Nationally Uninformed

Another one for the 'they'd never get away with in now' file, this July 1969 issue of National Informer takes us back to a time, (not so very long ago, let's not forget), when rape was still a subject that it was seemingly OK to joke about and write fake stories about.  It is important here to remember that National Informer was a supermarket tabloid from the lowest tier of the business.  We had such publications here - I well remember the likes of Reveille and Tit-Bits, a pair of weekly papers that specialised in sensational headlines, although the did at least carry some real news stories.  Then, of course, there was the Daily Sport, which at least made its stories so bizarre that it was obviously not meant to be taken seriously. The National Informer was a close relative to the men's magazines I sometimes look at here, but with an even greater emphasis upon sex and in a cheaper format.  But, to get to the point, that headline - 'Watch-a-Rape Clubs' (new and exciting, apparently), is, even by the standards of 1969, both spectacularly insensitive and audacious.  Even taking into account that 'rape' was a much more loosely used term than it is nowadays, (there was prevalent an underlying idea in much media that forcing a woman into sex without consent (male rape was simply not acknowledged back then) was somehow simply an extreme form of 'rough sex'), it is pretty tasteless.

But, as we've seen previously, misogyny was the name of the game in these sorts of male-orientated publications.  It is an interesting example of the way in which the pop culture of yesterday can seem completely alien to a contemporary audience.  You can't help but think 'did people really buy this shit?'  But the fact is that they did.  More than that, they thought nothing of such content, it was accepted as the norm.  I'm not saying that, in this case, people reading in this issue of National Informer actually believed that such things as clubs where you could go to see a live rape actually existed, but they would have thought it OK to joke about such things.  National Informer wasn't even presenting this stuff as a satire on the sexual objectification of women - it was simply for the purposes of entertaining and titillating their largely male audience.  (The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that there weren't things like 'rape clubs' - maybe not with actual sexual assaults, but rather simulated rape - back in the sixties and early seventies.  Sadly, I strongly suspect that there'd still be a market for them now).  If you'd like to read the whole story, then Pulp International (where I borrowed the image from), has reproduced some of the interior pages here.  Sadly, though, they don't include the page that would satisfy my curiosity and tell me what 'sex transplants' are and why we wouldn't be anywhere without them.

Non Believer

I really must stop watching those bloody supernatural 'reconstruction' programmes on TV.  You know the ones I mean: they restage some supposedly real life case of weird paranormal shit happening with actors, shooting and staging it all like a bad low budget horror movie.  The thing is that I'd never watch these things when they show on regular TV but, for some unknown reason, they exert a strange fascination over me when I stumble across half a dozen episodes being shown back-to-back on a streaming service.  Most recently, I found myself transfixed by multiple episodes of something called Believers, that was showing on Pluto TV's 'Mystery' channel.  It wasn't that it was any good, mind you.  In fact, it was one of the outright worst examples of this sort of show I've ever seen.  All of the stories, (there are usually two or three to each episode), are told via the framing device of one of the actual people involved, sitting in what is not their own house, but rather somewhere rented by the production company, telling their tale, with occasional prompts from an off screen director/producer, while a dramatisation of the story plays out, with actors playing the protagonists, including the narrator.  The show's 'gimmick' is that it also includes supposedly 'real' archival footage shot at the time of the incident by the narrator on their phone, or on security cameras, or a handy camcorder.  

There are multiple problems with this approach: not only do the actors playing the younger versions of the narrators usually look nothing like them, but it quickly becomes obvious that the allegedly actual narrators are, in fact, being played by actors themselves.  There is just something too 'dramatic' about the way they tell their stories.  Moreover, they never stumble or digress, giving the impression that they are reading from a script rather than telling their own stories.  As for the 'actual archival footage', well, it just looks fake - it always looks too deliberately grainy, to give the impression of age and low end, non-professional equipment, yet the shots seem too well framed, the camera too steady and the lighting just murky enough to make any alleged supernatural activity indistinct, but good enough that you can always see 'something'.  Perhaps I'm just too much of a sceptic, but the whole shebang just seems too staged.  On top of all that, the stories invariably all feel like variations on well established urban legends and ghost stories.  Yet still I watch this shit!  As I said, it exerts a strange fascination over me, in much the same way that classic Italian Mondo movies fascinate me - it is that sense that you've stumbled into some bizarre parallel world.  Except that the average Mondo was far more stylishly made, not to mention unreservedly outrageous in its fictions, with its reconstructions far more entertainingly made.

Count Yorga, Vampire (1971) and The Return of Count Yorga (1972)

When first released, these two films were seen as breaking new territory for the traditional vampire, by placing him in the present day, rather than in a period setting, as Hammer's Gothic horrors had done.  Of course, it wasn't strictly true to say that there hadn't been previous contemporary set vampire movies - let's not forget that Universal's Dracula (1930) had placed Bela Lugosi's count firmly in the then present day, while Columbia's Return of the Vampire (1943), also starring Lugosi, had its vampire twitching his cloak through wartime London.  Other attempts at contemporary vampires included The Return of Dracula (1958), which attempted to put Francis Lederer's count into a contemporary small town US setting and The Vampire (1957), which had a similar small town setting but added a science fiction twist to its story.  By the time the Count Yorga movies were released, however, Hammer's version of the vampire, always portrayed in Victorian or Edwardian settings, had dominated screens for over a decade, so the AIP films seemed fresh and novel in their approach.  Certainly, they were influential enough to persuade Hammer to put Dracula into contemporary London for the next two films in their series, Dracula AD 1972 (1972) and Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), with mixed success.  Hammer never quite solved the problem of properly integrating such an archaic figure into the modern day.  Interestingly, re-watching the two Count Yorga films, it is clear that their makers found themselves running up against the same problems - that a man in a cloak wandering around seventies California is a more than slightly ridiculous sight.

Count Yorga, Vampire (1971) actually starts well in this respect, with Robert Quarry's Count Yorga posing as a medium and running seances for trendy middle class Californian professionals.  In this guise, he fits surprisingly well into the whole late sixties/early seventies West Coast mysticism scene.  Thereafter, though, his presence is confined to his mock-Gothic pile in the country, which just as well be located in nineteenth century middle Europe as seventies California.  The other characters spend plenty of time interacting in seventies San Francisco, but that's already their world, we see nothing of Yorga trying to negotiate the modern world.  Ultimately, the film's latter stages resolve into various characters chasing around a Gothic castle, much like any traditional vampire film.  The approach taken here is remarkably similar to that taken by Hammer in Dracula AD 1972, where Christopher Lee's present day appearances are pretty much confined to a deconsecrated ruined Gothic church, with any depravities in 1972 Chelsea instead being carried out by his acolytes.  Eventually, the forces of good, led by Van Helsing's grandson, (Peter Cushing), are forced to confront Dracula on his own ground in the church, just as Yorga's opponents were forced to meet him on his ground, in his castle.

The Return of Count Yorga (1972) is an altogether better film than its predecessor - a bigger budget and more polished production values are combined with a more inventive script, although the problem of integrating an aristocratic Gothic monster into a contemporary setting still isn't properly resolved.  The problem of Yorga's traditional vampire get up is initially addressed by having him first encounter the film's protagonists at a fancy dress Halloween party, where his Bela Lugosi chic barely raises an eyebrow, ('Where are your fangs?' asks one guest, drawing the retort 'Where are your manners?').  But once again, Count Yorga spends the better part of the film lurking around a Gothic mansion where, once again, various of the protagonists end up, chasing around gloomy corridors and cellars at the film's climax.  This time, though, the Count does make a few forays out into the modern world in search of victims. Unfortunately, these prove to be among the film's weakest sequences - the sight of Yorga, cape flapping behind him, as he charges down a landing pier at a marina, toward a yacht whose occupants he is targeting, for instance, is more than mildly ludicrous.  By contrast, one of the film's most effective sequences comes when, like Dracula in Dracula AD 1972, he sends his acolytes, in the form of his vampire brides, out to do his bidding. Perhaps in a reflection of changing tastes on the part of horror audiences, the brides, in their brutal home invasion, behave more like zombies from Romero's Night of the Living Dead than traditional vampires.  

Hammer's second stab at a modern day Dracula, perhaps coincidentally, follows a similar format to The Return of Count Yorga.  Aside from a sequence in a modern office building, where he masquerades as reclusive businessman DD Denham, Satanic Rites of Dracula sees Lee's Count spending much of the film in full vampire regalia, lurking around an isolated mansion.  Dracula also has a coterie of vampiric brides down in the cellar, but doesn't send them out to commit depravities on his behalf.  Instead, he sends out a bunch of zombie-like motorcycle riding acolytes, who also vaguely resemble Manson-style cultists in their dress.  Like the second Yorga film, overall the Satanic Rites of Dracula feels a more polished production than its predecessor, yet still never really tackles that central problem of how to integrate the Gothic vampire convincingly into the modern era.  While the Count Yorga films, seen today, might not be quite as groundbreaking, or successful, in achieving this task as their supporters would have you believe, they remain tremendously enjoyable films, benefiting greatly from Robert Quarry's central performances as Count Yorga, switching with ease between suave sophistication and blood fuelled savagery, not to mention Bob Kelljan's effective direction, which makes the most of his resources and locations.  Overall, one has to say that, while they never really do quite resolve the problem of bringing the vampire into the present, they still do it somewhat better than the two Hammer efforts, (although, to be fair, neither of the contemporary Dracula films are as bad as meny critics have made them out to be).

The Psychopath (1966)

A film I hadn't seen in its entirety since a rare late night screening on either BBC or ITV back in the late seventies or early eighties, by chance I caught the end of The Psychopath (1966) on a live streaming channel the other night.  This screening used the more than slightly scuzzy looking German print, (with the original English dialogue track),  that has been the source of most versions available via illegal download sites, well known video sharing sites and dodgy streaming channels over the past couple of decades.  One of Amicus' less well known (these days at least) films, it was made before the company had settled into its regular niche of producing portmanteau horror films and represented an attempt to imitate rival Hammer's recent series of psychological horror films, (Maniac and Paranoiac, for instance), inspired by Hitchcock's Psycho.  Not only does the Amicus; film echo that of Psycho, but it was also scripted by Robert Bloch, who had written the source novel for the Hitchcock film.  Unfortunately, it never rises to the heights of that film although, in its own right, it is an entertaining movie.

As can be seen from the trailer, The Psychopath is, in truth, more of a murder mystery than a psycho-drama, with Patrick Wymark's police inspector investigating a series of bizarre murders where a doll in the victim's image is found with each body.  Bloch's script tries for a Psycho vibe by making the main suspects a strange and socially maladjusted young man who lives with his quite clearly mad mother, (who actually is still alive).  The fact that she has a house full of creepy dolls means that we're never really in doubt as to the killer's identity, despite a poor attempt at misdirection on Bloch's part, involving a millionaire and his displeasure over his daughter's choice of boyfriend.  Where the film's strength lies is in its direction by Freddie Francis, (who had also directed a number of Hammer's sub-Hitchcock dramas).  Not only are the killings imaginatively staged, but the whole film is stylishly directed, with Francis' making effective use of a rather garish colour palette and unusual camera angles to frame his scenes, giving them an off-kilter feel.  Indeed, the film somewhat resembles an Italian giallo, even though that genre was barely established in Italy and still not that familiar to British audiences.  The resemblance is further emphasised by the fact that, as in most classic giallos, the killings have their roots in some past family trauma.  The sparse, but effectively atmospheric, musical score by Elizabeth Lutyens is also highly reminiscent of the sort of scores employed by many true giallo movies.  Perhaps not surprisingly, in view of these parallels, The Psychopath proved very popular on the continent, particularly Germany.  Well worth a look if you can get to see it, (Arrow released it on DVD a couple of years ago, so it is now available legally), The Psychopath is one of Amicus' stronger early movies, despite its derivative nature.

A Walk in The Country

I still have unused footage from several years ago for at least two more films, but found myself shooting some new video yesterday.  So, despite the fact that I know visitors here are extremely resistant to actually watching my videos, I decided to edit it together and put it up here.  Frankly, after this week's heat wave and the disruption to my already disrupted sleep patterns that it caused, I'm too tired to come up with anything else for a post.  (That said, this week traffic has been virtually  non-existent, so I don't know why I'm worrying about keeping up a regular flow of posts - nobody's reading them, videos or not).  Anyway, back to the video.  This was shot on the 'other' part of Home Farm, a local country park I often walk around.  While I've always been aware that another part of the park existed, across the road from the part I'm familiar with, it was only recently that I found it could be accessed via the gate opposite the car park I habitually use, rather than by having to park in the North car park and access it from there.  The only other time I'd gone through that gate, there had simply been a field there that you could walk around, but nothing else.  Consequently, for the better part of twenty years I ignored that gate and focused on the part of the park I knew, directly behind the South car park.

So, by chance, I found that the field has been 're-wilded' (a bit like my garden) and its boundaries have vanished, seamlessly merging it with a large area of heathlands verged by woods.  The heat wave had subsided somewhat by the time I filmed this, but its legacy can be seen in the sun bleached grass everywhere.  Cattle are also grazed on the far face of the heath and some long horned bullocks, ('no, I really saw them'), are in evidence.  It really is a very beautiful landscape and very peaceful to walk through.  Best of all, in contrast to the part of the park I'm more familiar with, it seems to attract far fewer dog walkers, (possibly due to the steep gradients on the hilly portions).  Like I said, I know that nobody is going to bother watching this video, (they certainly didn't watch the last one), but this is my blog, so tough luck if you don't like it.  I'll warn you now - there are likely to be more. 

More From Baywatch Nights

I've managed to find time to watch a couple more episodes of Baywatch Nights' second season, where things got seriously weird and Lifeguard-cum-PI Mitch Buchanan finds himself confronting aliens, vampires and ghosts instead of criminals.  These two episodes, aired as the third and fourth of the season, although I don't know if that was their production order, continued the show's initial attempt to be an X-Files on the beach, before it started moving more into supernatural, Kolchak- style territory.  They also demonstrate the weakness of the series' approach to its subject matter, with both featuring potentially intriguing ideas that are never fully developed, with the plots instead quickly degenerating into a series of chases.  They also highlight the difficulties the writers were obviously having in adequately accommodating all of the regular cast into each episode.  The third episode, 'The Rig' is probably the weaker of the two, although it does have a promising premise: a drilling rig, (conveniently situated relatively close to the beach Mitch patrols in his day job), has inadvertently released a prehistoric protoplasmic creature, which has oozed up the drill shaft and started absorbing the crew.  When Mitch and Ryan reach the rig, they find it deserted and quickly find themselves being chased around by the creature.  Which is basically the whole episode: will they find a way of killing it before it kills them?  The blob, (because that's what it is clearly inspired by), emits an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out radios and boat engines, making escape difficult.  Unfortunately, the creature, (which looks like someone pouring several gallons of half-set lime jelly over the set), is far too slow moving and devoid of character to ever be an especially interesting monster.  Moreover, the rest of the team barely gets a look in - Griff and Donna are merely there to turn up in the nick of time to rescue everyone, while 'man of mystery' Diamont Teague is mentioned, (he alerted Ryan to the mysterious goings on), rather than seen.

Episode Four, 'Strike', is definitely full-on X-Files, complete with references to Roswell and aliens living among us.  Again, the episode focuses on Mitch and Ryan, with Griff getting what amounts to a cameo and Donna absent.  At least Teague features more, with his high-level inks to shadowy quasi-governmental organisations pretty much confirmed by the team of alien-experts and equipment he is able to muster.  While the episode's concept - aliens living in secret in human form - it does at least get off to an intriguing start, with Mitch, in lifeguard mode, rescuing a weird looking and behaving kid on the beach, only to be struck by lighting - a literal bolt from the blue.  When both he and the kid are in hospital, Mitch finds that the latter can communicate with him telepathically and has an even weirder and definitely hostile 'parent'.  As it transpires, the kid and his 'family' are actually aliens who survived a UFO crash at Roswell (in 1990, rather than the 1940s) and have been on the run ever since.  Among those tracking them is Teague and the shadowy organisation he fronts for.  The youngest alien has decided that he wants to live as a normal human teenager, but the others fear this will lead to their exposure.  Naturally, he goes on the run, helped by Mitch, with most of the episode being concerned with them being chased by another of the aliens - with both extra-terrestrials battling it out with their super powers.  Ryan, this time, stays back at HQ, trying to help Mitch remotely, (basically repeating her role in the first two episodes).  Teague, meanwhile, is offering safe haven to the alien kid, the catch being that he will end up a research specimen.  As with the previous episode, an initially interesting idea is pretty much discarded in favour of an extended chase.  The kid could just have well been running away from a crazy cult or devil worshippers and it wouldn't have made any difference.  The episode also effectively repeats the ending of the second episode, with the kid, like the amphibious lab-bred mutant girl, choosing self destruction rather than captivity.

While the first four episodes of Baywatch Nights' second incarnation are undoubtedly fun, having the novelty value of seeing David Hasselhoff battling monsters and aliens, they are, if anything, even more formulaic than the average episode of the parent series.  Indeed, Baywatch proper at least made better use of its large cast of regulars, with most episodes featuring sub-plots that involved  a large proportion of them.  Moreover, this use of multiple sub-plots at least gave the impression that the average Baywatch episode was more complicated than it actually was and allowed at least some character development.  But hey, it is still early days with Baywatch Nights season two - there are still another eighteen episodes to go - and I'm assured that there is much truly deranged action to come.

Hot Off the Press

The Daily Express and Daily Mail really are irresponsible fuckwits, aren't they?  OK, I know that's a given but, to be more specific, they've gone above and beyond with their fuckwittery during this heatwave.  According to their front pages, anybody worried about the fact that, over the last forty eight hours, temperatures here in the UK have soared above forty degrees Celsius are a bunch of 'snowflakes'. (See what they did there?  Laugh, I thought I'd never start).  Yep, schools being closed and people deciding to work from home rather than risk travelling and getting heatstroke, are just more examples of this country turning 'woke'.  Apparently, we should all be just grinning and bearing it because, God damn it, we're British.  We're not like those namby pamby foreigners who avoid the sun.  Never mind the fact that anyone who lives anywhere that such daytime temperatures are the norm in Summer will tell you that the best thing to do is to stay inside until the temperature drops, they're just weak.  Really, what world are these cunts living in?  Perhaps even worse than the fact that they are peddling potentially dangerous misinformation, ('it's just Summer, it's always hot in Summer'), is the fact that they are undoubtedly hypocrites as you can guarantee that their editorial staff weren't sweating away in their newsrooms these past couple of days, instead sitting at home and filing copy.  

Why do we put up with these purveyors of shit?  Why does this country tolerate a press largely owned by right-wing expatriate millionaires abusing their platforms to try and distort and influence UK politics?  Part of the problem is that the likes of the Express and the Mail are allowed to hide behind the whole 'freedom of the press' bandwagon.  Even nominally liberal media commentators just shrug and tell us that the likes of these excuses for newspapers are the price we have to pay for freedom of speech - suppressing them would open the door to suppressing 'legitimate' news sources, (not that there seem to be many of them about these days).  Which is all well and good, except that it is also used as an excuse to resist even the mildest regulation of the press, (ie setting up truly independent complaints procedures and bodies whose findings are enforceable).  It's all very well going on about 'freedom of the press' and 'free speech', but that isn't what we're talking about trying to regulate here, but rather the use of media by its politically motivated owners to spread misinformation and propaganda.  Perhaps we should just settle for a disclaimer being slapped on the front pages of tabloids, like those at the start of 'reality' and 'factional' TV shows, stating that the contents are presented solely for the purposes of entertainment - all the facts having been changed to protect the guilty.

Willard (1971) and Ben (1972)

I finally managed to get around to watching a double bill of killer rat movies over the weekend.  Not just any killer rat movies, but the killer rat movies: Willard (1971) and Ben (1972).  I'd actually caught parts of both films a few weeks ago on the Kino Cult streaming channel.  Having lost access, however, to this stream, I was pleased to find that both films had now turned up on an on-demand channel that hasn't so far disappeared from Roku amid copyright disputes.  Both films are very much of their era in their depictions of suburban America with direction that is solid rather than inspired and production values slightly above those of contemporary TV movies. Willard was pitched less as a horror movie than as a psychological character study.  Indeed, both films focus on lonely, isolated individuals who, for varying reasons, find it difficult to form relationships with other human beings, instead turning to rats for companionship and, certainly in the case of Willard, a substitute family.  The titular Willard, played by Bruce Davison, is a young man caught between a domineering sick mother at home and a bullying boss at work.  The situation complicated by the fact that Willard's father had founded the firm he works at, but, according to his mother, been cheated out of control of it by Willard's boss, Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine), with Willard only being employed there as a condition of the takeover.  From early on, it is clear that Willard has no actual friends of his own - everyone attending his birthday party are his mother's friends - and is obviously bullied and isolated at work.  He has no life between work and looking after his mother, although he manages to establish a stumbling, tentative friendship with a temp (Sondra Locke) brought in to help him.  

Willard finds solace observing a colony of rats living in the garden that his mother wants him to kill, gradually establishing a relationship with them and befriending a white rat he names Socrates.  When his mother dies, he moves the rats into the house and continues to train them to obey his commands.  Socrates is joined by a black rat, Ben, as a leader of the pack and Willard starts to use them to disrupt a party at his boss's house and rob a client to obtain the money he needs to pay some back taxes and thereby avoid the house being foreclosed upon.  During all of this, Willard increasingly isolates himself from his mother's friends and acquaintances and work mates, (with the exception of Sondra Locke).  Taking Socrates and Ben secretly into the office with him ends in disaster when Socrates is seen and killed by Martin.  Willard reacts by confronting Martin at the office out of hours and setting Ben and the other rats on him.  With Martin and his best friend Socrates dead, Willard sees the opportunity for a new life, abandoning Ben and drowning the rats remaining at his house, he hopes to embark on a relationship with the girl from the office, (his confidence having been boosted by having proven to himself that he could develop relationships outside of his mother's circle through his befriending of Socrates and the other rats).  A vengeful Ben, however, turns up with the other rats from the attack on Martin and set upon Willard at his house.

Willard turned out to be successful enough to warrant an immediate sequel.  Despite a lack of gore and featuring only two fatal rat attacks, Willard appealed primarily to horror film audiences so, naturally, any sequel was inevitably going to ramp up these elements.  At the same time, the producers were obviously keenly aware that the relationship between the rats and the main protagonist were a key factor in the film's success.  The idea of an under trodden and bullied individual gaining revenge upon his tormentors and oppressors via, not a supernatural, but quite natural force in the form of a rack pat, had undoubted appeal, feeding into the latent revenge and power fantasies of many audience members.  The problem with Willard, though, was that the title character was not, in himself, hugely sympathetic - a weak and indecisive character who, although a grown man, frequently acts like a child.  The obvious answer was to make the main character of the sequel an actual child, one isolated not by bullying or a dysfunctional family, but illness.  It also helped the new film over another hurdle - that the surviving main rat character, Ben, was the least likeable of the rats, portrayed as being jealous of Willard's relationship with Socrates and also being the most aggressive and vicious of the pack.  By having him befriend a sick kid, he instantly becomes more sympathetic. Another crucial difference between the two films is that the boy himself never actually directs the rats to do anything - led by Ben, they are now autonomously raiding supermarkets and chocolate factories in their quest for food, attacking anyone who tries to stop them or threatens the pack.

Ben truly is a direct sequel to Willard, quite literally picking up where that film left off: the scenes of Willard's demise are replayed under the opening titles.  After this, the action switches to the scene outside, with a police cordon holding off gathered onlookers - including the sick kid, his older sister and mother - back from the scene.  Two plots - the budding bromance between the lonely boy and Ben ad the police's attempts to track down Ben and locate the rats' nest - then develop in parallel, coming together at the climax as the boy tries to warn Ben of the impending police attack on the sewers where the pack is hiding out.  The climactic police assault on the sewers includes some brutal images of rats being variously shot, burned with flamethrowers and drowned.  These scenes, along with the numerous fatal rat attacks throughout the film, puts Ben more firmly in the horror genre than its predecessor.  Despite the climactic carnage, the final scene shows an injured Ben making his way back to the boy, who starts tending to his wounds - at which point, with everything set up for another sequel, the sickly sounds of the Michael Jackson theme song cuts in.  Although successful, there were no further sequels, which was undoubtedly a good thing as the two films had just about covered all the angles you could get from the scenario. 

It has to be said that, while entertaining, Ben is still an inferior film to Willard.  For one thing, it suffers from the absence of performers like Bruce Davison, Ernest Borgnine, Elsa Lanchester and Sondra Locke, all of whom had put in excellent performances in the first film.  While.in the sequel, Lee Montgomery Harcourt is fine as the boy and Meredith Baxter does her best in the underdeveloped role of his sister, of the supporting cast, only Joseph Campanella, playing yet another harassed cop, really stands out.  Perhaps the biggest weakness of the sequel is the way in which the relationship between the boy and Ben is portrayed - it is far too cloying and sentimental. lacking the sinister edge of Willard's relationship with his rat friends.  In the final analysis, both films remain enjoyable and I well remember the impact they had on their release in the early seventies, (I was far too young to see them then and somehow missed their TV outings).  Their focus on rats - an animal omnipresent in modern human civilisation - as their 'monster' at a time when werewolves and vampires still abounded in horror films, along with their contemporary settings, made them feel not just plausible, but also made them somewhat groundbreaking.  Arguably, their success helped pave the way for the many 'eco-horror' and 'revenge of nature' movies that followed during the seventies.

All the Fun of the Fair...

So, I spent a swelteringly hot evening earlier this week at a local toy and train collectors' fair, where I reinforced my rolling stock with the above items.  Sourced from the 'bargain bins' of two of the traders, these six wagons and vans set me back the princely sum of £9.50.  Which is much better than anything currently on eBay in terms of value.  Even when you factor in the entrance fee - £1 - it still means that I spent only just over a tenner.  Obviously, some of these items have issues: the passenger brake and cement wagon need to be stripped and repainted, while the ferry van has a missing coupling, (I have plenty of spares).  The other three, though, are ready to run, with no obvious issues.  The two closed vans have had their wheels changed, (which is actually an improvement, as they would originally have had the notorious Hornby 'square wheels), while Lowmac is missing a load, (not really an issue).

I've already made a start on stripping the cement wagon and I already have some yellow enamel paint suitable for a repaint.  I've also found that replacement decals for it are available at a very reasonable price.  It won't be a perfect 'restoration', (there have been several other changes made by previous owners), but it will provide another, inexpensive, item of goods stock.  Which has been the object of this entire exercise.  New prices for model railway stuff is currently sky high, far too high for me, certainly.  Moreover, if you take eBay as your guide, (it is the biggest online marketplace for model railway equipment), then second hand prices also seem to be rocketing to crazy heights.  The same is true for the main online second hand retailers.  Yet, if you attend things collector's fairs and the recent Alresford Festival of Toy Trains, you'll find a lot of very reasonably priced second hand items available from smaller traders.  You can find a lot of 1970s and 1980s locomotives, (the vintage I'm usually interested in), in good condition for instance, for around the £40-£50 mark, which are the sort of prices I'm looking to pay.  Unboxed coaches are available for £5-£10, sometimes less, while, as I found, if you are willing to put some work into them, there's stuff to be found in the 'Bargain Bins' for far less.

This was the first time I'd attended this particular fair and it runs monthly, so I'll undoubtedly be making at least a couple more visits between now and the end of the year.

Bloody Pit of Horror (1965)

A public domain favourite for streaming channels, Bloody Pit of Horror (1965) was one of a wave of horror movies, usually of continental origin, that traded on the idea that they were somehow inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade.  In practice, this meant presenting scenarios where by a bevy of young actresses, clad only in their underwear, find themselves strapped to various medieval torture devices and, well, tortured.  Being the sixties the was, of course, no nudity and certainly none of the gore effects that would become par for the course in the seventies.  Bloody Pit of Horror, an Italian production, falls into that sub-set of such 'Sadean' films whose scenario involve groups of models finding themselves trapped in old castles for photo shoots and subsequently find themselves menaced by some torture-obsessed loony who lurks around the place.  Said loonies are frequently the descendants of notorious torturers who now believe that they are possessed by their infamous ancestor.

In the case of Bloody Pit of Horror, a group of models, photographers and a writer have the misfortune to pitch up at a castle owned by Mickey Hargitay who, offended by all the 'lewdness' involved in the photo shoot, dons the mantle of the castle's former owner, the 'Crimson Executioner' in order to dispatch them all in unpleasant and painful ways.  His dungeon includes all the usual racks, iron maidens and the like and people are variously impaled, covered in hot oil and burned to death down there.  Some of the tortures though - the business with the spider's web and very crap spider, for instance - are less novel and terrifying than simply ludicrous and unintentionally hilarious.  The plot quickly degenerates into lots of running around castle corridors and secret passages, before building to an energetic climax in the dungeon, which sees a frenzied Hargitay running from torture device to torture device, gleefully ensuring that each victim is experiencing the maximum pain.  Indeed, Hargitay's bravura performance as the utterly bonkers 'Crimson Executioner' is a highlight of the film.  Director Domenico Massimo Pupillo moves it all along at a reasonable pace so that the film never quite outstays its welcome.  Not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, Bloody Pit of Horror is, nonetheless, very entertaining if you catch it in the right mood, although devoted Sadists arelikely to be left feeling disappointed.  (In common with many continental horror movies, Bloody Pit of Horror exists in several English language versions, with varying running times).

Baywatch Nights

So, I've never made any secret of my weakness for the cheese-fest that is Baywatch.  Sure, it's crap, but it is also amiable, good natured crap that never really took itself particularly seriously.  While Baywatch remains well-remembered and re-run, (I have access to two streaming channels dedicated solely to running every episode, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week),  its spin-off Baywatch Nights remains less well known and less frequently re-run.  Spanning only two seasons and just forty four episodes, I'm not not sure that the series ever ran in its entirety on UK TV.  Certainly, I only recall a handful of episodes of the first season being screened in late night slots on ITV, several years after the show had ended in the US.  The reality, though, is that it is the notorious second series that is of interest to lovers of the bizarre and I'm pretty sure that it never saw the light of day in the UK.  The premise of Baywatch Nights was that Mitch Buchanon (David Hasselhoff) and his Baywatch cop buddy Garner (Gregory Alan Williams), set up business as private eyes, as a side hustle.  Their office is above a club and they have a couple of other PIs on the books, (both young and photogenic).  The first season proceeded along relatively conventional Private Eye TV series lines and failed to really find an audience.  So, for season two, a major conceptual change was made - having seen the success that the X-Files was enjoying, the producers of Baywatch Nights sought to turn it into a science fiction orientated show for its second season.  Out went Garner (with no explanation), to be replaced by the mysterious Diamont Teague (Dorian Gregory), some kind of paranormal expert apparently tied into some indeterminate high level organisation dealing with weird shit.  Who better to employ as your agents for investigating this sort of stuff than a private detective agency run part-time by a lifeguard?

I've finally been able to start watching season two of Baywatch Nights thanks to the fact that someone has uploaded all but one episode up onto a certain video site. (They appear to be ripped from a German DVD release: the episode titles are in German and the end titles include credits for a German language version, although the episodes all have the original English soundtrack).  Having watched the first couple of episodes, I have to say that while they try to emulate something of the visual style of X-Files, the end result feels closer to the Kolchak: The Night Stalker TV series, with its 'monster of the week' format.  Moreover, despite an initial focus on science fiction subjects, the series quickly slipped into supernaturally themed plots, reinforcing the Kolchak comparison.  The whole transition to the new format is, to say the least, confusing and abrupt.  Teague simply doesn't get an introductio - he's just there in the first episode of the season, inveigling Mitch and co into investigating a shipwreck.  No explanation of who he is, where he's appeared from or what he does, is proffered.  The second episode implies his 'high level' connections - he has influence with the police and has an official-looking contact at the end of a phone in an office in some unspecified location.  Meanwhile, one of the PIs from season one, Ryan (Angie Harmon), now seems to have become some kind of crack scientific investigator, complete with a lab on a boat.  It's all quite disconcerting, with the sense that you might be experiencing some sort of fever dream reinforced by the fact that the first two episodes seem to involve Mitch and sidekick Griff (Eddie Cibrian), being either chased or chasing after monsters in some gloomy venues.  In episode one they find themselves chased all over a sunken ship by a barely glimpsed, (let alone explained), aquatic Yeti, (at least, that's what I think it was), in the second they end up chasing an amphibious creature created in and escaped from a lab, now transformed into beautiful, but savage, girl, around a nightclub, then some tunnels. (This episode, in part, seems to be inspired by the film Species, even down to the casting of the girl creature with an actress who bears a resemblance to Natasha Henstridge).

Baywatch Nights is so far shaping up to be the source of some good schlocky entertainment, although it already easy to see why this version of the show couldn't find an audience either, resulting in its cancellation.  All the weird goings on jar somewhat with the Baywatch universe they take place in - while the parent series had its flights of fancy, it rarely ever went wholeheartedly into this sort of territory, with most of the action centering on the more mundane business of rescues and regular criminals threatening the beach. Sure, there was the odd supernatural themed episode, like the two parter with the haunted hotel where Summer gets felt up by a ghost, but these were exception rather than the rule.  Indeed, any 'monsters' menacing the beach in Baywatch were always revealed, Scooby Doo style, as either hoaxes (evil oil companies or developers trying to scare people off, for example), or natural phenomena, (octopuses and giant electric eels, for instance).  Mitch fighting scaly monsters or exorcising ghosts on his days off (and never mentioning it to his life guard buddies), just doesn't really sit right.  Still, it remains decent, bizarre, fun in a Kolchak-lite sort of way.  I'm aware that there are some truly bat shit crazy episodes to come, (including a pair of thawed out Vikings fighting it out in LA), so I've a lot to look forward to over the next few weeks.

Another Miscellany of Monday Moans

Well, that's more like it!  You see, the Sri Lankans have the right idea as to how to deal with political leaders who have outstayed their welcome: occupy their residences, defy the authorities and drive them out of the country.  After bemoaning this country's failure to whip up a mob to kick Boris Johnson out of Downing Street, (and let's not forget that the fat fucker is still there), it gladdened my heart to see the apparently spontaneous popular uprising in Sri Lanka.  At some point, I'm going to get back to the schlocky pop culture stuff I usually do here, but there's just so much else going on right now.  Besides, as I've pointed out before, this has never been an exclusively pop culture blog - at the end of the day I'll write about whatever takes my fancy at the time.  Moreover, of late, I haven't really had as much quality schlock to consume as usual - the loss of several Roku streaming channels embroiled in rights and piracy issues hasn't helped, with the few new ones I've discovered tending regurgitate the same old public domain stuff over and over.  I can see that I'm going to have to resort to using a VPN and see if I can make my Roku box think I'm in the US so as to try and watch some of the lost streams at source.

On top of the apparently interminable fall of Boris Johnson, I've also had my attention distracted by all manner of niggling minor issue which, nonetheless, have been taking up time that would be otherwise dedicated to consuming yet more low brow pop culture.  Basically, may God save us all from well-meaning neighbours and well-meaning health officials.  I've mentioned the state of my back garden before - although I've severely cut back most of the jungle growing there, the out of control mutant rose bushes/brambles are going to be a persistent problem.  They grow back very quickly, putting out runners that take root wherever they can - even cracks in concrete - and starting to grow new bushes.  Being woody stemmed, they are impervious to most weedkillers.  Having, however, found a weedkiller that claims to be effective against woody stemmed weeds, I thought that I'd test it on some easily observable woody stemmed weeds growing at the front of the house.  The results were encouraging as I monitored these plants daily, with the leaves and stems wilting from the tops down, as the weedkiller penetrates them.  Then, suddenly, they were gone, cut down by the aforementioned well-meaning neighbours.  Of course, I have no idea now whether enough weedkiller had penetrated them in order to kill the root systems, so I have no idea how long the stuff will take to deal with the brambles.  I'm clearly going to have to treat the stumps of the weeds at the front to be sure of killing them at the root, otherwise they'll be back next year.

Aside from having to deal with disruption to my weed killing experiments, (I really wish that people would leave my stuff, even weeds, alone), I've also been forced to go through the hoops, again, to cancel an unwanted medical appointment.  The problem is that they keep making this diabetes related appointment on my behalf, without consultation, at the same venue that is simply impractical for me to reach.  I've told them time after time that I can't attend it there so, unless they can provide a closer alternative, it is pointless to keep booking appointments there.  Unless my house uproots itself and moves physically closer to the venue, the situation is not going to change.  Yet we keep going through this charade.  It wouldn't be so bad except that, in order to cancel it each time, the only option given is to phone them and be kept on hold for an indeterminate amount of time.  It is very tiresome.  I know they mean well, but I wish that they'd just listen. 

Prize Sea Stories

Well, after all of this week's excitement and exhausting myself celebrating the beginning of the end of Boris Johnson's reign of terror, I feel that I should be lying down quietly in a darkened room.  Certainly, I've rather run out of steam for postings - two stories over at The Sleaze and three posts here have done for me in writing terms -  so I thought that I'd round the week off with a pulp cover.  As I've mentioned before, I've always been a sucker for sea stories, the pulpier and more sensational the better.  So here we have the Spring 1964 issue of Prize Sea Stories.  This was a very short lived magazine - it had only one other issue, Summer 1964.  It came pretty late in the men's magazine cycle, particularly with regard to specialist subject titles like maritime-based ones.  There's really little to say about this issue - going by the story titles it is the usual mix of war and adventure stories, but with a maritime theme.  The cover, depicting the sunken liner 'Andrea Doria', is quite magnificent.

The 'Andrea Doria', for those unaware, had sunk off the East Coast of the US some eight years before the publication of this issue, after being struck amidships, in thick fog, by a Swedish passenger ship, the 'Stockholm'.  Thanks to a major rescue operation, the majority of her passengers and crew survived.  The French liner SS 'Ile de France', notably, turned back from her Atlantic crossing, (having only recently left New York), to assist.  While the 'Andrea Doria' - the then pride of the Italian merchant fleet - might have sunk, the Swedish ship, which suffered damage to its bows, survived the incident and, as far as I know, is still in service today, (albeit under a different name and rebuilt into a cruise ship).  The 'Astoria', as she is now, is the oldest liner still in service. 

The Arses That Saved Britain?

You know, there are times when I feel deeply disappointed by the British people.  I mean, as Boris Johnson barricaded himself into Number Ten yesterday, holding the 1922 Committee and rebel cabinet members at bay with a shotgun, killing the odd Michael Gove to show that he serious in his intent to cling to power, I kept fervently asking myself - where is the angry mob breaking into Downing Street, dragging him out and stringing him up from the nearest lamppost?  What has this country come to when we can't even muster a decent violent mob?  Have we become that cowed by theses Tories and their fascist regime?  You'd think that after all the shit that's gone down under Johnson - the lies, the incompetence, the corruption - that people would be queuing up to get a chance at dispensing some revolutionary street justice to the fat fornicating bastard.  But no.  Instead, until this morning, I feared that we might be heading for the scenario where an enraged Johnson breaks out of Number Ten and wreaks havoc on the streets - overturning police cars and smashing everything in his path - before scaling  Big Ben, a swooning Nadine Dorries clutched in one hairy paw, where he'd try to beat off a swarm of biplanes, doubtless piloted by Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid and Nadhim Zawahi.  Actually, he'd probably just have beaten off, in some desperate attempt to spread his toxic semen over Westminster in hope of impregnating enough women that, in time, an army of his monstrous idiot offspring could take the country back in his name.  

Thankfully, however, the fat bastard decided to resign.  Well, sort of.  He's stepped down as Tory leader, but wants to linger for as long as he can as Prime Minister, supposedly until a new Tory leader is elected.  Which leaves us all in a very dangerous place because you can just guarantee that, despite Johnson's protestations that he will only be a 'caretaker' and won't actually initiate or enact any major legislation, he'll be busy plotting as to how he cam somehow hang on to his job.  I mean, when has he ever been known to keep a promise, let alone tell the truth?  But let's take a few steps back and remember just what brought about Johnson's downfall - it wasn't 'Partygate', it wasn't all that Russian money he took, it wasn't the fact that his incompetence caused hundreds of thousands of deaths during the pandemic, nor the fact that billions of pounds worth of public money were creamed off by Tory-linked fraudsters during Covid.  No, it was the fact that one of his cronies got drunk and couldn't keep his hands to himself, groping the behinds of two unconsenting young men.  Yep, that was it, after all the other shit, it was the fact that Johnson had, in effect, been protecting a sex pest that provided the catalyst for the Tories to finally turn against fat boy.  So, in effect, those groped arses saved Britain.  So significant has their contribution been to freedom and democracy, that I think that casts should be taken of them, from which bronze sculptures can be made and displayed for posterity.  Move that old racist Churchill on from Parliament Square in favour of one and install the other one permanently on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square!  Yes indeed, in years to come, kids will gave upon them in awe and ask their parents and grandparents: 'Where were you when the arses were grabbed?'

Faded Thrills

There are times when I sit through something, constantly asking myself ''why are you subjecting yourself to this?', yet can't seem to switch away from it.  Today, for instance, when I found a streaming channel I recently discovered screening all twelve episodes of the obscure 1931 movie serial King of the Wild back-to-back.  I actually did switch away to other channels several times, but found myself drawn back to this crackly sound tracked, monochrome oddity.  The trouble with such showings of serials in one sitting is that not only do they seem interminable, but that they highlight their repetitiveness and overly convoluted story lines.  King of the Wild, for instance, was virtually impossible to follow so complex did it make its plots and sub-polts, yet their execution involved the same scenarios being repeated over and over.  In their one episode a week format, of course, they don't feel this way - the odds are that the audience will barely remember what happened in the previous episode, let alone three or four episodes ago.  Moreover, a straightforward plot would never be able to sustain four plus hours of total screen time.  As far as I could make out, King of the Wild started with a plot about a white guy having to impersonate a dead Maharaja, (at the Maharaja's request, in order to stop some evil prince from seizing the realm before his brother, the rightful heir, turned up), being framed for the Maharaja's murder, jailed, then escaping to Africa (disguised as an Arab) in search of a letter that would clear his name.  Which sounds like a lot of plot, but that's just the first couple of episodes, as our hero then gets involved in a plot involving a girl searching for her lost brother who knows something about some shenanigans involving diamonds, while opposed by a villainous big game hunter who has some kind of ape man as a henchman and a nefarious Arab played by Boris Karloff.  Oh, and there's this guy in drag wandering around who is also some kind of villain.

All of which might sound exciting, but unfortunately isn't.  It drags along at a deathly pace, with far too many talky scenes of exposition padding out the episodes, poor production values and California making a poor stand in for Africa.  The whole thing quickly becomes tediously repetitive, with the cliffhangers seemingly involving the brother being found, then lost and captured by a villain again, or his sister being repeatedly kidnapped, imprisoned and otherwise imperiled.  So why did I keep going back to it?  Well, I can't deny that I have a weakness for those old serials.  They could often be surprisingly good, especially those produced by Republic in the late thirties a forties, which featured excellent special effects, courtesy of some sophisticated miniatures work by the Lydecker brothers, and some of the best choreographed fight and action sequences of their era.  King of the Wild, however, was a somewhat earlier production, produced by Mascot, (who were later subsumed into Republic), a poverty row studio that, nonetheless, turned out some enjoyable serials.  While King of the Wild certainly had enough bizarre elements - the ape man, Boris Karloff and all those characters in disguise - they never really gel into anything compelling that might lift the serial out of the ordinary.  Maybe if I had watched it an episode at a time on a weekly or even daily basis, it might have felt pacier and less repetitive.  (I actually did this once, watching all twelve episodes of Republic's The Masked Marvel (1943) this way and found it hugely entertaining at only twenty minutes, or so, a day).  Anyway, the long and the short of all this is that, despite it exerting a certain dreadful fascination over me, watching King of the Wild (or any other serial) in a single sitting like this isn't an experience I'm likely to repeat in a hurry.  If nothing else, it made me appreciate those feature versions of serials they released to TV in the sixties, cut down to a hundred, or sometimes even seventy to seventy five minutes running time, excising most of the padding and repetition.

It's a Disease...

"My name is Chris and I'm an arse grabber".  Presumably the 'medical treatment' that Tory MP and former Deputy Chief Whip Chris Pincher has sought consists of attending 'Arse Grabbers Anonymous' meetings.  I mean, it has to exist, doesn't it - they've got these organisations for everything else, so why not for alleged sex offenders?  Because, you know, it's a disease, isn't it?  "I'm addicted to men's bottoms - I just can't resist the urge to grab those lovely cheeks and squeeze them into one," they no doubt sit around telling each other, before going to tell how they've been 'two weeks clean': "I haven't attended a bare arsed spanking party for an entire fortnight - back in the day I was at them daily, playing them like bongos and slapping out big band tunes on those glowing cheeks."  Or, perhaps, how they've fallen off of the wagon: "I couldn't help myself - I saw this fantastic arse walking in front of me - like two puppies fighting in a sack - and I just had to grab it."  But not to worry, at least they are getting help, thanks to their sponsors and twelve step programme, (that's 'step', not 'spank').  The positive to take from all of this, apparently, is that Boris Johnson didn't have any specific knowledge of Pincher's alleged arse grabbing when appointing him to the whips office.  It's the use of the word 'specific' that bothers me, though.  Does these mean that he knew Pincher was a perv in general, but didn't know that he was specifically an arse man?

Mind you, these days it would surely be be seen as an asset to have a sexual quirk in order to hold high office.  Even rank-and-file Tory back benchers watch internet porn on their phones in the Commons, so you have to have some far quirkier sexual kink in order to become a junior minister, let alone join the cabinet.  You can guarantee that all the Tory wannabees are currently scrabbling around to find some really archaic form of deviancy with which to secure promotion - how about piquerism, (a fetish for sticking needles in ladies' behinds and breasts)?  I mean, that isn't your everyday perversion, is it?  Maybe, Tory MPs could develop their own version, involving sticking the points of their umbrellas into ladies' nether regions?  After all, developing a new kink, even if it is just a novel variation on an old one, would surely demonstrate the sort of initiative and resourcefulness required to succeed at the very top, wouldn't it?  But they'd really have to excel in the deviance stakes if they want to have a chance of toppling the 'Big Swinging Dick' (as he likes to refer to himself), the UK's 'Pervert-in-Chief', Boris Johnson, for the very top job.  This is the guy who doesn't deal in trivial stuff like watching porn in the commons or grabbing guy's arses at the Carlton Club.  Oh no.  This is the guy who allegedly gets his mistress a blow job in his parliamentary office on the promise of getting her a high paying job at the Foreign Office and doesn't even lock the door!  Oh yeah, the risk of the likes of Gavin Williamson walking in and catching him 'on the job' is all part of the perverted thrill!  Makes you wonder, doesn't it, as to what else he gets up to?  What's the betting that when it all turns to shit, he won't be retreating to his bunker, like Hitler, but rather to his bondage dungeon?

The Burning (1981)

In the wake of Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980), the market was flooded with slasher movies, 1981, in particular, seeing a  glut of them, including The Burning (1981).  I well recall its UK release - for a film that originally didn't do that well at the box office, it certainly created a furore on this side of the Atlantic, having the misfortune to get mixed up in the whole 'video nasties' business.  Indeed, had it not been for the controversy surrounding its VHS release, I doubt that it would be that well remembered over here.  Certainly, it is the man reason that I remember it.  While the BBFC had passed The Burning for an X certificate after several cuts had been made, when it came to a video release, EMI inadvertently put out an uncut version.  When this was discovered, seeking to avoid prosecution, EMI promptly withdrew the video, (thereby making them collector's items which change hands for high prices).  I remember the whole fiasco well as, at the time, my father worked for Radio Rentals, making us an early adopter of VHS technology.  Radio Rentals belonged to EMI and their video catalogue was available to staff members.  While we never saw the uncut video - it was withdrawn very quickly - I recall it being in the EMI video catalogue.  These were the very early days of home video, with only a few titles available, so it was a big deal for EMI to have such a relatively recent release available for home viewing.  

The film wasn't submitted to the BBFC for video release again until the early nineties, when it suffered further cuts in order to gain certification.  By 2002, however, the original uncut version was released for home viewing, the whole 'video nasty' nonsense having been largely forgotten.  Indeed, nowadays The Burning turns up regularly on streaming services in the UK and elsewhere, where it is treated as simply another eighties slasher movie.  Watching it now, it is hard to understand just why this film in particular became the focus of such an outcry back in the day.  It is surprisingly formulaic, complete with the summer camp setting, the horrendous events being the consequence of an incident years earlier and, as ever, anyone who has sex dies gorily.  One might argue that the most offensive thing about it is the stigmatisation of severe burns victims, depicting them crazy, repulsive monsters. Despite its adherence to most of the conventional tropes of the nascent slasher genre, The Burning does feel somewhat superior to many of its progenitors and competitors.  For one thing, Tony Maylam's direction is a cut above the average for a low budget horror film: stylish, well photographed and suspenseful, it moves the film along at a decent pace and throes in some good shock sequences.  Moreover, the script is a lot better than average, featuring not just better dialogue, but also a somewhat more logical plot - characters generally don't meet their demise as a result of doing something stupid and illogical.  For a lot of the time the plot ensures that the potential victims have no reason to think there is a homicidal maniac on the loose, so it is entirely reasonable that they walk around and behave as normal  In fact, once they do realise that they are under threat, the camp counsellors for once do the right thing by getting their surviving charges back to safety and calling the cops.

The Burning also benefits immeasurably from Tom Savini's make up effects in its gore scenes.  But, despite being a superior example of the genre, The Burning lost out at the box office, having the misfortune to find itself up against Friday the 13th Part Two (1981).  Perhaps part of its problem was that its killer was pretty anonymous - he's simply a badly burned guy with a pair of shears, with most minimal of back stories and motivation.  His character is never developed, even before he gets horribly burned, so he never seems anything more than a plot device, a (literally) faceless threat existing only to menace a bunch of horny teenagers.  His choice of signature weapon doesn't help - not only are garden shears hardly menacing but, beyond he fact that he was a caretaker, have no real connection to his demise.  Late in the film he produces a flame thrower which, bearing in mind that his disfigurement was the result of being set on fire, would surely have been a more logical choice of weapon from the outset?  Ultimately, though, none of this really detracts from the viewing experience - The Burning remains an above average, if derivative, eighties slasher.  It also launched the careers of Fisher Stevens, Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter, all of whom made their film debuts in The Burning - in fact, part of the fun of watching it lies in seeing a young George Costanza from Seinfeld looking slim and sporting a full head of hair.