| Author | Message | ||
     Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.192.154 |
Has anyone seen The She-Beast (aka Revenge of the Blood Beast), debut film of Michael Reeves, and starring Barbara Steele and Ian Ogilvy? Lord P? I've just received the new DVD released by Dark Sky Films, and am looking forward to some good old-fashioned Euro-horror. It's set in the Carpathians, and the cover promises that it's: Deadlier than Dracula! Wilder than The Werewolf! More frightening than Frankenstein! It's accompanied by an audiocommentary with Steele, Ogilvy and producer Paul Maslansky. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
YES!!!! I've got a dodgy public domain DVD of this but that new version of which you speak is on the way to Probert Towers. I can't wait to see this little Euro-effort in all its 2.35:1 pristine glory! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
Been waiting for this to be released for a few years as I've got 'The Sorcerers' and of course 'Witchfinder General'. Saw it late one night on C4 (I think) many moons ago and it is pure schlock but enjoyable with it. I've heard Reeves also co-directed an obscure early 60s Italian horror that starred Christopher Lee; 'Castle Of The Living Dead' or something like that? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
Yep, I've seen this - pulpy trash, but with a strangely eerie atmosphere. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.209.204.68 |
Stephen- yes, She Beast was on Channel 4 - I've still got my taped VHS copy upstairs somewhere. And Reeves first film was Castle of the Living Dead. And if you've got the same DVD of The Sorcerors that I have you'll notice that for some strange reason that's a picture of Deborah Fairfax from Frightmare on the spine (?!) | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.176.144 |
They made a mistake on the back cover of the DVD, then, where it clearly states that She Beast is Reeves's debut film. I watched some of it tonight but fell asleep half way through. It has some charm, but really isn't very good! Some priceless dialogue, though ('do you know the Draculas, by any chance?'). | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Yes, it's a bit trivial and overstretched. The historical flashback is disturbingly powerful, and prefigures Witchfinder General in some ways, though here of course the witch is a real one and seems composed of unstoppable savagery. I do think his visual style - particularly the use of landscape - is already unmistakeable, though. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I remember watching She-beast on TV. I fell asleep near the beginning, half-woke a few times, then suddenly woke completely at the end. The sight of the witch screaming badly-dubbed curses scared the hell out of me. I rewatched the film about a year later, and sadly didn't get the same effect. There's a strangeness about the atmosphere...somethign I can't put my finger on. It's that certain factor that makes drivel like this almost great. I'm sure Lord Probert will know exactly what I mean. He's as daft as I am.  | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.194.152 |
Yes, I found the opening quite uncomfortable to watch. It also reminded me of the beginning flashback in Black Sunday. There seems to be an unspoken rule that these films must include at least one sleazy, greasy, lecherous innkeeper/gravedigger/servant/.... | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.110.174.71 |
I don't know how I missed this Dark Sky DVD. Thank you for the tip, Huw. I've been a drooling devotee of Barbara Steele ever since I saw her in Roger Corman's The Pit & The Pendulum when I was eleven. The She-Beast is one I've not yet seen. I like Michael Reeves's work too, so I'll have to pick this up. In my opinion, Dark Sky Films are leading the pack when it comes to interesting, affordable and quality horror DVD re-issues. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.194.152 |
You're welcome, Richard. And I agree with you completely about Barbara Steele ;-) I can't remember where I read it, but I am sure I heard that Steele was trying to get an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle made. Makes you wonder what it may have been like.... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.4.21 |
Is this the one set in the 1600's - about witches and witchcraft or something - the one main character gets his hand chopped off halfway through the movie?... What was that one? | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.110.174.71 |
Huw wrote: "I heard that Steele was trying to get an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle made. Makes you wonder what it may have been like...." Oh, I think we both know, Huw: *highly watchable*. Ah, Barbara Steele...a woman who can make male horror-nerds swoon like Victorian ladies. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I think you have The Blood on Satan's Claw in mind, Craig. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.247 |
Ah, yes! That's it Ramsey. The one I think, where it ends up the children of the town were... I think they were all... yes, I think so. And now I'm flashing to an old Spanish film with a similar plot-reveal - set in an orphanage, 19th Century - girls are disappearing one by one - nearly the whole movie goes by and no other protagonist is even aware anyone's vanished (except the audience, of course, having seen them all killed) - which one's that one now?... And Now The Screaming Starts came to mind, but I looked that one up, and that's not it.... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
La Residencia aka The House That Screamed? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
'Blood On Satan's Claw' is one of my favourite horror films of all time but I can't imagine it being based on a Shirley Jackson novel. It's one of those films that creates its own otherworldly atmosphere. You know you're watching pure pulp horror but the attention to detail and sense of period history somehow negates that. A masterpiece in my humble opinion! Which reminds me of 'The Claw' which I just finished last night. Pulpy in parts and undeniably patchy compared to the novels written around the same time - but still, Intense or what! Already read the first chapter of 'The Vodi' and my first thought is 'Free Fall' by my favourite author William Golding. There is that same (1950s) sense of a new found psychological and sexual freedom in the writing. I know I'm going to love this novel... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.247 |
That's the one again, Ramsey! I had "scream" on the mind. Haven't seen this one in many years... wonder if it still holds up?... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Speaking of attention to detail, I'm currently reatching old Hammer films and even the mediocre ones are elevated by the love that went into their production. This week I watched Scars of Dracule and Rasputin the Mad Monk. The former is actually quite brutal, and the latter features an amazing performance by Christopher Lee. Really, really good stuff - better than I remember from late-night TV screenings in my childhood. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I'm collecting all the lovely rereleases of the old Hammer/Amicus/Tigon/Planet etc British genre movies of that period. Wonderful cinema!! I think 'Witchfinder General' & 'Blood On Satan's Claw' are my favourites. Both Tigon and both beautiful productions with a really convincing feel for the period they were depicting - brutal, grimy and riddled with superstition. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
Witchfinder General is an amazing film. Bleak, grubby and unrepentant in its sombre tone. I love it. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.194.192 |
Zed, I keep meaning to rewatch Rasputin the Mad Monk - thanks for reminding me! I love the old Hammer films too. The Reptile is one I'm very fond of, although many seem to have a low opinion of it. Other favourites - Quatermass and the Pit, The Devil Rides Out, The Mummy, Horror of Dracula, Plague of the Zombies, Night Creatures, Paranoiac, The Curse of Frankenstein... and many I must be forgetting. One of the strangest entries must be The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.231.93 |
Quatermass and the Pit is easily my favourite of all the Hammers. That apparition at the end can't be outdone for sheer cosmic impact. Curiously, some appear to find it laughable because it is a little cross-eyed. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
The Reptile is one of my favourites, too. I know Mark Morris also loves it. Q and the Pit is another lovely film. I'm a huge fan of Curse of the Werewolf, Dracula prince of Darkness and Frankenstein Created Woman. Oh, they're all good really, aren't they?  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.253.224 |
I seem to remember reading on the box that QUATERMASS AND THE PIT was the Hammer film that put them on the world map, and one of their biggest hits. It is perhaps the best of all of Hammer - the cheeseball sfx during one sequence are indeed laughable, and yet.... Now there was a Quatermass TV series later, in Britain, right? It was like a miniseries? I see that over at my local library - is it a good one? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.251 |
Craig - all the Quatermasses are worth watching, but the last one, either known as 'The Quatermass Conclusion'in its abbreviated form or Quatermass in its full four 50 minute long episodes, was written in the late 60s but didn't get filmed until the late 70s and the script was a bit dated by then. It also suffers because it was meant to be set at Stonehenge but filming was refused so Kneale had to create 'Ringstone Round'. Nevertheless for all its shortcomings (that means you Barbara Kellerman!) it's worth a watch, if only as another attempt to depict the whole of mankind as something so insignificant as to be merely the (rest deleted in case you don't like spoilers) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
I'll echo John's words. Quatermass is ace - even the 1970s series. Wasn't The Quatermass Experiment (Hammer's first big hit, I think) basically a film adaptation of Kneale's TV series? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I have very fond memories of watching the John Mills 'Quatermass' series when it first aired and look forward to seeing it again. I remember us all loving it in school and avidly talking about it for weeks. Very gritty and visceral if I remember correctly and - like all Kneale's TV productions I've seen - genuinely unsettling. Must get the DVD! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
All three Hammer 'Quatermass' movies are absolute classics of paranoid sci-fi/horror but their version of 'Quatermass And The Pit' was certainly the character's finest hour. I include all the equally brilliant TV productions in that - even the recent remake. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.24 |
Zed - Hammer's Quatermass Xperiment was a stripped down version of Kneale's six parter with a Val Guest screenplay simplifying the story and crucially changing the ending so that instead of Quatermass appealing to what was left of the three astronauts inside the creature to kill themselves and thus destroy it instead Brian Donlevy electrocutes it. Richard Landau gets credit as co-writer but apparently the legend goes he was brought in to make it understandable to Americans. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.5.136 |
Cool, thanks John, and others - I'll check it out then. Has someone here mentioned an even earlier radio series?... Wasn't that how it all started over there in Britain?... |