It must be absolute Hell running a right-wing newspaper these days. With Trump in the White House, the natural instincts of the likes of the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Telegraph, Sun and so on would normally be to revel in his 'achievements'. Damn it, he's firing civil servants left, right and centre, promising tax cuts to billionaires, trashing diversity and equality initiatives, he's even bashing the EU and being rude to foreigners. It should be their wet dream. Except that Trump's unpopularity in Britain, fuelled by him and cronies cosying up to Putin and other dictators, stabbing Ukraine in the back and, worst of all, insulting the UK's military prowess, means that they instead have to keep writing broadly negative pieces about him. It must be so frustrating. Indeed, you can tell, reading many of the articles they publish about Trump, that they really, sneakingly, admire what he's doing. Riding roughshod over democratic and academic institutions, trying to intimidate the judiciary, locking up pesky non-white people who disagree with him, even deporting them in chains without due process - it's what they've been calling for in the UK for years. Ordinarily, they'd be holding Trump up as an exemplar for British politicians to follow. But he's just so toxic and destructive, they don't dare. It's the same for those right-wing British politicians who have, in the past, banged the drum for Trump and courted his attention. Boris Johnson is desperately trying to spin Trump's approach to ending the war in Ukraine as anything but the betrayal of Kiev that it actually is, while Nigel Farage - Trump's self-styled 'best buddy' - now an MP with ambitions of parliamentary respectability is doing his best to avoid answering questions about the Mango Mussolini. Openly supporting a foreign leader despised in the UK is a sure way of losing votes rather than expanding your tally of MPs.
You'd think that the right-wing press would find some respite on the domestic front, with a Labour government in power. There should be lots of scope for lambasting 'loony lefty' policies, outrageous government spending on benefits for one legged black lesbians and the like. But they find themselves in the unusual position of having to criticise a Labour government for cutting benefits to minority groups, including OAPs, proposing to slash public spending by sacking civil servants and not rolling back Tory devised restrictions on civil liberties. Once again, it must be extremely frustrating for them. After all, this is the stuff they used to heap praise on Tory governments for doing, screaming for them to do more of the same. You'd think they'd be happy that Labour finally seem to have seen it their way. Instead they are forced to indulge in hypocrisy - not just on matters of government policy, either, but also things like ministers' expenses and hospitality. After all their years of defending Tory ministers for taking backhanders in all manner of hospitality and freebies, justifying it all as somehow being a necessary part of the process of governing, they are now jumping on even the tiniest hint of an irregularity. Amazing how they've suddenly become so keen on holding politicians to account. Obviously, the UK's right-wing press have cornered themselves into these ever greater acts of hypocrisy, because what's their alternative? Having spent so long painting Labour as irresponsible 'tax and spenders', they can't really admit that this Labour government is fiscally just as right-wing as their Tory heroes. But to offer a coherent critique of current Labour policies would mean embracing progressivism, both economic and social. Which would mean aligning themselves with the likes of Jeremy Corbyn who, to them, is the devil. A real conundrum for them. But watching their hypocritical convulsions as they try to navigate the current political situation, both at home and globally, is hugely entertaining.
Every so often Pluto's Cult Movies channel turns up trumps. Much of the time it screens pretty run-of-the-mill fodder: B-movies and public domain films which barely qualify as 'cult'. But then it goes through phases when it screens Giallo movies and other Italian horrors and thrillers or, as it has been most recently, British smut. Well, actually, international smut, with some seventies Jesus Franco erotica and a couple of Russ Meyer pictures, along with assorted continental arty smut fests showing up. Most interestingly, they seem to have acquired the rights to a number of Stanley Long produced movies - the other night I had an evening's viewing consisting of Secrets of a Windmill Girl (1966), This, That and the Other (1970) and Nudes of the World (1961), plus Harrison Marks' Naked as Nature Intended (1961). Rather bizarrely, there was also a Laurel and Hardy film sandwiched in there somewhere as well. I have to say that watching the two naturist themed semi-docmentaries I felt a bit like Sid James in the opening scenes of Carry on Camping (1969), when he's watching something similar in a cinema, cackling away at the faux innocence of it all, as the narrators do their best to assure us that this is a serious educational documentary. I found Nudes of the World particularly fascinating, a sort of second cousin to Long's later Mondo-style movies London in the Raw (1964) and Primitive London (1965). The main difference being that it presents its material as a dramatised, albeit supposedly true, narrative, with a group of international beauty contest finalists deciding to set up their own nudist camp, (or 'Sun Club' to use the vernacular of the time). To this end, they persuade a titled landowner to lease them his property while he is way that summer, but neglect to tell him what for. Inevitably, there is conflict with the prudish local villagers, but all ends well when his Lordship returns home and defuses the situation, revealing that he is, himself, a naturist and has been on holiday at a continental nudist colony.
The acting is terrible, but the girls very attractive, with or without clothes. It is, however, an amusingly chaste nudist camp that they run, with everyone only going topless and wearing thongs to protect their modesty. Startlingly, for viewers of my age, the narration (supposedly provided by an unidentified member of the beauty queen organisers) is provided by Blue Peter's Valerie Singleton, who keeps a commendably serious tone throughout, treating it all as if it really is a serious look at naturism rather than titillation. Whilst Nudes of the World gets to its topless girls fairly quickly and then keeps them on screen for most of the film's remaining running time, Harrison Marks' contemporaneous nudist documentary Naked as Nature Intended, seems to take an age to get to the actual nudity. But when it comes, we get lots of full frontal female nudity, (while the male nudists are only seen from the waist up or from behind). Most of the film is taken up with a seemingly interminable travelogue, as we follow two groups of girls - three in a borrowed Buick, the other two hitch-hiking - as they head off to their holidays in Cornwall. That said, the journey has fascinations of its own, as it paints a vivid picture of early sixties Britain, with landmarks like Stone Henge not inundated with tourists, no motorways and main roads looking, by today's standards, remarkably empty. Most startling is the lack of parking restrictions - back then you could just pull up and park pretty much where you liked, a situation that I remember persisting into the seventies, before the increased crowding of the roads with motor vehicles was accompanied by more and more restrictions and regulations. When both groups finally reach their destinations, at Land's End, one group stumbles onto the private nudist beach where the two hitch-hikers have gone, discovering the joys of naturism as they throw off their swim suits and visit the local nudist colony. Nudity aside, it is, like Nudes of the World, all rather charmingly chaste and innocent. It might have been titillating stuff in its day, but I can honestly say that I found neither film remotely erotic.
Before leaving this subject, a few quick thoughts about Secrets of a Windmill Girl and This, That and the Other. The latter is an anthology film produced by Long with the Ford brothers, originally released as A Promise of Bed. It has a certain raw feel, being shot entirely on location with rather grainy film. The three stories are meant to be sex comedies, but actually deliver little of either. The first is notable for featuring a young Dennis Waterman in the lead and is a very slight story as he is mistaken by an actress seeking a role for the photographer son of a producer. The second story, featuring Victor Spinetti as a suicidal man who mistakenly finds himself hosting a party for a group of bright young things is actually quite poignant and features an excellent and moving performance from Spinetti. The third and final story, centering on John Bird as a cabbie, wanders into pure fantasy, as he apparently finds himself in the middle of some bizarre sexual shenanigans in a country house, as pursues his female passenger (Yutte Stensgard) for his fare. Overall, the film constitutes an enjoyable enough, if not very memorable, diversion, notable for presenting a vivid snapshot of late sixties/early seventies Britain. Secrets of a Windmill Girl (originally released on a double bill with Naked as Nature Intended) is interesting because it is pretty much Long and his frequent partner Arnold Miller's first attempt at a feature film rather than a documentary. It replicates the look and feel, though, of their preceding films London in the Raw and Primitive London, with much of the action taking place at the eponymous Windmill theatre and in various sleazy strip clubs as it chronicles the fall from grace of a 'Windmill Girl', played by Pauline Collins. It's tempting to think that the many Windmill performances it preserves were actually unused footage from the two 'London' films and this feature was built around them. The sense of kinship between this feature and the 'documentaries' is reinforced by its extensive use of voice over narration, as Collins' fellow former 'Windmill Girl', played by April Wilding, relates the story in flashback. It's even less titillating than the naturist films and there's certainly nothing particularly original plot-wise, but, like them, preserves a fascinating snap shot of a particular era and milieu. Overall, though, a fascinating evening's entertainment.
A follow up to Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna's first H P Lovecraft inspired movie, Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986) similarly takes its source story as a framework, expanding upon it to produce an over-the-top piece of body horror. The film's opening scenario isn't that far from the original story, featuring a pair of scientists developing a 'resonator', whose vibrations allow them to see and interact with other dimensions, with one of them seeing translucent creatures swimming in the air. Inevitably, the senior scientist turns up the power, becoming entranced with the inter-dimensional experience before the device malfunctions, with the other scientist fleeing the old house where they are conducting their experiments. When the police are called, they find the senior scientist decapitated and his colleague is arrested for his murder. His story of inter-dimensional creatures ensures that he end up in a secure psychiatric unit. From there, the script goes off on its own track, with a doctor treating the scientist finding that his pineal gland has been enlarged and deciding that his story is true. Believing that the 'resonator' could be adapted to treat mental illnesses, she has the scientist released into her custody and along with an escorting police officer, they return to the house and start experimenting with the 'resonator'.
Once it is reactivated, the first scientist, of course, crosses back into this dimension, telling the others of an alternative dimension where his particular pleasures can be fully experienced. Which is bad news, as his particular pleasure was S&M. The rest of the film chronicles the battle between him and the others as they try to turn off the 'resonator' and banish him back to the other dimension and he tries to take control of the device and ensare them in his fantasies. In the course of this, he demonstrates his new shape-shifting abilities, transforming into a series of oozing, tentacled manifestations. Various other inter-dimensional creatures hamper the heroes and the lady doctor starts succumbing to the vibrations and starts turning into a dominatrix. The various transformations are, obviously, the film's highlight and are handled extremely well, with the prosthetic effects still quite convincing, despite their age. Which brings us to one of the complaints against the film: that its sexual content makes it highly un-Lovecraftian. In truth, though, Lovecrafy's fiction is just chock full of waving phallic tentacles and oozing slime, which could, quite easily, be argued to be expressions of his own repressed sexuality and that From Beyond is merely expanding upon and exploring these ideas in a graphic fashion. Now, while, as far as I'm aware, there is no evidence that Lovecraft was secretly into bondage, the S&M obsessions of the transformed scientist emphasise the theme of a sexuality that is normally repressed and kept secret in the everyday world, but that can be unleashed via a transformation into a different, secret, world. As such, it could be argued, the transformed scientist acts as a proxy for Lovecraft himself.
Interestingly, this character, created by the screen writers usurps the place of the story's main antagonist who is instead relegated to being the film's other scientist, who mostly resists the temptations of the 'resonator' and its vibrations. Indeed, when he is finally overcome by the urges it awakens in him, causing him to molest the doctor and try to eat her brain, his enlarged pineal gland pops out through his forehead, like some kind of mutant penis. He only releases her and comes back to his senses when she bites it off. Perhaps this, also, could be read as a dramatisation of Lovecraft's fears as to the consequences if he ever allowed his repressed sexual urges to be released. However you choose to read these aspects of the film, the fact is that From Beyond comes over as deeply 'Lovecraftian', from its creepy old house setting, preoccupation with madness, strange bodily transformations to its conjuring up of eldritch, unspeakable horrors from beyond this world. It might not be as gory as Re-Animator, but like that film, it does a pretty decent job of fully fleshing out a relatively minor work in Lovecraft's canon which sits outside of the 'Cthulu Mythos' cycle he is best known for, into a full-blown story.
Despite its low budget, From Beyond is a good looking film, with excellent production values and visual style - all helped by being shot in an Italian studio. Stuart Gordon's direction hits the mark, keeping the film well paced, building plenty of tension and contrasting the sleek modernity of the psychiatric hospital with the scientists' lab in the old house, which evokes echoes of the sort of set-up you might encounter in a Universal B horror from the forties. The special effects, as noted, are surprisingly good bearing in mind the film's age and budget. The cast are also strong, pitching their performances at exactly the right level for the material: taking it just seriously enough to be convincing while never straying into outright parody. Ted Sorel is great as the transformed scientist, by turns imperialistic, sleazy and downright crazy, while Jeffrey Coombes is suitably twitchy and disturbed and his colleague. Barbara Crampton as the doctor and Ken Foree as the cop also contribute strong performances. All-in-all, From Beyond remains a tremendously enjoyable and exhilarating horror movie, which never seems to drag and has just enough black humour to stop all of the horrendous body transformations from becoming completely repulsive. My enjoyment of it was greatly enhanced by watching an old VHS rip of it, complete with previews of forthcoming Vestron releases and lots of fuzz and tracking adjustments - it really took me back to the halcyon days of watching illicit videos!
The Tate brothers. You know that sooner or later we have to talk about them. Because they seem to be everywhere, frequently trending on social media, featuring in news stories both in print and on TV and seemingly whipping up strong feelings both in those who think them some kind of macho messiahs and those who loathe them as misogynist influencers corrupting the minds of young men. Personally, I look at them and see one of the most obvious cases of repressed homosexuality I've ever encountered. It's all there: the exaggerated masculinity, the shaved heads and neatly trimmed facial hair, their continued debasement and hatred of women, their boasting of their sexual domination of women while simultaneously being clearly repulsed by female sexuality. Obviously, I'm not saying that homosexuals are preening woman haters, but rather that these are the traits of men desperately trying to deny their own true sexual orientation. Their hatred for themselves is projected onto the opposite sex, who they blame for their failure to be sexually attracted to them. In their twisted perspective, these damned women have to be punished for not arousing them and therefore rescuing them from their gay thoughts. The truth is, though, that the Tates would probably find it a lot easier if they simply admitted to themselves that they are gay and are actually attracted to other men. Dropping the deception would allow them to let go of that hate and see women as fellow human beings.
Of course, the latter is a big sticking point for the kind of young men who idolise the Tates. They seem to be permanently angry at the fact that women have the audacity not to know their place as sex objects, overawed by these guys' sexual prowess. Perhaps they read - or more likely saw the TV adaptations - of too many of those Mills and Boon-type romances where even the strongest women find themselves swooning at the feet of some hunk of masculine machismo. At least my generation had the excuse of growing up on a diet of seventies TV and films, where women were all 'birds' just 'gagging for it' and even the likes of Robin Askwith could get their ends away on a regular basis. In defence of seventies British TV and sex comedies, while women were undoubtedly objectified, they were usually also given personalities and more often than not portrayed as strong and savvy individuals capable of knowing their own minds and even saying 'no'. Ultimately, though, this stuff doubtless contributed to a male culture that assumed women were always available to male sexual advances - if they weren't they were disparagingly dismissed as being 'frigid' or 'lesbians'. It must have come as something of a shock to many guys brought up on a diet of Sid James, Robin Askwith, James Bond and the like, that if you wanted any chance with a real woman, you might actually have to talk to them, treat them as human beings and establish a friendship with them first. Damn it, according to seventies British TV, even a man as obviously gay as Peter Wyngarde could pull birds by the dozen every week in Jason King. Anyway, to get back to the original point, I really think that it is about time that someone staged an intervention for the Tate brothers with the aim of getting them to just admit their true sexuality and come out. I'm sure they'd feel much better for it and set a good example for misogynists and homophobes everywhere.
The Neanderthal Man (1953) bears a lot of similarities to Jack Arnold's Monster on the Campus (1958). Most fundamentally, both films feature scientists who find a way of regressing animals and subsequently themselves to earlier evolutionary forms. But whereas Arnold's movie was a relatively well resourced Universal B feature, The Neanderthal Man, independently produced and distributed by Eagle-Lion, the successors to poverty row's PRC, is clearly made on a much more limited budget, with a poorly realised monster and scrappy looking sets, (it's remarkable the number of windows that look out onto brick walls). The key difference between the two movies' scenarios are that whereas in the later film the scientist's transitions into an apeman are involuntary and he has no memory of his murderous activities whilst in this state, in The Neanderthal Man the scientist has experimented on himself deliberately, with the intent of transforming and is well aware of his apeman activities. Ultimately, it becomes a relatively straightforward Jekyll/Hyde variation, with his alter ego channelling all of the scientist's darker urges and thoughts. Unfortunately, the film seems to take an age to get anywhere, with much running time devoted to another scientist - who is up in the mountains where the first scientist's house/lab is situated investigating reported sightings of extinct sabre tooth tigers - laboriously piecing together the evidence and slowly concluding what the audience have known from the outset - that the first scientist and the apeman are one and the same.
We're kept waiting until the latter part of the film for the monster's onscreen appearances, with lots of overly talky scenes set in bars, hotels and living rooms occasionally punctuated by some sabre tooth tiger attacks. There are also far too many characters, often poorly delineated from each other, wandering around the mountains, just waiting to be attacked. Unsurprisingly, the narrative doesn't flow smoothly, with too many cul-de-sacs and distractions from the main story. It really doesn't help that the makers seem to have a very cavalier attitude toward prehistoric life: the sabre tooth tigers (created by the scientist experimenting on domestic cats with his serum) are just that, regular tigers with fangs stuck on them. As everyone surely knows, sabre tooth cats weren't, in reality, related to modern cats at all, being a separate and parallel evolutionary line from a common ancestor, meaning also that it is unlikely that a domestic cat could regress to a creature that wasn't its ancestor, (let alone bulk up to many times its natural size in minutes, then regress back). The film also seems shaky as to exactly what a Neanderthal man was, with the creature in the film depicted - via a very poor mask incapable of expression and with unblinking eyes - as some kind of generic movie apeman. Most bizarrely, he runs around fully dressed in the scientist's clothes, (doubtless because the budget wouldn't run to a full apeman costume). To be fair, the film is ahead of its time in that the scientist is obsessed with proving that Neanderthals were actually intelligent human ancestors, in opposition to the then widely held belief that they were a savage evolutionary dead end. (Unfortunately, of course, his experiments seem to prove him wrong). His attempts to convince his colleagues of his theories becomes mildly hilarious, however, when he includes Piltdown Man as an actual human ancestor. (The film was unfortunate in that it was made literally months before Piltdown Man was conclusively shown to be a hoax).
Another aspect in which the film seems to be ahead of its time is in the quite clear implication that one surviving female victim of the apeman has been raped, or at least sexually assaulted, by him. Usually, in films of this era, the closest to such an implication would be the dishevelled state of a female victim's clothes, but here, the girl's dialogue, although it trails off without the word 'rape' being uttered, clearly indicates what has happened to her. The girl was played by Beverley Garland, in an early role, who would go on to appear in larger roles in many subsequent B-movies. The film's other main actors were both established B-movie players, with Robert Shayne as the Jekyll/Apeman scientist and Richard Crane as the hero. In fact, the film has a pretty solid B-movie heritage, co-produced and co-written by Jack Pollexfen, who had also been behind the likes of Daughter of Dr Jekyll, Son of Dr Jekyll, Son of Sinbad, Man From Planet X and The Indestructible Man. Overall, though, it is vastly inferior to the similar Monster on Campus, which, despite being one of Jack Arnold's lesser efforts for Universal, is far better directed, scripted and produced. Its story is also far more smoothly and logically developed, (not to mention featuring a much better apeman make up), with the serum for the transformations, for instance, being derived from the body fluids of a celeocanth, rather than being vaguely originated, as in The Neanderthal Man. While it has quite a few unintentional laughs, even at only seventy eight minutes long, the film begins to drag long before the end.
Back in the days when I used to read crackpot nutrag Fortean Times, one of my greatest pleasures was the 'It Happened to Me' feature, where various readers related their 'strange' experiences. The fact that so many of them were so obviously made up, riddled with inconsistencies, inaccuracies and contradictions, just made the column all the more entertaining. A good indication that it was all a fabrication was when an item started along the lines 'This didn't happen to me actually, but to my sister/brother/cousin/neighbour/some bloke at the bus stop, who told me about it.' Many of them were really simply stories about coincidences, sorry, strange coincidences, although why any coincidence should be stranger than any other is the real mystery. Coincidences, no matter how unlikely they seem, are simply a matter of statistics: even if the odds of them happening seem remote, the laws of statistics dictate that they must happen at some point. There were also a fair number of ghost stories, UFO sightings and strange creature sightings, none of them very convincing, not to mention plenty of conspiracies. My absolute favourites, though, are the ones that involve such exotic entities as 'shadow men' - quite literally shadows with a life of their own - which seem to spend a lot of time scaring young children in their bedrooms. I think the key to these is the fact that what are being related to us readers are decades old childhood memories of things that supposedly happened as they were drifting off to sleep. While dreams, especially vivid one, can, at such a distance in time, can be confused with actual memories, the fact is that even memories of real, recent, experiences can be highly unreliable. I speak from the experience of twice having to give witness statements to the police within a short time of an incident and finding myself questioning my recollection of the events, the order in which they occurred, even the timescale. So, not surprisingly, I don't give much credence to these sorts of stories.
A variation on the 'shadow men' are the 'stick men', which are, yeah you've guessed it, quite literally life sized figures looking like the stick men which we are often drawn to represent human beings. Once again, these stories always seem to be relating events from many years ago, which immediately renders their veracity suspect for the same reasons as outlined above. Sometimes these 'stick men' are abnormally tall and have a habit of chasing people who see them (apparently even to their front door, according to one particularly barmy story). I find these accounts impossible to take seriously. Not just because I'm a natural born sceptic, but also there is something inherently ridiculous in the idea of giant 'stick men' running around, unnoticed by anyone other than drunks coming home at dawn or people driving on lonely roads - the usual types of witnesses to these supposed events. But some of the strangeness involves apparently regular people, rather than 'shadow men' or 'stick men', encountered by the contributor, who turn out to be somehow 'weird' in vaguely defined ways. Some of my favourites amongst these involve encounters with strangers while out walking in remote places. Strangers who seem to appear out of nowhere. Sometimes they simply walk past the author of the piece, sometimes they stop and speak, quite normally, to them then, after they've walked on, the author turns to look back at them - and they've vanished again! There were no turnings or paths they could have taken, the writer assures us - which, as someone who spends a fair amount of time out walking in the country, is nonsense: there are all sorts of paths and routes which can be taken off of the established paths, but which don't seem immediately obvious to the casual walker.
What all of this comes down to is that it is clear that, at some level, we all need a bit of mystery in our lives. In the past, religion was the go to place for mysteries for the average person. But with religion's hold weakening, especially here in the western world, people are forced to turn elsewhere for mysteries: UFOs, Bigfoot, mysterious big cats, lights in the sky, 'stick men' and so on. Some can even find mysteries in their everyday lives in the form of 'strange' coincidences or encounters with 'vanishing' people while out on a walk. I'm glad they do and even gladder that some of them write their experiences up (or even make them up) to publish in places like Fortean Times as they provide me with endless entertainment.
Not to be confused with the former WWE wrestler of the same name (aka the late Jim Helwig), The Ultimate Warrior is one of a slew of post apocalyptic movies turned out by Hollywood during the seventies. It has to be said that The Ultimate Warrior is one of the lesser entries in this style, made on a very limited budget, that didn't stretch to any location filming, but it does boast some strong leads and a fair amount of action. Having seen it on TV as a teenager, I retain a soft spot for the film, despite its inadequacies. The scenario is very simple: in the far flung future of 2012, the world has been devastated by a pandemic, which has not only wiped out most of the human population, but also much of the planet's plant and animal life, resulting in restricted food supplies for the survivors. One group, led by Baron (Max von Sydow) has secured a fortified base in New York, where they are constantly harassed by rival survivors, principally a group of violent brigands led by Carrot (William Smith). One of Baron's followers has succeeded in breeding plants resistant to the viruses that caused the pandemic, providing them with a constant source of food. In order to protect the community and its food supply, Baron secures the services of mercenary warrior Carson (Yul Brynner). Eventually, Baron realises that the only chance for the survival of bis pregnant daughter and the future of humanity is for Carson to take her and the disease-resistant seeds from which the plants are grown, to a safe haven on an island off the coast of North Carolina, escaping via the defunct New York subway system.
To the film's credit, it tells its story efficiently and simply, without much in the way of plot complications, focusing on the action. Its problems lie in its limited resources, making its depiction of its post-apocalyptic world somewhat bland. IT's all filmed on the Warner and MGM backlots and looks it - no matter how much the street exteriors are redressed to represent a post-apocalyptic New York, they look overly familiar, not to mention far too clean and tidy. The script also does nothing to elaborate on the plot's background - once the cause of the apocalypse being a pandemic is established, it is never expanded upon. In fact, it is never mentioned again - we have no idea what viruses caused it or where they originated. It is all too obviously merely a plot device. Moreover, despite the presence of the likes of Brynner and von Sydow in the main roles, their characters are barely sketched in by the script, leaving the actors little work with. Perhaps most damagingly in this respect, having established Brynner's character early on as an enigmatic, stoic warrior - he advertises his services by standing atop a building, shirtless and motionless, not speaking to, or even acknowledging, von Sydow and his delegation when they go to recruit him - once he joins the community he becomes overly talkative, losing his aura of invincibility in the process. Even Brynner's charisma and screen presence aren't enough for him to really make anything out of the character.
Most disappointing. though, are the action scenes. While there are no shortage of them, most come over as somehow underwhelming and repetitive. With Robert Clouse, a specialist in action films whose work included Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon and Darker Than Amber (which also featured William Smith as the villain, engaging in a ferocious fist fight with star Rod Taylor at the climax), directing, audience expectation for the quality of the action scenes is naturally high. But they disappoint. Like the rest of the film, they never really seem to spark fully into life. Only at the climax, as Brynner squares off against Smith in the subway, amongst abandoned trains, does it come anywhere close to fulfilling its potential. Yet, despite all of this, The Ultimate Warrior remains an enjoyable enough second tier post-apocalypse action film, if somewhat bland and generic in its depiction of the post-apocalyptic world. It at least moves along fairly smoothly and at a decent pace and at just over ninety minutes, never quite outstays its welcome.
Why do I never get asked to join one of those suburban covens that horror movies tell us lurk in every town? Or how about those Satanic rites that are meant to be going on in the local park? According to those movies there are human sacrifices taking place and evil spells being cast left, right and centre in suburbia, but I've never seen any sign of it here in Crapchester. There was a time when I suspected that old biddy who used to live down the terrace from me of running a coven under the guise of the local 'Spanish Circle', but nothing was ever proven. She did die a sad and bizarre death, though - she had a fall while working on her allotment, couldn't get up and froze to death overnight. Like I said, very sad, but I couldn't help but suspect that the victims of her coven might have been buried on that 'allotment' and she fell prey to their vengeful spirits. Possibly raised by a rival coven. Or maybe even the local Satanists. I've seen nothing of the latter, either. No desecrated churches, no naked loonies dancing around the bandstand in the park on full moons. To be honest, though, I'm quite glad that I haven't witnessed any of those naked rites by either witches or Satanists. The idea of that old biddy and her cronies prancing around in the buff chills my blood.
Anyway, to get back to the point, assuming that those horror movies haven't lied to me - why haven't I ever been invited to join any of these things? I'm pretty disreputable, after all. Frequently in conflict with the establishment, flaunt convention and have little regard for established religions. You'd think that there would be a whole queue of covens, Satanists and the like knocking on my door and extending invitations. But apparently not. Maybe I'm just too boring to be considered for membership - my idea of excitement these days is a walk around the local park and maybe a visit to the duck pond, (all in broad daylight, obviously). Perhaps my disregard for religion is a stumbling block - to me they all seem fucking crazy, whether they worship Jesus, Allah, Satan or fly around on broomsticks. Then again, it could be that those films have lied to me and those otherwise respectable seeming citizens of this town aren't secretly Satanic high priests or practicing witches and warlocks. The local greengrocer is just a greengrocer and doesn't have an idol of some heathen god in his backroom and doesn't use his fruits and vegetables in strange naked rituals in the park. That miserable bloke who runs the bookies doesn't don a stag-antlered head dress by night and perform human sacrifices in his back garden. He's just some miserable bloke. The bowls club don't engage in wild naked orgies on their green under each full moon - they just play bowls. Sadly, the closest thing to an evil cult we have around here is the local branch of Reform UK. Which is a pity as I could do with a bit more excitement in my life.
Often cited as one of the worst films ever made, Zaat! (1971) is actually a fine example of regional film making, being shot and performed by residents of Jacksonville, Florida in and around Jacksonville, Florida. When I say 'fine', I don't mean to imply that the film is, in any way, actually good in a cinematic sense, but it does represent a robust example of the regionally made low budget film, a genre that flourished in parts of the US in the sixties and seventies, made primarily for local cinema circuits, primarily drive-ins and often not seen outside of their States of origin. Zaat!, naturally, makes great use of Jacksonville's coastal location, with its story of a local mad scientist who develops a substance (the titular zaat) that can mutate people into amphibious monsters, (apparently half-man, half catfish - a species he is obsessed with). Zaat! opens with him injecting himself with the serum and turning into an utterly ludicrous looking scaly creature, (even the scientist himself has to admit that it doesn't look much like a catfish). He then goes about avenging himself on the former colleagues who had dismissed his work. The first of these he kills while they are on a fishing trip with their family and in a burst of ruthlessness rarely seen in low budget films, also kills his wife and child. The local Sheriff and a local marine biologist are baffled by the killings and the plague of catfish infesting the town and its waterways, call in help from a vaguely identified agency, which sends a couple of agents to the town.
The creature/scientist makes an abortive attempt to create a female monster, kidnapping a female camper for the purpose. The scientists start to close in on his lab, with the Sheriff finally recalling that crazy scientist and his fish experiments who used to operate out of a local premises. In a frenzied climax, the monster kidnaps the female agent with a view to turning her into a creature, but sees his plans derailed when the Sheriff and the biologist turn up and interrupt him, saving her from transformation into a scaly beast. It all ends with most of the cast dead or incapacitated and the monster, filled full of lead by the wounded male agent, staggering into the sea, followed by the female agent who, while not transformed, seems mesmerised. Now, all of this would have made for a decently entertaining, in entirely derivattve seventy five minute B-movie. Unfortunately, though, Zaat! runs for a staggering hundred minutes, dragging out every scene interminably, its leaden pace emphasising the wooden performances and poor dialogue. The sad thing is that, in terms of productions values, monster aside, Zaat! isn't as ramshackle as many other low budget productions of its era. The cinematography, though not inspired, at least makes the most of the sunny Florida locations, captured in bright and vibrant colour, while the sound quality is excellent for a low budget film, (highlighting the atrocious dialogue). Even the mad scientist's lab, with its antiquated switches and flashing lights, at least looks like the sort of thing a lone madman might be able to construct. But the whole thing is just drawn out to such excessive length that it becomes tedious, the viewer becoming too bored even to be able to enjoy the film on a so-bad-it-is-good level. Which, at a shorter length, it would have been.
I'm a natural born sceptic. I learned a long time ago the perils of believing things because you'd like them to be true, instead of following the actual facts. The media these days is full of stories about 'miracle cures' for diseases, scientific research that could be the key to longevity, of how scientists studying 'near death' experiences have 'proved' the after life exists and many more. The problem is that, when you start looking into these things with a critical eye, asking what the actual facts are, you quickly find that the stories are all fanciful extrapolations by journalists. Sure, the research they talk about actually exists, but its findings are rarely so clear cut as the stories want you to believe. Indeed, the conclusions made by the researchers are actually far more modest and in fact they don't claim to have proven the existence of the hereafter, found a cure for cancer or found the fountain of life. At best, they might be stages in the path to achieving all of those things, but it isn't going to happen any time soon. But at least these stories, deceptive though they might be in their presentation, have some basis in truth, so the casual reader might be forgiven for believing them. The web, however, is also awash with utterly fake stories, written to sound credible, which a lot of people seem to simply accept at face value, when even the most cursory research would reveal their fakeness. It scares me how unwilling, or unable, so many people are to apply any kind of critical thinking to what they read and sea. Look for hard, credible proof, if it isn't there, then the story is fake. They seem quite happy with simply accepting the supposed authority of the piece in question.
Take the story that giant human skeletons were found in the US around the turn of the last century - this one is often stated as fact, claiming that the bones were publicly displayed, had baffled archaeologists or were evidence that American Indian legends about races of giants were true. But if you actually look into the story, you'll find that there's not one iota of truth to it - it all seems based upon anecdotal claims made about the discovery of these skeletons by miners. But there is no physical trace of such bones, no photographs, no record of them being displayed. Even the size of these 'giants' is disputed, with the earliest reports claiming a more modest size for them - taller than average, but not giants. But the story has been embellished by successive generations of tabloid journalist, with their exaggerations now being presented as fact. It's the same with much of the nonsense that surrounds UFO sightings and alien abductions - when you get down to it and start looking for facts, you find them to be very thin on the ground. Again, it's all anecdotal with no independent witnesses or physical evidence. Conspiracy theories are the same: they simply don't stand up to scrutiny as they are inevitably based upon a wilful misinterpretation of actual facts, the invention of 'alternative facts' and an unwillingness to accept logic. Most damning is the fact that, even where these people claim to actually have hard evidence, they are never prepared to expose it to independent scientific investigation, Why? Because they know that it can't and that would undermine their whole warped belief system. Instead, they fall back on the excuse that the scientific establishment is all part of the conspiracy to suppress their 'secret knowledge'. In fact, anyone who uses logic and reason to discredit their pet theories is part of the conspiracy.
I was put in mind of all this by an article in The Guardian I recently read. It was a review of a new 'documentary' that 'compellingly presses the case' for the existence of aliens and government knowledge of them. It was clear that the author had been impressed by the parade of retired military types and government employees all earnestly testifying as to the 'truth' of these claims. Nonetheless, they had, eventually, to concede that it was all short on actual proof. Even the supposed former government 'insiders' didn't seem to have any direct experience of any of the stuff they claimed was being covered up by the authorities. It was all 'I was told' or 'There was this project I couldn't get access to', which puts it into the realm of being purely anecdotal evidence, which is far from being proof of anything. But hey, they used to work for the US government and said that they used to have high security clearances, so they must know something, mustn't they? Well, not really. Here in the UK we have Nick Pope who, like me, once worked for the MoD in Whitehall. According to him, he ran the 'UFO Desk' and saw all these reports about sightings and knew how seriously the military took them. Since leaving the MoD he's traded on the supposed 'authority' this has given him to churn out books about UFOs and become a regular 'talking head' on crackpot TV shows - he's the UK's self-styled 'UFO expert'. Interestingly, I once spoke to the guy who took over that 'UFO Desk' after Pope left and he told me that everything that Pope had claimed was utter bollocks. Moreover, I'm pretty sure that I had a much, much higher security clearance than Pope ever had (I worked in Defence Intelligence at the time) and I can't say that I ever found myself exposed to any evidence of crashed saucers, alien technology or abductions. Then again, maybe I'm part of the conspiracy...
From Book to Screen: The Laughing Policeman (1973)
Book to film adaptations are always problematic - there are numerous challenges in transferring a story from one medium to another - but are further complicated when it also involves a literal translation from one language (and culture) to another. I recently finally got around to reading the Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo novel 'The Laughing Policeman' (part of the 'Martin Beck' series of police procedurals) and recalled that it had been filmed back in the seventies. I had only vague memories of having seen the film on TV when I was a teenager, recalling only the opening and the fact that it had been re-located to the US. Out of curiosity, I hunted down the film online and watched it the other day. It turned out to be a fascinating, yet frustrating, watch - so like, yet so different, from the source novel. It opens well, pretty much in line with the novel, with a bus load of passengers being mown down with a machine gun, but as it progresses, it starts to stray further and further from the novel. It isn't just that the change in locale from Stockholm to San Francisco feels jarring, nor that all the characters now have American names, it is also that differences in both the police and wider cultures of Sweden and the US mean that the whole tone of the piece is different and parts of the plot have to proceed differently. While the overall plot of both novel and film are more or less the same, with the opening bus massacre turning out to be linked to an unsolved murder previously investigated by the lead detective, the film, out of the necessity of fitting everything into a sub two hour running time, simplifies it to the point that, perversely, it hardly seems to make sense. It also throws in some entirely irrelevant changes, most notably making the prime suspect a closet homosexual. (I guess that gay bars and black leather were still something of a cinematic novelty in early seventies US cinema).
The core of the novel's plot is the detectives' investigation of an investigation of an investigation. One of the victims of the bus shooting is one of their colleagues, who, it turns out had been privately re-investigating a cold case, going back over the original investigation and apparently turning up something that resulted in him following one of the other victims. Unfortunately, he had left no notes, so Beck and the other detectives are forced both to try and piece together his investigative steps and go back over the original case files. Eventually it all comes down to the misidentification of a car by a witness in the original case, which allowed the dead detective to break the alibi of the prime suspect and realise that the man he was following was instrumental in providing the alibi and was blackmailing the killer. The film jettisons most of this, losing several characters in the process, not to mention several logical steps of deduction for the detectives. The nature of the alibi is simplified to the point where it seems unlikely that it couldn't have been broken in the original investigation. The film also bows to the requirements of English language cop movies to include action sequences at regular intervals, injecting several such sequences at various points in the film. To some extent, these action inserts resemble the bursts of action which pepper the 'Dirty Harry' movies (the first two of which had been released by this time), their relevance to the main plot questionable, existing mainly to demonstrate the attitudes and approach to police work of the main character. Unfortunately, in The Laughing Policeman, they don't even serve this purpose, feeling somewhat jarring and only peripherally related to the plot.
It's not that The Laughing Policeman is a bad film, it most certainly isn't, featuring a great cast headed by Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern, who all turn in excellent performances. It is also well directed by Stuart Rosenberg, across some intereseting San Francisco locations. It isn't as if it is totally unrecognisable to the book: the plot is more or less the same and despite the name changes, most of the characters from the book are still easily identifiable. Many scenes do still play out in similar fashion to their equivalents in the novel. It's just that, if you have read the book, it seems too different, a complex and intriguing look at a police investigation is transformed into something that feels much more like a standard US cop movie of the era. The texture of the book feels as if it is missing. Which was probably inevitable given the change in location. One of the main choices made by the film makers when adapting the novel was to focus the script on the investigation itself and largely eliminate the home life of the detectives which feature prominently in the novel. The result is that some characters, like the dead detective's girl friend who plays an important role in the plot's resolution, have their roles severly truncated. Likewise, the Beck-equivalent's (played by Matthau) wife and family barely get a look-in. Which is unfortunate, as it renders the film's title meaningless (it's notable that in the UK the film was retitled An Investigation of Murder). In the novel 'The Laughing Policeman' is record given to the dour Beck by his daughter as a Christmas present, it eventually becomes relevant at the novel's end, when Beck discovers that the dead detective had, in fact, left some paperwork which would have provided a key to resolving the investigation far quicker, had it been found earlier, resulting in Beck laughing uproariously. Something Matthau never does in the film, at any time.
I've been seeing a lot of press articles and hearing a lot of TV and radio interviews where various academics, politicians and commentators try to rationalise the actions of the Trump administration, be it the bullying of Ukraine, the championing of Putin, tariffs, NATO and everything else. The gist of these articles and interviews is that the administration's actions are purely rational, all part of some perfectly logical plan informed by the new - and perfectly sane - world view brought to the White House by Trump. I find that their tone is becoming increasingly desperate, as those responsible for them realise that, ultimately, they are trying to justify the unjustifiable. Their problem, of course, is that they are still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the US has elected, at best, a demented and delusional old man, or at worst, a psychopath, as president. Either way, the man making the decisions is mentally impaired. Which wouldn't matter if his actions were confined to the US, but unfortunately, the rest of us also have to suffer his obvious mental instability, which threatens to destabilise the real world. Not that any of that matters to those hardcore MAGA crazies who continue to support Trump: they've been indoctrinated into a cult, with Trump as their Messiah, his every utterance treated as divinely inspired and therefore unquestionable.
None of it matters to those who surround Trump in the upper echelons of government. For some, he is an enabler of their own particular craziness, be it an opposition to vaccines or a hostility to government itself, on ideological grounds. For others, it is pure opportunism, an opportunity to advance their careers which, under ordinary circumstances, would be stalled due to their mediocrity, shadiness or pure incompetence, or maybe an opportunity for financial gain, by ensuring companies they are involved with get lucrative government contracts. For many, it is a combination of these factors. it's no good looking to Congress for help - right now it's packed full of Republicans who have taken the Trump shilling in order to get elected. He might be a psycho, but he's a psycho who has brought them power. Maybe it will change with the mid-term elections in a couple of years, but two years is a long time. By then, he might have declared martial law on some pretext, backed up by that supine, spineless Republican dominated Congress. Even if they do go ahead, the Trump political machine is awash with cash and in US elections, money talks. Similarly, the Supreme court, packed out with crazy right-wing judges, won't help either. Even if it does rule against him, an increasingly unstable and dangerous Trump will likely simply ignore any rulings he doesn't like, doubtless without consequence because, Hell, who is going to call him to account? Right now, the US is lost to the civilised world, with no clear way back for the country. Personally, I'm banking on the joint Mexican-Canadian invasion which will seize enough territories in the North and South to render what's left of the US impotent.
I first became aware of The Hunchback of the Morgue (1973) in the late seventies or early eighties, finding it referenced in one of the various books about horror movies that my teenaged self eagerly devoured around that time. At that time, continental horror films sounded incredibly exotic - the horror films showing on UK TV at the time were mainly the old Universal classics, Hammer films from the sixties and early seventies, AIP's Edgar Allen Poe series and a smattering of stuff from Amicus, Tigon. William Castle and the like. Dubbed versions of Italian and Spanish productions rarely, if ever, turned up - due, no doubt, to the amount of sex, nudity and gore that was frequently on show. That would certainly have been the case with regard to just about any of Paul Naschy's films of the period, but especially The Hunchback of the Morgue, (which, as far as I know, has never been shown on terrestrial TV in the UK). It took me many years to catch up with most of Naschy's seventies oeuvre, with Hunchback always eluding me - until this past weekend, when I finally caught up with a subtitled version. As I've noted many times before, films you have spent years anticipating often turn out to be disappointing when finally seen. Hunchback of the Morgue, though, most certainly didn't disappoint, turning out to be the utterly bonkers, bad taste, borderline surreal slice of Euro-horror I had been hoping for.
Like Naschy's werewolf films, The Hunchback of the Morgue combines various traditional Gothic horror tropes, as established in the Universal and Hammer films he admired, with new fangled visceral blood and gore and sex. Naschy, of course, plays the title role, Wolfgang Gotho, a simple-minded hunchback living in a small Austrian town where, when he isn't having stones thrown at him by local children or being taunted and ridiculed by medical students from the local hospital, helps out in the local morgue. The only positive in his miserable existence is the friendship he has struck with Ilse, a terminally ill patient at the hospital. When she dies, Gotho loses it completely, killing two pathologists about to, as he sees it, desecrate her body, decapitating one with an axe, before retreating with her body into a labyrinth of secret tunnels beneath the town. The ancient tunnels also include a number of cells and torture chambers formerly used by the Inquisition. Forced to defend Ilse's body from hordes of rats - in one of the film's most infamous scenes, in which real rats crawl all over both Naschy and the actress playing Ilse, culminating with several rats being set on fire (for real) by Gotho - the hunchback determines to enlist the help of local mad scientist Professor Orla (Alberto Dalbes) to bring her back to life. Orla, coincidentally, needs a new lab to pursue his research into creating artificial life, his research grant at the university having been cut off, so moves his equipment into the catacombs. Inevitably, his research needs lots of fresh corpses, so Gotho finds himself variously digging up corpses, stealing heads from the morgue and committing more and more murders. Finally, he finds himself forced to abduct young women from the reformatory school (whose existence provides a flimsy excuse for an entirely gratuitous spanking scene) run by the girlfriend of Orla's reluctant assistant.
All the while, Gotho is still waiting for Orla to revive Ilse, which he clearly has no intention of doing, simply stringing Gotho along with false promises so as to ensure his obedience. Things get worse for Gotho when the Prof's thuggish henchmen, tired of the stench emanating from Ilse's decomposing corpse, dispose of it in the lab's acid bath. Gotho is not happy, killing the henchmen in an angry rage. Unphased by this development, the Prof assures Gotho that he doesn't need Ilse's body to revive her - he can create a whole new Ilse! Gotho, meanwhile, has found another local woman who has a thing for physically disabled crazed killers, this time a doctor working at the reformatory. Eventually, everyone ends up down in the tunnels as Orla completely loses his mind and the artificial being he has created and nurtured by feeding it human bodies, breaks out and starts rampaging around the lab - it's left to Gotho (and that acid bath) to save the day. As you can see, Hunchback of the Morgue has it all: mad hunchbacks, crazy scientists, a monster, grave robbing, decapitations, animal cruelty and more than a hint of necrophilia. Not to mention dank dungeons, labs full of bubbling chemicals and bumbling cops who can't even catch a man with conspicuous physical disabilities. The references to classic horror movies are abundant, some overt, like the title character's homage to the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Frankenstein-style body snatching, some less so - the catacombs seem to be evoking memories of The Phantom of the Opera - while the mad scientist and his lab is pure classic Universal B-movie. Moreover, while Gotho's final confrontation with the monster (which, disconcertingly, looks like a man-shaped pile of oozing shit) isn't exactly Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, it is clearly intended to stir memories of Universal's forties 'monster rallies', with multiple creatures running around and duking it out.
In common with most Spanish horror movies of the period, Hunchback of the Morgue eschews the attempts at stylish visuals and striking production design seen in their contemporaneous Italian cousins, in favour of a plainer, more realistic, look. The Austrian-shot exteriors are certainly attractive - all cobbled streets and overhanging buildings - but are rarely used in such a way as to create atmosphere. Likewise, the studio interiors, including the catacombs, are straightforward, avoiding ornateness or extravagance in their design. They are deployed simply as a backdrop to the action, rather than being a 'character; in their own right. Effective lighting means, though, that they never seem 'artificial'. Similarly, Javier Aguirre's direction takes a direct approach to delivering shocks and scares - although, surprisingly, he is quite sparing in terms of gore - providing a steady stream of violence, killings and phobias (in particular, fear of rats) to move the plot along. I recall that, back in the day, the two things in the film that were considered, in the English-speaking cinematic world, at least, especially shocking, were the aforementioned rat scene and the claims that a real dead body was decapitated on screen. Whilst it is true that permission was given for the latter to take place (in a morgue, obviously), all you see in the film is Naschy drawing a knife across the corpse's throat, with the decapitation itself involving an obviously fake head. The rat sequence, however, is clearly not faked and remains deeply disturbing as the blazing rats scurrying off screen in pain are obviously real.
It's clear that the film wants us to see Gotho as a tragic antihero, driven to madness and murder by the cruelty of others and Naschy works hard to try and draw out the sympathetic side of the character. Indeed, he succeeds in transmitting powerfully Gotho's unrequited love for Ilse, his gratitude for her kindness and his pain at her demise and the treatment of her corpse. But his transformation from pathetic victim to psychopathic killer is abrupt, weakening audience sympathy, while the relish with which he goes about dispatching enemies such as the medical student who taunted him and disrespected Ilse, further alienates the audience. The romance with the doctor, moreover, although obviously designed to try and offset his murderous activities, never really convinces - her continued defences of him in the face of her knowledge of incontrovertible evidence of his guilt in the killings, simply doesn't ring true. Of course, the film tries to maintain Gotho's status as victim by having him, in the latter parts of the film, grave rob and kill at the behest of Professor Orla, rather than for personal reasons, while making Orla crazier and crazier in order to cast him as the true villain and deflect culpability away from Gotho. But, in the end, the film can never get away from the fact that its central character is a killer - a pretty vicious and ruthless one, at that. In fact, the film is short on any truly sympathetic characters: Orla is crazy, his assistant weak willed and hypocriticall, the lady doctor blind to Gotho's murderous activities. Only Ilse is blameless - and she's a corpse for much of her screen time.
For all of its faults, though, Hunchback of the Morgue is, if you can get past the animal cruelty, an entertaining, if entirely off-kilter, horror movie. It comes over as a 1940s Universal B-movie with added explicit violence, sex, nudity and overtones of necrophilia. Aguirre moves it all along at sufficient pace that, while it is playing, its absurdities never quite overwhelm it. Ultimately, the film belongs to Naschy - although he gets sterling support from Franco regular Dalbes, Maria Perschy as Gotho's doctor love interest, Rossana Yarri and Vic Winner - who, despite having to perform his entire role wearing a rubber hump, gives an energetic performance, clambering over roofs and climbing through windows to steal corpses. While it might not be easy to sympathise with Gotho in view of his murderous activities, not to mention his necrophilia and rat-burning, Naschy does manage to put over the tortured hunchback's inner turmoil and anguish, while also evoking a more tender side to the character in his relationship with the living Ilse. A memorable performance in a memorably bizarre and feverish film.
Another startling recent headline from Britain's right-wing press: 'Son of Top Chinese Communist Party Official Raped Over a Hundred Women in UK '. It's the way that the emphasis seems to be upon the fact that this guy is a) foreign and b) a Communist (by association with his father, if nothing else), rather than that he's a rapist. It says a lot about the priorities of the right that being a Chinese Communist is apparently considered a greater crime than sexually assaulting women on an industrial scale. But I suppose that it ties in with their general world view that Britain should be for the British. Even Britain's crime should be reserved for domestic offenders - how dare these bloody foreigners come here and start muscling in on our criminal activities? Remember the good old days when, if a woman had the misfortune to be raped, she could at least take solace in the fact that she was the victim of a British sex offender. Who, we all know, would do it far more efficiently, with less brutality, definitely take his hat off before doing the deed and undoubtedly make his victim a cup of tea afterwards. In this case, just to make it even worse, the bounder wasn't just some foreign Johnny attempting to monopolise the entire sex offending business, but he was a bloody Commie to boot. The bastard probably quoted from Marx and that 'Little Red Book' (which is undoubtedly some kind of vile Red Chinese guide book for twisted sexual perverts), while he was attacking those women.
These same prejudices underpin much of the right's characterisation of immigration into the UK - the idea that hordes of foreign, generally non-white, criminals are invading our shores. According to this world view, there are bands of swarthy brigands roaming Britain's streets robbing, pillaging, murdering and raping as they go along. This isn't unique to the UK - just look at how Trump and his cronies characterise the illegal immigrants coming over the US's southern border from Mexico: they're all part of crime cartels taking over US crime. Somehow, they, like their UK equivalents, are worse than indigenous criminals. (Say what you like about the Mafia, but at least they were born in the USA. Except the ones from Sicily, of course). In support of this world view, you find the right-wing press emphasising only those criminals who can be characterised as being somehow 'foreign'. Just look at the coverage of 'grooming gangs' here in the UK - if we are to believe the press and the racists of the right, these are exclusively run by men of Asian origin. Statistically, of course, it is a different story - the majority of sexual offenders targeting children, including 'grooming gangs' are actually white and British - but that's a story they don't want to hear as it doesn't fit their narrative. Foreigners, especially non-white ones, are bad. They only come here to commit crimes - crimes that should be being perpetrated by white Brits. Damn it, it's a national disgrace that the title of 'Britain's Most Prolific Rapist' should be held by a Chinese communist! Never mind the victims - for the right-wing press this is the real issue, it seems.
Tunnels (1987) starts out with the promise that it could be a monster movie. A giant rat-in-the-sewers movie, to be precise. But audience expectations are quickly whittled away at, with hints of monstrous rats, giant or otherwise, being reduced to suggestions of 'rat people' down in those city sewers, before it finally settles down to be crime thriller involving unscrupulous millionaire property developers, secret prisons and human trafficking. Now, to be fair, there is actually one 'rat person', in the singular, present in the sewers, but he's a red herring, a weaselly looking homeless guy who lives down there and who turns out to be benign. But the main plot unfolds as a would be thriller, with two investigative journalists following up the mystery of toilets blocked with dead rats at their offices (clearly a slow news day) accompanying an exterminator into the tunnels beneath the building and encountering various strange characters. Despite being hampered by their editor, they eventually tie in strange happenings in the sewers with the disappearance of several homeless people from an area of the city which is the site of a proposed new development. It eventually transpires that a local property developer is using a couple of goons to kidnap the homeless population, so as to clear the area, temporarily locking up in an underground prison, before having them shipped off overseas as slave labour by a scuzzy sea captain. Inevitably, the two reporters end up as captives but, aided by the developer's brother, a crazy old homeless coot and the 'rat man', foil the developer's plans in a showdown on the captain's ship. The plot does manage to spring a major plot twist toward the end, (although it was pretty well telegraphed).
The thing is that there is a half decent and quite intriguing story lurking in there, but it's execution in Tunnels leaves much to be desired. For one thing, Mark Byers' direction has a far too languid pace, with absolutely no sense of urgency about any of the action - we never feel that the two reporters are ever really imperilled, regardless of their predicament. The plot doesn't develop at all fluidly, with far too many distractions involving the internal politics of the newspaper, personal rivalries between the two main characters, romantic asides and the like. Most damagingly, the film's tone is incredibly uneven, never seemingly able to decide whether it wants to be an actual thriller or a light comedy, eventually veering to the latter. The whole thing has the distinct look and feel of a direct-to-video production: the obvious cheapness of sets, costume and props, the complete blandness of the overall production design, lighting and sound quality and flat direction which fails to summon any real atmosphere, let alone tension. Where the film does score, though, is in being able to muster a decent enough cast of lead actors, including Catherine Bach, John Saxon, Nicholas Guest and Charlene Dallas. OK, they aren't exactly the A-list, but they are definitely above average for this kind of production and all put in more than half way decent performances. Bach and Dallas as the two reporters, in particular, make for engaging and sympathetic leads, both proving that, even in a low budget B-movie, women can more than hold their own in a traditionally male milieu. Saxon, for once not playing a crazed would be galactic dictator, hard-assed cop or mad scientist, is suitably smarmy and duplicitous as their editor. There's also decent comic support from Vic Tayback as the exterminator. Daniel Yost's (best known for scripting Drugstore Cowboy a couple of years later) screenplay, even if its interesting central ideas never seem fully developed, does provide the main cast with some half decent dialogue. Tunnels is pretty typical of direct-to-video fare from the eighties - quite enjoyable while it is on, but completely unmemorable and utterly disposable as entertainment.
Dateline 4 March 2030 - The second Trump administration seems, finally, to have come to a chaotic and bloody end. With civil unrest and riots sweeping what was left of the United States, the President finally tried to flee three days ago, with millions of dollars of currency seen being hastily loaded aboard Air Force One, before it took off from Edwards Air Force base, pursued along the runway by an angry mob who had overwhelmed the site's defenders. Trump's decision to flee had followed the assassination of Vice President JD Vance, who was blown up in his official Tesla Cybertruck the month before, although it was not at first realised that it was an assassination, with many initially believing that the vehicle had simply spontaneously caught fire and exploded. An attempt to illegally swear in Elon Musk as Vice President was foiled when the billionaire's own Cybertruck's battery ran after its auto-drive system had driven it in circles around Washington DC for hours as he tried to flee protestors. According to onlookers, he was dragged from the vehicle and set upon by a frenzied mob of former federal employees, armed with knives, shouting 'How do you like these cuts, Elon?' According to some unconfirmed reports, a chainsaw was also used in the attack. Afterwards, his bloodied and partly dismembered body was hung from a lamppost.
Neither police nor military had been able to contain the nationwide protests, which had started in earnest after Trump had postponed the 2028 presidential election indefinitely, on the grounds that the US was in the grip of a 'national emergency'. With its numbers depleted by Musk's spending cuts and the need to fight a war on two fronts - trying to push back the Mexican invasion on the southern border and the Canadian annexation of the US North East, including most of New England and part of New York State - plus the desertion of several units to Canada, the US military was simply unable to prevent chaos from engulfing the US. Even the bombing of Chicago and Seattle by the US Air Force couldn't halt the popular uprising. Consequently, the federal government found itself powerless to prevent California from seceding from the Union and becoming part of Denmark instead, swayed by the prospect of a proper healthcare system, properly funded public education, pine furniture and general laid back liberalism. Similarly, the states of the North West annexed by Canada appear in no hurry to free themselves, with reports of cheering crowds having lined the streets to greet advancing Canadian tanks. Again, the promise of health care, cheap prescription drugs and a proper welfare system seems to have swayed their loyalties. Canadian troops also moved to occupy Alaska in a bid to foil a desperate Trump's bid to sell it back to Russia in exchange for military aid from Moscow.
But what next for the leaderless USA? With significant parts of the country now in foreign hands and the rest in chaos, can it continue as an independent country? Already, some states have made moves toward independence - only days before Trump fled Texas, with half of its territory already occupied by Mexico, declared itself independent, in hope of negotiating its own peace treaty with its southern neighbour. With military units increasingly going over to the rebels' side, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's attempts to seize power have proven fruitless, lacking sufficient loyal forces to impose order. Despite fears that the US would find itself divided up between Canada and Mexico, neither country has shown any inclination to increase its current territorial holdings. Indeed, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, (who, readers will recall, reassumed the premiership by popular demand, after resigning in 2025), has ruled out annexing any more US states, describing much of post-Trump USA as 'a shithole'. But what of Trump himself, what fate befell the former President following his last-minute escape? According to reports from Japanese military sources, Air Force One disappeared from radar screens somewhere over the Pacific, apparently brought down by a missile. Canada has remained silent over speculation that the missile was fired from a Canadian aircraft or ship. While it seems unlikely that anyone aboard the plane could have survived, there have been unconfirmed reports from a remote island in the Pacific of the 'pig from the sky', which supposedly crashed into the middle of a village. It was said to be so fat that locals expected it to feed the entire village for weeks to come.
I guess that the films of Al Adamson are an acquired taste. I know people who absolutely despise them, but I have a weak spot for Adamson and his patchwork quilt style of film making, constantly reshaping both his own movies and those of others, in order to achieve a constant stream of low budget mayhem. While the films of many other ultra low budget film makers leave me cold - I mean, just how many times can you watch anything by Ed Wood, it's obvious from one viewing that they are the work of an untalented hack, while those of Andy Milligan are simply endurance tests as they grind themselves through ninety minutes of excruciating dialogue and non-existent acting - I find the oeuvre of Adamson constantly entertaining and inventive. Which brings us to Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970), a truly crazed exercise in exploiting stock footage from old and/or obscure films. It actually starts with some original Adamson footage, apparently shot in a badly lit barn, where various actors, (including Adamson himself and fellow low budget director Gary Graver), chase others around while wearing joke store fangs, while Brother Theodore's insanely delivered voice over tells us that the earth is in the grip of a plague of vampirism which originates on a far off planet. Luckily, though, scientist John Carradine (who performs his entire role with the demeanour of an old man irritated that he's been abruptly awakened from his afternoon nap), and his crew are about to blast off in a spaceship to the solar system of the vampire planet in search of a cure.
With their journey provided courtesy of stock footage from David Hewett's Wizard of Mars, the ship's crew find themselves on a planet seemingly composed mainly of stock footage from Unknown Island (1948), One Million BC (1940) - which provide the dinosaurs - and a Filipino caveman movie. Not only does the latter film provide the bulk of the footage, but it was the reason that Adamson made Horror of the Blood Monsters, apparently having enjoyed it so much on a first viewing, that he decided to build a whole new movie around it. Now, bearing in mind that this film was in black and white (as was One Million BC) and the new footage was all in colour, you might think that this would make them incompatible. While this might have been the case for a less inventive director than Adamson, he solved by simply tinting the planet-side sequences taken from these films into different colours. This is then explained by a claim that the planet is subjected to 'chromatic radiation' which randomly changes everything between yellow, red and green. The newly shot Adamson footage of the astronauts exploring the planet are likewise tinted to match them in better. These tinted sequences are interspersed with scenes (in regular colour) of Carradine in the spaceship, barking out snarky orders on the radio, scenes back at Mission Control and even scenes in the bedroom of the two Mission Control personnel, as they have sex the futuristic way, which involves being wired up to a contraption with lots of flashing lights. The main purpose of these latter scenes seems to be to enable the male Mission Control worker to mansplain 'chromatic radiation' to the woman.
The film's highlights, though, are undoubtedly provided by that Filipino footage, which seems to involve various prehistoric tribes at war with each other. In the Adamson re-edit and re-dub, a tribe of normal human cavemen are being preyed on by a tribe of vampire cavemen (they all sport very long fangs, like tusks, which suggests that, perhaps, in the original film they weren't actually vampires, in fact, they seem to act more like cannibals). There are also some 'Snake Men', who have snakes growing out of their shoulders, lurking around, as well. The human cavemen are forced, for some reason to go on a quest for 'fire water' (oil), which involves them having to cross a river full of 'Lobster Men', sporting claws and a cave full of 'Bat Men', (who swoop down on wires). It's amazing stuff, wildly inventive and thanks to Adamson's chopping up the footage, near incomprehensible in plot terms. Moreover, for some reason the astronauts also need some of the oil, so follow the human cavemen to the source, accompanied by a human cave girl they've used their translation device on, so that she speaks and understands English. Obviously, as she is an American actress, she looks nothing like the tribe she is meant to have come from. There are also lots of flashbacks using the Filipino footage as the girl relates the background to the inter-tribal conflict. I have to admit that by this time I'd given up any pretence of attempting to follow the film's narrative, instead just enjoying the audacious mash up of footage from four different films which, at times, verges on the utterly surreal. The surviving astronauts get back to the ship, where Carradine grumpily goes on about the effects of the 'chromatic radiation' reduce red blood cell counts, forcing sufferers into vampirism, before they blast off back to earth, with Carradine casually noting that the rising radiation levels are soon likely to kill everyone on the planet. I'm assuming that they found a cure for the vampire plague on earth, but by that time I'd completely lost the narrative thread.
By no stretch of the imagination could anyone ever describe Horror of the Blood Monsters as being a 'good' film. To be sure, its component parts are, in the main, decently put together - Adamson's new footage is never going to win awards and clearly had no budget whatsoever, but it is, at least, competently shot. Certainly, it's streets ahead of anything Ed Wood or Andy Milligan ever achieved. The true fascination of the film lies in the way that Adamson stitches together his disparate sources to create a completely new narrative, divorced from those of the source materials. The result is joyously barmy and hugely entertaining. This isn't really one of those bad movies you watch simply to wallow 'ironically' in its badness, but rather it can be enjoyed for its sheer bizarreness. Like most of Adamson's films Horror of the Blood Monsters was released numerous times during the seventies, under a plethora of different titles. If you truly love the weird, then you really should try and watch Horror of the Blood Monsters under any of its many titles.
