I Met a Murderer

I once met a murderer.  Of course, I didn't know then that he was a murderer.  To be absolutely fair, at that point he hadn't murdered anyone.  That came later.  It was to do with the job I was doing at the time - this was someone I had to visit at their home in order to serve papers on them.  Nothing criminal, just run of the mill minor league civil stuff.  He lived in an upstairs flat with external access.  It took me a while to get him at home - his downstairs neighbour, an old lady, gave me a steer as to when he was likely to be at home.  In the end I must have dealt with him two or three times on the matter in hand.  I remember that he kept birds, budgies, I think.  He had them in cages in his living room.  They were tweeting away in the background as I explained to him what he needed to do.  (Actually, that's what made me think of him today - I walked past an aviary in a local park that is full of budgies and their tweeting reminded me of that flat).  Months later, maybe more than a year, I saw his picture in the local paper - he had been charged with murder.  All I could think at the time was the he just hadn't seemed the 'type'.  That he had been so meek and mild mannered with me.  The typically insignificant sort of middle aged man you find living in provincial Britain, nothing to mark him out from the rest of the crowd, quietly toiling away in some routine, unfulfilling job and coming home to his birds and patiently waiting for his pension.

The murder itself, of which he was subsequently convicted, was also, sadly, all too typical of contemporary Britain - a domestic incident leaving a woman dead in her own home.  It seems that Mr Ordinary had struck up a relationship with a divorced woman with grown up kids.  When they were alone at her house, some kind of argument had broken out in the kitchen and he hit her - too hard, as it turned out.  He might have used a kitchen implement or she might have fallen and struck her head, I don't recall the details.  The end result was that she was dead.  But instead of calling the police and taking his chances pleading that it had all happened 'in the heat of the moment' - there was always a chance that such a defence might have brought the charge down to manslaughter - he ran away, then came back to the house and pretended to find the body.  He appeared, with her kids, as part of a police appeal for anyone with information about the 'intruder' who killed the woman.  But the police and a subsequent jury clearly didn't believe him and he was charged and convicted.  I kept coming back to my initial reaction that he wasn't the 'type'.  But what is the 'type'?  We've been conditioned for decades by newspapers and fiction to believe that there is a 'type' of person more likely to kill, part of the Victorian's 'criminal class', no doubt, and that they can be 'spotted'.  Yet the truth is that most murders are, like this one, unpremeditated, the consequence of what might otherwise be an inconsequential domestic dispute, or the result of an alcohol fuelled dispute, unfounded jealousy and the like.  They are committed by people just like you and me.  People we would normally walk past in the street, unnoticed.  You never can tell, that's the thing. 

Not a Boat

It's a ship, not a fucking boat, OK?  I know that there is no universally accepted definition of a modern ship as opposed to a boat, a good rule of thumb is that a ship carries bots, but a boat cannot carry a ship.  It's all a matter of scale.  So the vessel that gout stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking all traffic through it for nearly a week was most definitely a ship, not, as many people seem to think, a boat.  In point of fact, it is one of the world's largest container ships.  Having seen one of the world's other biggest container ships close up when I observed it entering Southampton water, I can confirm that these vessels are huge and definitely not boats.  Perhaps it is a function of getting older, but I find myself increasingly irritated by such ignorance of correct nomenclature, particularly in this case - we're meant to be a maritime nation, for God's sake.  Of course, having said that it is all a matter of scale, there is also the matter of location when it comes to defining what a ship is, in that to be a ship, a vessel has to be both large and sail on the open sea.  Some of the bulk carriers which ply locations like the Great Lakes are as big as ocean-going ships, but being confined to inland waterways, are traditionally referred to as boats.  Oh, and submarines, regardless of size, are also traditionally referred to as boats.  (The 'S' in the HMS prefix of Royal Navy subs stands for 'Submarine', not 'Ship').

Back in the days of sail, mind, there was a definition of what constituted a ship: it was a vessel with three square masts.  Anything smaller was defined according to the number and arrangements of of its masts - a brig, a sloop, a ketch and so on.  Back then, boats were anything too small to fall into any of these categories.  The reason I'm going on about this is because this whole 'boat' for 'ship' inaccuracy which has annoyed me typifies the sort of sloppiness which has entered public discourse these days.  Accuracy, it seems, no longer matters, just so long as you are 'sort of' right.  If you correct it, you are being 'pedantic'.  Except that being accurate isn't the same as being pedantic - and there's a lot of that going on these days and it irritates me just as much.  In large part because the so called pedants, in their zealotry are, more often than not, wrong themselves, all too often relying upon 'literalism' or 'received wisdom' rather than facts.  Indeed, that's the fundamental problem that both sides have - in the eagerness to engage in some spurious 'debate' or other, they fail to carry out even the most cursory of research into the subject in hand.  I mean, these days all it takes is a quick skim through some online resources to tell you everything I outlined earlier about definitions of ships and boats, (although I already knew most of it).  So please, have the courtesy to at least arm yourself with some facts before wading into the fight.  And it is still a ship, not a boat.

Jennifer (1978)

Seemingly inspired by Carrie (1976), AIP's 1978 release Jennifer is also reminiscent of Stanley, about a social misfit with power over snakes and even Willard (1971) (which Stanley is arguably an imitation of), the movie about a social misfit with an army of trained rats.  Here the title characted id teenaged girl from a backwoods religious background (sound familiar?) who is a scholarship student at an elite girls' school.  Naturally, she has trouble fitting in, constantly mocked and victimised by fellow students from wealthy backgrounds and resented by the headmistress.  Despite the presence of a sympathetic teacher and the friendship of some older girls on the swimming team, Jennifer finds herself on the receiving end of a relentless series of humiliating and cruel 'practical jokes' from her classmates.

Of course, Jennifer isn't just any regular teen.  She has the 'power', as her hillbilly pet shop-owning father keeps telling her.  As a child, during evangelical church services, she could handle venomous snakes without being bitten - she had power over them.  At first she tries to reject this part of her past, but when the bullying reaches its crescendo, she inevitably invokes it again, in a climax that sees the bullies attacked by poisonous snakes, with one particularly unpleasant boy getting his head bitten off by a giant phantom snake.  Her chief tormentor perishes in a fiery car crash after the giant snake materialises in the back of the car she is trying to escape in.  As cheap exploitation knock offs go, Jennifer isn't a bad film, when judged on its own terms.   It has decent enough production values - even the giant snake heads don't look too bad - and benefits from a decent cast which includes Jeff Corey as Jennifer's father, Bert Convy as the sympathetic science teacher, John Gavin as the .Senator father of the main bully (he filmed this shortly before going into politics for real) and Nina Foch (who back in the forties had been the female lead in a number of horror films for Columbia, including Return of the Vampire and Cry of the Werewolf), as the headmistress.  Lisa Pelikan, playing the title role, gives a strong performance, never playing her character as too much of a victim, so her later turning of the tables doesn't seem out of character.  The film's big problem, though, is that for most of its running time it is simply a pretty standard school bullying drama, the horror and supernatural elements only really manifest in the last few minutes - despite being told that Jennifer has the 'power', we see no actual evidence of this until the climax.  Still, as I said, on its own terms, as a piece of low budget exploitation, Jennifer is perfectly enjoyable, although lacking in originality and completely predictable.

Accent on Action

Another evening disrupted by that bloody washing machine.  I'm getting so tired of this fucking shit.  All I was trying to was to put the towels I had to use to clear up the flooding it caused in my kitchen on Tuesday through the wash and the bloody thing pulled the same stunt again. Trouble was, this time all the towels I needed to mop up the inevitable flood when I pulled out the filter were in the machine.  This time, rather than a mountain of what looked like fluff and gunge causing the blockage, what looked like silt and grit came pouring out as it drained.  I wouldn't mind, but last time I unblocked it, it subsequently quite happily ran the load it had disrupted through a quick wash cycle, without incident.  But this time - another flood.  Using it is becoming like playing Russian roulette.  I know, I know, I should just buy a new washing machine.  But right now, with the lockdown and all that, it can be such a faff getting such things delivered.  I've been hoping that I could nurse this one through until things start to ease, but it is making it very difficult for me to do so.

Anyway, the end result has been another evening disrupted, spent mopping up water from my flooded kitchen floor rather than posting anything here.  I'm really not in the mood to try and write anything meaningful after all the crap that washing machine has caused me tonight.  But I will mention, briefly, something that has recently struck me - the prevalence of British martial arts practitioners in low-budget US action films of the direct-to-DVD variety.  I just caught most of one - in between cleaning up the kitchen - featuring Gary Daniels.  He's turned up here before - he starred in Fist of the North Star, which I talked about a while ago.  This was an earlier entry in his filmography, where he played the villain's chief henchman.  It is always slightly disconcerting to suddenly hear an English accent in what is otherwise a US production, (a real Brit accent, that is, not one of those crap sub-Dick Van Dyke fake accents you sometimes here - like in the preceding film, which had an international cast with dubbing so bad that it was a constant case of trying to guess what accent characters were meant to be speaking with).  I had such an experience last week, when I stumbled into a 2017 action flick called The Debt Collector part way through.  

The whole thing seemed so obviously American - the brightly lit California locations, the cars, etc, then the leading man opened his mouth and I was started to hear him speaking with an English accent and spouting British slang.  This time around, the lead was Scott Adkins, late of Sutton Coldfield, who, apparently, stars in a lot of these films, (it isn't a genre I usually watch, so I'm generally not familiar with the regular participants).  I subsequently managed to see the film all the way through - apart from being pleasantly surprised that it was actually pretty good, I also learned that not only did it have a British lead, but his co-star what sounded like a New York accent was actually played by an Australian and their boss was played by a Czech actor, the director is from Winchester, just down the road from me.  Despite a surprisingly down beat ending, (in comparison to much of what had preceded it), it turned out to popular enough to spawn a sequel last year, known variously as The Debt Collector 2, The Debt Collectors and Payback.  Adkins - who, on the basis of this film, is a somewhat better actor than most of these martial arts guys, demonstrating a genuine charisma and screen presence beyond his obvious fighting skills - is the latest in a long line of British martial arts experts who have carved a niche for themselves in these sorts of film.  I suppose its either that or the US pro wrestling scene if you want to make any money from such skills.  Whatever the reason for their success, it is nice to know that we can still export something.

Schlock Round Up

OK, so I said that I was going to get back to the pop culture/schlock stuff, didn't I?  Unfortunately, I've just had to spend what felt like hours dealing with a blocked filter on my washing machine (and, of course, the inevitable flooded kitchen when the blocked filter is removed), which took longer than usual because the whatever-it-was blocking it actually jammed the filter as I removed it - in the end it required pliers to pull the filter out completely.  So, rather than giving any detailed analyses of individual films I've recently seen, I thought I'd give a quick round up of some of the stuff I've streamed of late.  First up, low budget contemporary zombie films.  I was pretty disparaging about this sub-genre a while ago, complaining that, in common with most modern low budget horrors, they look as if they have been filmed on a phone, feature atrocious sound quality and worse acting.  Moreover, there's never anything original about them - decent zombie films are actually difficult to make without repeating the same old established formula.  Now, Plan Z, which I saw recently, does indeed look like it was filmed on the star/director/writers phone, but it gets marks for an attempt at originality in its approach.  For one thing, it actually tries to make something of its UK setting, with the country's lack of firearms meaning that the walking dead have to be messily dispatched with cricket bats, knives, tyre irons and the like, putting the living protagonists at considerable peril. Also, the grainy and shaky shot-on-a-phone look makes sense as it is presented as the personal chronicle of the main character's plan to deal with the zombie apocalypse, ('Plan Z'), related in first person voice over.  The performances of the main cast aren't going to win any awards, but are above average for this sort of production.

Battle of the Bones - I'm not sure where to start with this one.  Again, it looks suspiciously like a large scale home movie, with the director's mates and neighbours providing the cast.  The photography is grainy, the sound tinny and dialogue often barely audible.  Not that any of it is particularly memorable.  The film is rated very poorly in many online quarters, yet I'm loathe to lay the boot in.  Not only was it made with obvious enthusiasm, but it does have some original touches.  For one thing, it is made and set in Northern Ireland and clearly wants to make a statement about the sectarian divide there: rival Nationalist and Unionist factions are eventually brought together with the security forces to defeat an outbreak of 'zombies'.   I say 'zombies' because, rather than the traditional living dead, these are the result of experimental drugs stolen from a lab, which turn those who have taken them into blood-thirsty homicidal maniacs.  As well as being zombie movie fans, the makers are clearly also fans of martial arts movies, as everyone in Belfast appears to be well-versed in said fighting techniques.  Indeed, large parts of the film consist of running fights between the trio of heroes and various gangs - nationalist, Unionist and zombie.  Actually, while seemingly incongruous in the context of a zombie film, the fight sequences are actually pretty well staged and choreographed.  So, while Battle of the Bones left me shaking my head in disbelief that such a thing ever got released to a streaming service, I couldn't help but feel a soft spot for its eccentricities and its attempt to do something different with a genre which all too frequently feels as if it is just gong through the motions of turning out pale copies of George Romero films.

As a complete change of pace, a quick look at Blood Bath, not a zombie film but an anthology film from exploitation veteran Joel M Reed (best known for Bloodsucking Freaks).  Despite being made in 1975, the film looks as if it were made at least ten years earlier, (and, indeed, shouldn't be confused with the 1966 Stephanie Rothman horror film Blood Bath).  Obviously shot on a very low budget, Blood Bath really doesn't have the resources to emulate what are clearly its inspiration - the Amicus anthology films of the sixties and seventies.  It doesn't help that it was made just as the whole horror anthology sub-genre was pretty much playing itself out, with the film feeling like a half-hearted addendum to an exhausted format.  Personally, I've never really been a fan of the format - the individual episodes rarely have sufficient running time to develop characters or scenarios, let alone develop any suspense, with their denouements all too often feeling perfunctory.  The better of the Amicus anthologies tended to be written by Robert Bloch, adapting his own short stories, which provided the ideal source material for the individual episodes, with their twist endings.  Unfortunately, none of the four episodes of Blood Bath are particularly strong or memorable, with a couple not even really being horror stories at all, even the couple that feature supernatural elements are neither shocking nor macabre in the way one might expect from this sort of film.  The framing narrative which bookends the stories is initially intriguing, with the cast and director of a low budget horror film discussing the existence of the supernatural, with each story supposedly proving that it either does or doesn't exist.  Of course, the director is a hiding a secret, revealed in the film's final sequences, which calls back to the opening.  The closest thing to a star the film can muster is Harve Presnell as the director, delivering a suitably hammy performance.  The rest of the cast are adequate for what they have to do.  In the final analysis, Blood Bath is one of those films which, in its undemanding way, is actually quite enjoyable while it is on, but which is quickly forgotten - perfect for late night viewing after a few beers.

So, there you have it, a brief round up of some of my recent schlocky viewing.  Hopefully I'll be able to do some more in-depth posts about some individual tittles soon.  Washing machine permitting, obviously.

Disposing of the Evidence

I frequently wish that I could remember more of my dreams.  Even when I do recall them, usually when I've been awoken in the middle of them, the memory quickly fades, leaving me with only a vague impression of what it was about, rather than any details, which I always find frustrating.  Sometimes, I'm left with enough details to tantalise me for the rest of the day as to what the whole thing had been about.  Such was the case today, when I was abruptly woken from a dream by the sound of my phone receiving a text message - at 7:15 in the morning.  (I have a friend who habitually texts me before nine o'clock - the earliest hour at which I can usually begin to comprehend such things - I should be thankful that this time it wasn't a Saturday).  Anyway, I was left with enough details of the dream that I had been wrenched from to intrigue me all day: it seems that I was busy disposing of the evidence.  Evidence of what, I don't remember, but I did seem to be disposing of large numbers of paper files and documents.  By burning them in my garden incinerator, I think.  Oh, I had help - my cat.  Obviously, I don't have a cat in my waking life, but in this dream I apparently did and he was clearly a very talented and helpful feline.  Quite unlike a real cat.  

I just wish I could remember what all that stuff I was disposing of actually was.  Was it incriminating financial records?  Incriminating of who?  Me?  The cat?  I suspect that the dream might have had something to do with having watched Line of Duty on Sunday evening, the sort of programme that always makes one paranoid.  Of course, it could also have been inspired by the memory of my having actually burned a lot of old paperwork and documents that were cluttering up my house a couple of years ago.  A process during which I narrowly avoided setting myself and the house on fire when the wind changed and a strong gust blew a sheet of flame toward me from the open top of the incinerator.  I've been pondering incinerating some more old papers of late, which might well have stirred those memories and triggered the dream.  Although the co-operative cat remains a mystery.  As for the text message that disturbed the dream, despite the early hour it was nothing urgent.  Just the usual back-and-forth that amuses myself and my early-rising friend.  Anyway, at some point I really have to get back to writing about some of the pop culture stuff I've been consuming recently - I just haven't felt the motivation to write it up of late.  But before I can get back to it, there are a few real-life things I have to follow up, including a possible opportunity for some paid work.

Flagging Up Offence

I wipe my arse on the Union Jack daily.  I just thought that I'd put that out there in the hope that it will be read by some right wing, Daily Mail reading rabid tosspot, who will then have an apoplectic fit, collapsing, foaming at the mouth and clutching their chest as they turn blue and expire on their living room floor.  Because, you know, we've got to start 'thinning the herd' of these Brexiteering fascist enablers and what better way than by turning their own self-righteousness against them?  As I've noted before, despite the right's penchant for calling anyone on the left who has an opinion about something a 'snowflake', it is they who seem to be over-sensitive, over-reacting to any little thing that upsets them.  For the right, even the most modest criticism of the establishment becomes a heinous personal slight.  Of course, I don't really wipe my arse with the Union Jack, (and, yes, I do know that it is correctly called the Union Flag - a 'Jack' is what it is flown from on a ship), it is far too rough, for one thing, but I figured that if so many of them could get so upset by a mild joke about the size of a cabinet minister's flag by a BBC presenter, then the idea of using it like toilet paper would surely prove fatally upsetting to them. 

For this is their Kryptonite, their Achilles Heel, the chink in their armour - their over-sensitivity.  It will be, quite literally, the death of them.  We just need to get them upset enough.  What is needed is a concerted campaign on social media of people abusing the Union Flag - burning it, wanking off into it, using to wipe down sweaty and panting prostitutes, (a sight many Tory MPs must surely be familiar with).  Perhaps followed up by videos of people drawing moustaches on pictures of HM The Queen.  That should really get them riled up, eh?  Or better yet - doctored pictures of The Queen showing her as black.  If that doesn't have them turning purple and suffering strokes, I don't know what will.  But, to be slightly serious, this faux, over-exagerrated 'patriotism' on the part of the right, whereby no criticism of flag, Royal Family, Empire or Winston Churchill will be tolerated, really is pathetic.  It is also dangerous.  Indeed, anyone deemed 'unpatriotic' by dint of questioning or criticising any of the aforementioned, runs the risk of being 'cancelled'.  That's right, the much vaunted 'cancel culture' is actually being enacted by the right, not the left.  Of course, because they are in power, it means that they can actually shut down debates and discussions of these thing in academic institutions and other public forums.  Which makes it all the more important that we seize this window of opportunity to kill some of the bastards off by grossly offending them, before they cancel us.

The Deadly Mantis (1957)

After giant ants (Them!) and a giant spider (Tarantula!), I suppose the next logical step in monster movies was a giant preying mantis.  While perhaps not as well remembered as many of the other monster movies of its era, The Deadly Mantis is, nonetheless, a solid entry in Universal's latter day horror cycle.  It follows a pretty much standard template, with a prehistoric creature frozen in the Arctic ice unexpectedly awoken and subsequently rampaging down the US East Coast.  As with most of these films, the human leads are easily forgotten, but the monster lingers in the memory.  For a B-movie the effects are actually quite impressive, utilising models of the mantis in varying sizes either against miniature sets or matted into the live action.  The effects are weakest when the creature is shown in flight, but when it is on the ground, it is pretty effective.  That said, to humans at least, the preying mantis, no matter how big, isn't the most menacing of threats.

Efficiently directed by Nathan Juran, The Deadly Mantis was to be the first of many science fiction and monster movies he directed, (several with stop motion master Ray Harryhausen).  Of course, the film has the usual problem of credibility when it comes to its monster - giant insects are a physiological impossibility.  Their size is limited by the fact that they breath via a series of holes - spiracles - in their sides, relying upon the natural movements of air molecules to move it in and out of their bodies.  If they grew to the size of something like the mantis in the film, not only would this passive form of 'breathing' be ineffective, but the spiracles would most likely collapse under the weight of their bodies.  Which, of course, is why vertebrates like reptiles and mammals evolved with lungs,  Now, if it had been a mutated mantis, then maybe it could have a set of lungs as part of its mutation and be able to grow to giant proportions...

Under Construction

As there hasn't been anything model railway related here of late, I thought that I'd give a brief update on a couple of ongoing projects, in this case a pair of unrebuilt Bullied Pacifics I've been putting together.  Both are being constructed from various Triang/Hornby components I've acquired over the years.  The first of them started out this way, as an unfinished loco and tender body from the last version put out by Hornby's Margate factory before it closed and production was moved to China:
 

At one time you could pick these up very cheaply on eBay - they were surplus stocks after the factory closure.  These were part of a set of two that I bought, complete with tender chassis and wheels..  I eventually obtained loco chassis, minus motor, suitable for this version of the body, (at least two different types of chassis were used with it over the years), consequently, the project now looks like this:

The tender's high sides have been cut down, as the originals were during the late fifties and early sixties, while the chassis has acquired an old Hornby XO4 motor I had spare and has had its pick ups rewired.  The tender still needs some work - the brake cylinders need a cover and ladders need adding.  Once that's done, the whole thing will be ready for the paint shop, (the loco body has already received a black undercoat).  I still have no idea what name and number it will carry when complete.  Meanwhile, another Bullied Pacific is nearing completion:

This one uses an earlier, Triang, version of the chassis, dating back to the sixties.  Originally, I had intended to use a body and tender constructed from the old Airfix (originally Kitmaster, later Dapol) plastic kit, but had real problems getting it to fit properly.  Consequently, I managed to get hold of an older version of the Triang-Hornby body, (judging by the livery, it dates to the early seventies), and used the other Margate Hornby tender I'd bought with those used on the first model.  I decided to leave it in original condition, to represent one of the locomotives that retained the high sided tender into the early sixties.  Apart from needing the removal of a broken smoke unit and a rewiring of the pick ups, the chassis, complete with original XO4 motor, is in good condition and runs nicely.  This one is pretty much ready to be painted and lined.  It will probably end up depicting 34057 'Biggin Hill', mainly because I have a set of nameplates for this locomotive and it was, I believe, still running with an unmodified tender in the sixties.

All of which leaves me with a spare late model Hornby loco body and the Airfix body and tender.  A third Bullied might yet remerge from these - I already have a basic Hornby chassis of the later Margate type, (driving wheels and connecting rods, but no bogie, pony truck or valve gear), and a later-type motor which could, with an adaptor, be fitted into it.  

As for the layout itself, the rewiring to a simple cab control system is curently on hiatus as I await the delivery of some more wire.  I decided that, in order to keep things clear, I needed some different coloured wiring than that used for the track connections, for the connections between the different controllers and the switches.  Otherwise, it is all going to get overly confusing.

No Escape

I didn't watch that Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan.  In fact, I went out of my way to avoid it, as I do most media 'events' of this sort.  So why do I feel as if I did see it?  Likewise, I don't subscribe to Disney +, so didn't see WandaVision.  Yet, once again, I feel s if I saw every episode and can give you a blow-by-blow description of every plot twist.  But that's the thing about modern mass media: it is all pervasive.  No matter how hard you try, you just can't avoid these 'events'.  Even if you don't see them directly, they are reported on everywhere, in detail, so that it becomes impossible not to know about them.  I find it especially annoying when it comes to celebrity culture, into which bracket that Oprah interview falls, as it is something I am supremely uninterested in.  I'm always left asking exactly why I'm meant to be interested in the lives of these people?  I mean, are any of them engaged in activities which are going to change peoples' lives for the better/worse?  Have any of them, in the past, done anything remotely worthwhile?  Are any of them likely to do anything significant in the foreseeable future?  I think that we all know the answers to those questions.  In the main, they are simply famous for being famous.  Yet their lives are flaunted in our faces, wherever we look, as if they somehow matter  more than any 'ordinary' person's.  

As a result of this relentless media bombardment, I find myself recognising various 'celebrities' whose 'work' I have never seen, knowing intimate details of their lives.  Indeed, these days it comes as a relief when I see a celebrity story and I can still say to myself: 'I don't know who any of these people are.'  I'm sure that this celebrity media overload has been exacerbated by the pandemic.  With everything locked down people have more time on their hands and are desperately looking for ways to fill their time - with less newsworthy stuff happening, (outside of the pandemic), celebrities re an obvious way to fill the column inches.  The trouble is that they are as 'locked down' as everyone else and not actually 'doing' anything, hence the tsunami of crap concerning the details of their, actually rather dull, lives. Likewise, just watching a new TV series isn't enough - its every aspect has to be pored over and dissected in order to fill out media articles.  When there is a news story, it tends to be magnified and given significance by outlets and the public in a way that it probably wouldn't be in normal times.  Hence, the disappearance and murder of a woman in London which, in other times would probably have been viewed as another appalling tragedy, the like of which seems all too common, suddenly becomes a rallying point for various campaigns and results in mass disturbances and confrontations with the police.  Like I said, with modern media making everything all pervasive, there's just no escaping anything any more.

Terror (1978)

Continuing the Norman J Warren theme from yesterday, here's the trailer for the late director's 1978 horror film Terror.  Taking its inspiration from Argento's recently released Suspiria, it is a sort of supernatural-themed giallo.  I recall that this one, along with Satan's Slave and Inseminoid, has even had an outing on the BBC, which was, I think, the last time that I saw it.  Very slick looking and, for such a low budget film, pretty stylishly put together, it packs a lot into its eighty four minute running time.  While there are times when it looks like a series of only tangentially related horrific/suspenseful vignettes loosely strung together, it all sort of makes sense in the end.  It kicks off in vigourous fashion  with a witch burning and all sorts of supernatural shenanigans, which is then revealed to be the climax of a film directed by the descendant of the witch burner in chief, immediately disorientating the viewer.  The rest of the film rushes us through a series of bizarre and often gory murders, with  the supernatural elements becoming ever more prevalent as the witch's curse upon the descendants of her persecutors takes effect.

Scripted by David McGillivray - who had also scripted Warren's Satan's Slave, along with a whole host of assorted sex films and Pete Walker pictures - Terror includes a film studio sequence (always a good budget-saver) featuring a typical British sex film shoot.  It all culminates with the director being crushed to death by a falling lamp, while another character is attacked by film props, strangled by some reels of film and finally decapitated by a sheet of glass.  There's more sleazy action centering on a strip club and a possessed police car.  The effects work depicting the poltergeist-style activity is actually pretty well done, while various familiar British TV faces, including William Russell, Glynis Barber, Michael Craze and even Peter 'Chewbacca' Mayhew put in appearances.  Like all of Warren's films, Terror is a lot of fun while it is on - there's nothing especially original or ground-breaking about it, but it is all very nicely done.

Norman J Warren Remembered

I heard today that Norman J Warren had died.  Purely by coincidence I caught the end of his sex comedy Spaced Out (aka Outer Touch) on one of the streaming channels last night. As it turned out, a fitting epitaph.  Like many of his films, it might well have been made on a shoestring and was never going to win a BAFTA, it was a lot of fun, with Warren, as ever making the most of his meagre resources.  By his own admission Warren - who, in interviews, always came across as the nicest person working in exploitation - had never intended to pursue a career of directing exploitation movies, but realised that it was likely the only way he was going to get to direct films of his own, so he embraced it wholeheartedly.  His films, often made with next to no budgets and under very trying circumstances, are always professionally made: excellent photography, sound quality and editing, good performances from some very decent, if not exactly megastar, actors.  Every shot feels well composed, every scene moving the plot along.  They really are exemplary in terms of low budget film making.

Occasionally, Warren would get a bigger budget and higher profile stars - his Alien-inspired Inseminoid, financed by Shaw Brothers, boasted a cast recognisable from British TV and very decent production values.  It also received better distribution than his other films and did reasonable business at the box-office.  I have to say, though, that I much prefer another of his science fiction films, Prey - a lower key and far more effective effort that turns up on the 'Horror Channel' every so often.  One of the most impressive aspects of Warren's output is its range, from his early sex movies, through Hammer-style horrors like Satan's Slave (another 'Horror Channel' regular), science fiction, a sex comedy and even an attempt at a UK Argento-style giallo in Terror.  While Warren will probably never enjoy the same stature and reputation as other British genre directors like Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis or even John Gilling, he deserves to be remembered as one of a band of independent British directors, (including Pete Walker and Derek Ford), who somehow managed to get low budget genre pictures actually made and into cinemas during the 1970s, as the rest of the British film industry stumbled.  So, RIP Norman J Warren - I, for one, will fondly remember his contribution to British exploitation and continue to enjoy his films.

Definitely Not Batman

 

Not to be confused with DC's contemporaneous Batman, the Black Bat ('Masked Nemesis of Crime'), dressed as a bat and brought justice to otherwise untouchable criminals in a US city.  Of course, Batman was a comic strip, while the Black Bat was a character in a series of novels published in the pulp magazine Black Book Detective.  The owners of both characters claimed that the other was a copy, but they both appeared, apparently by coincidence, around the same time in 1939.  Actually, this Black Bat should also not be confused with an earlier pulp magazine Black Bat.  The earlier character, though, didn't dress in a costume, being more akin to The Saint and similar gentleman secret crime fighters.  While he might not have been related to Batman, the second Black Bat has some interesting similarities to some other comic book characters.  His alter-ego is a DA, blinded in an acid attack by a gangster, (shades of Batman's Harvey Dent, who became Two-Face after an acid attack), who is eventually given a corneal transplant, restoring his sight.  He subsequently finds that not only can he see in the dark, but that his period of blindness has helped him accentuate his other senses, resulting in him becoming a masked crime fighter.  All of which sounds suspiciously like the later DC character Daredevil - a blind DA who moonlights as a masked crime fighter, his remaining senses accentuated.

In common with the early Batman, Black Bat spent his time fighting ordinary criminals, rather than flamboyant masked criminals.  As World War Two progressed, he increasingly found himself up against Nazi spies, saboteurs and fifth columnists.  His adventures in Black Book Detective lasted until 1953, covering sixty four novels, with a sixty fifth left unpublished at the time of the pulp's demise.  AS with many pulp magazines, the stories were usually published under a 'house name', (in this case G Wayman Jones), but in most cases were the work of Norman A Daniels, a prolific contributor to the pulps, later moving into radio and TV scripts.  Thrilling Publications, the company behind Black Book Detective (and a plethora of other pulps), also published comic books, often based on characters from their pulps, but, due to the issues over the Batman character, didn't produce a Black Bat strip.  They did, however, publish a strip about a character called The Mask, whose adventures were directly based on the Black Bat stories published in Black Book Magazine.  So, there you are, a pulp character who definitely wasn't Batman, but who seems to have had an influence, nevertheless, on subsequent comics characters, Black Bat, despite having a long run in the pulps, is nowadays all but forgotten, while his comics rival is still going strong.  A fate shared by most of the great pulp heroes from the forties and fifties.  Even The Shadow seems to have fallen by the wayside, along with other former titans of pulp, like Doc Savage and Captain Future. 

Sex Dolls of Horror

Watching Umberto Lenzi's Spasmo the other week left me pondering the extent to which sex dolls have featured in horror films.  Look, don't judge me - it's been a long lockdown and the mind constantly seeks new avenues of enquiry.  Anyway, in the aforementioned Spasmo they feature quite prominently, with various abused sex dolls (hanged from trees, tied to tress and stabbed etc) turning up throughout the film.  (Although, it turns out that they aren't central to the main plot, acting more as a red herring).  Then, of course, there's the fat guy in his underpants being stalked around his house as he carries a deflated sex doll over his arm in Strip Nude For Your Killer.  But are there any instances in exploitation films of possessed and murderous sex dolls?  I mean, it would seem an obvious sort of suspense sequence to have a guy start 'getting to work' on one when it suddenly comes to life and suffocates him mid vinegar stroke.  Ever since I first saw an advert for the things in an illicit porn magazine my friends and I were looking at in our early teens, I've thought them to be bloody creepy looking, particularly their faces with those mouths in a constant expression of surprise.  Actually, to be absolutely honest, the very first time I encountered an ad for sex dolls, there was no photograph accompanying it, just a line drawing giving the impression that what you were getting was a life sized anatomically correct and realistic woman.  Which, to a kid in his early teens attending a single sex school, seemed like a brilliant idea - why go through all the awkwardness and complications of meeting a real girl who might, or more probably might not, have sex with you, when you could simply buy a realistic substitute?

Later in the magazine, of course, there were photographic ads for other sex dolls, which left me greatly disappointed - the idea of shagging a vaguely woman-shaped beach inflatable held little allure.  But, to get back to the point - have they featured as monsters in any exploitation flicks?  After all, they are inherently creepy looking and could provide the basis for some decent shock sequences.  You could have them floating silently through windows to surprise victims, for instance, or slowly looming up from behind sofas as they inflate.  I know that the argument against them would be that they are too easily despatched - one small prick, so to speak, or a lit cigarette and they're gone.  But Hell, if they were  supernaturally possessed, then would that be a problem?  Perhaps a science fiction approach might be better.  I always thought that they missed a trick in Dr Who when the Autons, basically any plastic product acting as a vessel for the alien Nestene Intelligence, didn't manifest themselves as sex dolls - or even other sex toys.  One of my scariest TV experiences as a child was those shop dummies coming to life, crashing through a shop window and killing all those people in a bus queue.  (In Salisbury, there were a row of busy bus stops on Blue Boar Row, directly in front of the plate glass windows of Style and Gerrish, later Debenhams - for months after that Dr Who story I wouldn't turn my back on the dummies in that window display when I was waiting for the 57 bus there with my mother).  That and the plastic daffodil that tried to suffocate Katy Manning.  Imagine if those had been sex dolls or an alien possessed dildo trying to choke someone?  OK, maybe that's a scenario for the more adult-orientated Dr Who spin-off Torchwood, but my point stands: possessed sex toys and especially blow up sex dolls, represent an untouched potential goldmine for horror films.

The Cat in the Coal Scuttle Helmet

So, Dr Seuss' publisher has decided to 'retire' some of his books and withdraw them from print because of the outdated and offensive racial stereotypes they perpetuate.  Yeah, well I always thought that The Jig Who Liked to Dig was a bit much, ('Dig, Jig, Dig!'), he and his friend, 'The Chink Who Liked to Blink', ('Blink, Chink,Blink!'), were just a step too far and could never understand how the book had lasted so long in publication.  Of course, in reality, none of the offensive stereotypes were quite that blatant.  I must admit that, not having read anything by Dr Seuss in decades (his works are a bit out of my age range), that I was mildly surprised to read this news, (my immediate reaction was that I couldn't remember The Cat in the Hat donning a coal scuttle helmet and disrupting the homes of Jewish kids by scrawling swastikas on the walls).  A lot of the controversy apparently centres around the depiction of Chinese people - at least one of the now retired titles featured a Chinese boy as being, quite literally, yellow and sporting a pigtail and coolie hat, (interestingly, later editions removed the yellow and pigtail, indicating that there had long been an understanding on the part of editors as to the potential for offense in the face of changing attitudes).  Inevitably, this news brought the right wing knee jerk reactionaries out in force, with their usual battle cries of 'cancel culture', 'wokeness gone mad' and 'free speech'.  All nonsense, as usual - nobody has actually banned, or suggested banning these works, the rights holder has simply decifded to let them go out of print.

The reality us that much literature, particularly children's literature, falls by the wayside as it becomes outdated and seems irrelevant to modern children.  Indeed, the endurance of some remains a mystery - the works of Roald Dahl are chock full of offensive anti-Semitic and racial stereotypes, (removing them is a major task for those adapting his books for film and TV has become a major task).  But Dahl still enjoys some sort of 'beloved British children's author' status and, for the time being, seems untouchable.  (personally, even as a child, I found something slightly 'creepy' about his fiction).  But it isn't just outdated racial stereotypes that can date children's literature.  I recall, decades ago, someone doing a class-based analysis of the Reverend Awdry's Thomas the Tank Engine stories, noting that the railway on the Isle of Sodor is run along class lines, with the locomotives at the top of hierarchy, lording it over the rolling stock, (for which they provide the 'motive power', ie 'finance'), which was divided into nice, compliant and well behaved middle class coaches and uncouth troublesome trucks and wagons which, like the real working classes, had to be treated roughly and 'kept in line'. 

Actually, I always thought that it was a lot more complex than this, with clearly defined class divisions amongst the locomotives.  The small tank engines, like Thomas and Percy, who spend their time shunting and working branchlines are clearly cheeky cheery working class types, whereas express passenger locos like Gordon and Henry see themselves as superior and lord it over them.  A mixed traffic engine, like James the Red Engine, is clearly middle class, looked down upon by the express engines, but maintaining an air of superiority with regard to the tank engines.  James, (who I never liked), is also something of a social climber, with aspirations to top link work and frequently tries to curry favour with the express engines.  I have to say, though, that when I read (and loved) those books as a child, none of this ever occurred to me - they were just stories about trains.

Scandal Proof?

It's all down to the internet, apparently.  The reason that our political leaders nowadays seem immune to scandal, that is.  At least, that was the claim made in an article I read the other day. According to this thesis, the way that everything is quickly turned into a meme by social media, means that public anger over the issue dissipates as the meme runs its course.  Basically, it seems to be saying that the internet and, specifically social media, has created a generation of people with short attention spans - conditioned by memes and the like to believe that every phenomena and news story has a finite and short lifespan.  To follow this logic, this would explain why many have quickly tired of lockdowns and the like, as the whole pandemic has 'outstayed its welcome', lasting longer than a meme should.  Personally, I really don't think that this theory holds water.  Particularly with regard to political scandals.  The reason that politicans seem better able to weather such things these days has more to do with the fact that society itself has changed, not to mention political culture and the whole media landscape. Back in the eighties, if you recall, one of Mrs Thatcher's mot valued cronies, Cecil Parkinson, was forced to resign when it became known that he had gotten his secretary pregnant.  Would that happen today?  Probably not.  I mean, just look at the moral degenerate currently in residence at Number Ten, who can't even tell you how many children he has by various women.  

But times have changed.  For one thing, the Thatcher government had been elected, in part, upon a moral agenda, emphasising good old 'Victorian Values', (although one might argue that wealthy authority figures knocking up the help was the very epitome of 'Victorian Values').  This, after all, was the era of moral panics over 'Video Nasties' corrupting our children, 'Satanic' child abuse rings and school children being insidiously indoctrinated with homosexuality by their teachers.  So Parkinson who, ironically, had been one of the architects of this particular strategy, really had no choice but to go.  Particularly as much of the print press (which was still where most people got their news) were squarely behind Thatcher's moral crusade.  It is notable that, following Thatcher's fall, British politics became more openly sleazy, with palms being greased left, right and centre. Moreover, public opinion on issues of personal morality changed, the role of the church as a moral arbiter declined further, attitudes toward homosexuality relaxed, the whole concept of marriage as an ideal form of relationship waned.  Political parties based their campaigns less and less upon moral issues - even when they did touch on morals, it had far more to do with the 'morality' of claiming benefits and a resurrection of the idea of the 'undeserving poor', rather than personal conduct.

On top of all that, the print media made an even more decisive lurch to the right, but not the right of 'conservative values', but rather the right of libertarianism, where personal freedom trumped traditional concepts of morality and sexual conduct.  At the same time, as their print sales declined, they started setting up even more rabidly right-wing web sites. Hence, what once might have been seen as 'scandalous' behaviour, whether it be sexual misconduct, financial irregularity or even bullying, has become accepted as the 'norm' and will no longer be enough, on its own, to bar someone from public office.  After all, the whole phone-hacking business didn't become a public 'scandal', until the offending tabloids were seen as having 'crossed a line' by hacking the phone of a murdered child.  At one time, the mere invasion of privacy would have been enough to result in outrage.  But times change. It's no good blaming technology for making politicians seemingly scandal-proof, any more than it is trying to pretend that things like stalking and bullying didn't exist before the advent of social media.  All the technology has done is give the offenders a new set of tools to abuse with - Twitter rather than poison pen letters, for instance, or Facebook posts rather than graffiti on toilet walls .  The end result, for those on the receiving end, is no different.

The Alligator People (1959)

It's funny the films you find yourself watching in the early hours of the morning.  The other day it was The Alligator People (1959).  It's one of those films which feels as if it was part Universal's 1950s revival of their B-movie horror series, which included such entries as Creature From the Black Lagoon, Tarantula, The Deadly Mantis and The Thing That Couldn't Die, all of which were 'creature focused.  Yet, in reality, it was a Twentieth Century Fox production, made to form the lower half of a double bill with Fox's Return of the Fly.  Indeed, The Alligator People has clear parallels with the Fly films, in that sees a man reluctantly transformed into a monster as the result of having his genes mixed with those of an animal.  The biggest difference being that in the case of the Fly series, the mutation is the result of the protagonists own experimentation, the main character of The Alligator People has been the subject of an experimental treatment intended to grow back limbs lost in an air crash.  (There is a certain logic here, as many reptiles do have the ability to regenerate lost body parts).  The end result, of course, is the same: a bloke wandering around with the head of an animal.  Unfortunately, a man wandering around with an alligator's head, as Richard Crane (or, more likely, his stunt double) does for the film's last few minutes, simply looks ridiculous, eliciting laughs rather than gasps.  While a man with a fly's head is equally ridiculous, it does, nonetheless, have a certain frisson.  

Still, for a B-movie The Alligator People (like the contemporaneous Universal equivalents), is a well appointed production, with that unmistakable 'studio' feel that lifts it above the poverty row B programmers put out by the likes of Astor or AIP.  Like the Fly pictures, it is even shot in Fox's Cinemascope widescreen process.  As well as B-movie regulars like Beverly Garland and Richard Crane, the cast also boasts veteran character actor George Macready as the local mad scientist (albeit a benign one) and Lon Chaney Jr.  The latter, although third billed, plays only a secondary role, portraying the drunken alligator-hating and hook handed handy man ans swamp dweller.  That said, he pulls out all the stops, delivering a suitably hammy performance and ending up electrocuted on the scientist's electrical equipment when his hook touches a live wire.  But while The Alligator People might look relatively slick for a B-movie, its plot and budget betray its true nature.  The former - with its remote mansions, bayou laboratories and grotesque swamp-dwellers - could just as easily have come from a thirties or forties B film, while the latter means that, despite the plural of the title, we only ever see one full fledged 'Alligator Person'.  (Sure, the scientist has other patients, but these are barely glimpsed and swathed in bandages, with only one sporting a scaly face).  Most interestingly, The Alligator People represented part of a late-career change of direction for director Roy Del Ruth.  Having, since the forties, specialised in comedies and musicals (mainly for Warner Brothers), in the late fifties he suddenly found himself working in exploitation, with Alligator People being sandwiched between Phantom of the Rue Morgue for Warners and crime melodrama Why Must I Die? for AIP, (his last movie).  While The Alligator People might not be great cinema, it still makes for an enjoyable late night viewing experience.

Spasmo (1974)

Who is that man with a gun in Suzy Kendall's bathroom?  Why does he want to kill Robert Hoffman?  Why does that well upset Hoffman so much?  Why is everybody acting so weirdly?  Who is doing horrible things to those blow up dolls and just what does it have to do with the rest of the film?  All these questions might, or might not, be answered by watching Umberto Lenzi's 1974 giallo Spasmo.  Despite, for those of who were kids in the seventies, when 'Spaz' and the like were non-PC terms of playground abuse, Spasmo is an entertaining enough by-the-numbers minor league entry in the genre.  Whereas the giallo genre traditionally focused upon the activities of mysterious killers, working their way through a list of victims, with the roots of the crimes lying in some past trauma, there also exists a significant sub-genre whose plots revolve around the sanity of the protagonist, (Footprints on the Moon is an excellent example), often involving plots to unhinge them.  Which is the category that Spasmo falls into.

As with most psychological thrillers of this type, the plot of Spasmo doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, going through countless convolutions in order to try and keep audience and protagonist disorientated enough to try and obscure who is behind it all.  It boasts a strong cast, headed by Robert Hoffman and Suzy Kendall and includes a appearance late on from Ivan Rassimov, (whenever his name appears in the credits, you know that you are in for a certain quality of movie), not to mention typically efficient and professional direction from Umberto Lenzi.  Overall, it is a very slick-looking package, complete with a score from Ennio Morricone.  While not top drawer, it is very watchable.  Oh, unlike the trailer, people don't keep saying 'Spasmo' every few seconds in the film itself - neither does the mid-seventies Dr Who title sequence appear, is it does in the trailer, as far as I can recall.