and it’s probably best to watch this sober. | ||
| Jamie Rosen (Jamie) Username: Jamie Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 192.26.212.72 |
I somehow read this visualizing Malcolm McDowell, rather than Roddy McDowell, in the lead role. Perhaps it's time for a remake! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.53.174 |
Er, so was it good? All I ever saw of this film was via various Denis Gifford books. It always seemed like it would be quite good. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.155 |
Tony it was bloody brilliant! BUT ONLY IF you like: Movies about statues in museums that come to life Movies in which the lead character is raving mad Movies in which Jill Haworth has no clothes on Movies with a host of bit part actors from other Britcrud, eg Noel "Corruption" Trevarthen, Ernest "Dr in the House TV Series" Clark Movies with lines like "I'm going to take her to America with me" "But you can't do that - she's English!" Movies in which a common or garden gorblimey English workman says lines like "Looks like some primitive God of wrath or somethin' - look at the 'ate in its face!" | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.156.130 |
I'm sold on any one of those, John, so a film that has them all just has to be a winner! And don't you dare stop posting your reviews... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
John, if you stop posting your reviews I'll be forced to kill you in a pointlessly ingenious manner. This sounds ace - I only ever saw the first 40 mins or so when I was younger, before falling asleep because of the late hour. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.155 |
Thanks Mick! And I know you'd be the man to appreciate that on the double DVD disc the other movie - The Shuttered Room, while being no great shakes does feature Rick Jones - the beardy bloke from the original (and best) Fingerbobs! All together now: Yuffy waves a finger - and a mouse is there Puts his hands together - and an eagle takes the air Time for me to go to bed I think | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.155 |
Zed - you will only think you've killed me - then 2 years later people around you will start to die in ways similar to the running order of Faculty of Terror. I'll be taking those hands of yours, now.... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Is the film available on DVD, John? The most hilarious horror film I've seen recently (rewatched, actually - I first saw it on its original release, close to Times Square) is Pieces. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.199.0.113 |
It's a Warners Region 1 DVD double bill with The Shuttered Room, Ramsey. No sign of a UK / Region 2 release. I presume by Pieces you mean the Juan-Piquer Simon film where the killer gets into a lift hiding the chainsaw behind his back so his intended victim hopefully won't spot it? And of course I believe you and I were at the premier of Mr Simon's quite excrutiating adaptation of the "novel" Slugs at the Shock Around the Clock Festival many years ago, which was also good for a few laughs | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.124.223 |
I fear I would probably get more enjoyment spending 90 mins reading Lord P's reviews than watching the film! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.11.249 |
Ramsye - Pieces had me and my friends in stitches the first time I saw it. That climax is pure hilarity. I hope someone savvy in Hollywood remkes this, as the comedy it is.... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Simon indeed, John! By gum, were you at Slugs too? You must have been youthful. Craig, it is indeed already a comedy - no remake could top it, surely. As well remake Plan 9. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.53.174 |
I wanna see Santa's Slay. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Karim - thanks very much! More reviews on the way as the true meaning of Xmas - watching horror movies - gets properly underway. Ramsey - I've just worked out I must have been 20 at the Slugs premiere. And I remember your totally bemused and bewildered reaction to Bill Fruet's Invasion of the Bodysuckers | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Ahh, nothing says Merry Christmas like smuggling Region 1 DVDs into the UK for you poor deprived Brits... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.48.69 |
In case anyone IS keen to catch this little gem IT! has started airing on the freeview satellite movie channel TCM in a correct aspect ratio nice clean print. It was on last night so I just had to check it | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.42.18 |
Clutter up. I'm enjoying your reviews so much even if I never see the buggers. |