The Season is Upon Us, it Seems

It's like a switch has been thrown as we enter November and the Christmas TV commercials start in earnest.  Sure, there have been Christmassy ads running since, well, probably September, but this week the 'Big Boys' have been launching their full on seasonal TV campaigns.  Just today, I've seen the opening salvo of commercials from M&S, Aldi and Lidl.  It can only be a matter of hours before Sainsburys, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons join in, (I'm pretty sure that I saw a Waitrose Christmas ad the other day, so they've already fired their first shots of the season).  Oh, and the number of TV spots for those designer perfumes have ramped up - always a good indicator that the festive season is upon us. Obviously, the one that seasoned Christmas commercial watchers are waiting for is the John Lewis TV ad, although I've never understood just why people get so obsessed about these.  It isn't as if they're particularly memorable - I vaguely recall that one about the old peado who loves on the moon, but beyond that, I can't say that I clearly remember any of them.  Getting back to the point, it's hard to remember exactly when these Christmas commercials started this year - were they showing over the weekend?  Did it kick off last Friday, the first day of November?  (I didn't watch a lot of terrestrial TV over the weekend, instead focusing on various Roku streaming channels, which, more often than not, play US ads, usually about  dodgy sounding pharmaceuticals, Medicare claims and tax avoidance). 

Which leads me to ponder as to whether there's some complex formula used by advertisers as to when the Christmas TV ad campaign starts.  Steeped in mystery, like the way the church formulates when Easter is going to fall every year.  Something, perhaps, to do with which weekend the clocks go back on - is there a rule that says we have to have left British Summer Time before Christmas ads can show?  Maybe that is it - it has to be the first weekend following the one where we go back to GMT and the nights start drawing in, making us feel Christmassy.  Of course, these days it is all complicated by the fact that early November is when we also get ads banging on about 'Black Friday' sales.  A concept which, as I never tire of saying, is completely meaningless in the UK, as we don't have Thanksgiving on the Thursday before, (which conveniently marks the start of the US holiday season).  Having answered the question of how they calculate the date for the commencement of the UK Christmas TV commercial season, the other burning seasonal question which needs answering is that of when is it time to put up the external Christmas decorations?  Clearly it doesn't coincide with the TV ads, as I haven't so far seen any displayed around Crapchester.  (Although there are still some lingering Halloween external decorations, which seem to be becoming more popular - there was an inflatable witch popping up and down in the front garden of one house I walked past last week, for instance).  When they arrive, we'll really know that Christmas is here. 

Hand of Death (1962)

Lately, I've been catching up with a number of B-movies that piqued my interest when I first became interested in horror films - more years ago now than I care to remember - but which I was never able to see due to their lack of availability on UK TV back then.  We're talking about the pre-internet era here, when we had only three TV channels and home video was in its infancy.  So, if a film didn't turn up on one of those three channels, then you weren't going to be able to see it, it was that simple.  To research my new found interest, I had to rely on books (often borrowed from my local library), which usually included all too brief write ups of the films and tantalising stills from them.  So it was that I first became aware of Hand of Death (1962), from a single still in a book about movie monsters.  It showed a guy with grotesquely swollen face and hands steadying himself on, rather bizarrely, a parking meter.  The caption on the picture simply named the film and there was no other reference to  it in the main text.  In the years that followed I found out a bit more about the movie from other books - cast, director, basic plot outline - but was never able to catch up with the film itself, which remained an obscurity, not even to be found anywhere on the net.  Until now, that is, when I found a number of copies have turned up online.  

So, having finally ended my decades long wait to see Hand of Death, was it worth it?  The most immediately striking thing about the film is that it is very traditional science fiction/horror B-movie, yet was made as late as 1962.  The plot could easily have come from thirties or forties Universal or Monogram B-movie starring Karloff or Lugosi: scientist working on revolutionary new gas that can pacify those who inhale it, gets a whiff of his own invention and finds that his very touch deals death.  Even his motivations for developing the gas - for use on the battlefield to incapacitate enemy armies without harming them - could have come from one of those thirties films an over-reaching scientist's good intentions turn out to pave the road to Hell.  While mad scientist type films were still being made in the fifties and into the sixties, they tended to have moved with the times, with experiments involving then fashionable radiation to grow insects to giant proportions and the like becoming the norm.  Moreover, they were also increasingly tailored to the youth market, as drive in audiences became ever more important to the box office fates of low budget films.  AIP, in particular, targeted this demographic with the likes of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Blood is My Heritage, to name but a few.  Hand of Death, by contrast, makes no concessions to this market, with its middle aged cast and lack of hot rods and surfers, (although a beach does feature prominently at the climax - but there are no parties going on there).

What we get instead is a pretty standard science-gone-wrong plot, as the protagonist finds not just his body, but also his mind warped by his encounter with the gas he has developed, (reminiscent, to some degree, of Universal's The Mad Ghoul (1943)).  The performances, from a cast of B-movie veterans, including John Agar as the unfortunate scientist, are pretty standard for this sort of film.  What is outstanding is the make-up worn by Agar as he starts changing into a monster, with both hands and face hugely swollen, with blackened, cracked skin.  Indeed, the scenes where he wanders around the streets in this state, wearing a trench coat and trilby hat are more than a little surreal and give the film a genuinely bizarre feel.  (It is from this sequence that the still with the parking meter, which sparked my interest in the film, was taken).  The film tries hard to make Agar's character a tragic hero: not only were his original intentions peaceful, but he never intentionally kills anyone in the film, it's just that people keep touching him or forcing him to fend them off, resulting in his fatal touch killing them.  (The make-up effects for his victims are also above average, with his initial touch leaving a black mark on them, before their skin swells, blackens and cracks like his).  The problem is that his character is too stereotypically written and performed for the audience ever to care much about him.  

In terms of production values, Hand of Death looks pretty decent for a low budget movie, making good use of its locations and featuring some memorably shot sequences. These include the aforementioned street scene as well as the long tracking shots of Agar stumbling along the beach toward the end, while a child plays on a terrace in the foreground, the set-up constantly teasing a collision between the two.  The low budget shows, though, in the generic-sounding electronic jazz-style score, which never really seems to match the onscreen action.  Still, at around an hour, Hand of Death is a reasonably brisk experience, with an interesting set-up and a great-looking monster in a pretty standard plot.  Was it worth the wait?  Probably not, but I still found it a reasonably entertaining diversion for and hour or so.

The Cyclops (1957)

Bert I Gordon's second film as director, The Cyclops (1957) feels like a dry run for his The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), released later the same year.  Both concern ordinary guys who are enlarged to gigantic proportions after receiving huge doses of radiation.  The key difference is that the later film presents its protagonist as initially sympathetic, only later turning into a rampaging monster as the radiation causes his mental faculties to deteriorate, whereas in The Cyclops, we only meet the title character after he has become a monster.  The creature in The Cyclops is, however, allowed to show us a glimpse of his human side as, toward the end of the film, he starts to remember his former identity and life.  Not that it lasts - he's soon back to menacing the heroes before succumbing to a spear in his single eye.  What's clear watching The Cyclops is that it was clearly made on a tight budget, featuring only a handful of characters for most of its running time and confining its action to a single outdoors location, with a very simple plot structure and a typical B-movie cast, (Lon Chaney Jr and Gloria Talbott being the most recognisable faces).  The effects work, even by Bert I Gordon standards, is noticeably cheap, with his trademark giant animals being inserted into the action via some quite shoddy process work.  The title monster itself fares best, with better quality back projection and matte work inserting it into the action, although the make-up - with a mass of mutated tissue obscuring one eye, to effectively make it a cyclops - is somewhat rudimentary.  It is striking, but not particularly convincing.

But the cheapness shouldn't be surprising, as Gordon made the film for Allied Artists, formerly Monogram - the king of poverty row studios, which, at this time, was trying to move upmarket with bigger budgeted, more respected films, but still couldn't resist turning out low budget B-movies like The Cyclops.  Even AIP mustered larger budgets for its B-movies, as witnessed by Gordon's second attempt at the subject, made for AIP, The Amazing Colossal Man.  The AIP-produced film had better production values, a more expansive plot, varied locations and featured far better special effects, with not only more competent process work, but also a far more extensive use of miniatures.  While the two films are undoubtedly similar, it is the sequel to Colossal Man, War of the Colossal Beast (1958) which most closely resembles The Cyclops.  While The Cyclops involves a woman searching for her missing fiance, whose plane had crashed in the wilderness in Mexico (which, as it turned out, was full of radioactive ore-bearing rock), Colossal Beast opens with the sister of the, presumed dead, giant of the first film, searching form him in Mexico.  In both films, the titular giant is found living in a rocky wilderness (probably the same location was used in both) and has suffered facial disfigurement.  Colossal Beast's first half really does feel like a slightly bigger budgeted version of The Cyclops.  

The Cyclops might not be a great film, but some of the performances are OK, particularly that of Lon Chaney as the blow hard uranium prospector who co-finances the expedition and does manage some poignancy in the scenes where the monster starts to recall its true identity.  It doesn't dwell on this part of the plot, however, quickly moving back to being a regulation monster movie, with its title beast chasing the rest of the cast around.  It's pretty much a typical Bert I Gordon movie: briskly moving, utterly ludicrous and rough around the edges.  The cinematic equivalent to a short story from a down market pulp magazine, in fact.  But it clearly worked as a stepping stone, allowing Gordon to step up to AIP and slightly bigger resources -his films for AIP are noticeably slicker and more solidly made than his earlier output.  Gordon would eventually fall out with AIP, though, and return to Allied Artists in the sixties.

Reversal of Fortune

Well, it's been a week of two halves, with a decidedly crappy first half gradually giving way to something more positive.  The first part of the week was dominated by an encounter with a new underarm antiperspirant that proved  extremely painful.  Basically, I suffered an allergic reaction which left me feeling that my armpits were on fire.  It took the better of a day for the discomfort to subside, aided by repeated underarm scrubbings in an attempt to get the stuff off of my skin.  Days later, there is still some irritation - in fact, the bloody stuff has left what look like chemical burns on my inner upper arms.  Anti-septic cream helps ease the pain, though.  As does a bit of unexpected news I received yesterday.  Cast your mind back a long way and you might recall me mentioning here about how my previous employer, several months after I had left them, came back demanding money from me because, allegedly, I had been overpaid.  There was no explanation of how I'd supposedly been overpaid, (the very idea that they could overpay any of their employees on their pay rates was laughable), but I eventually found that they were claiming that I hadn't been entitled to several periods of paid leave I'd taken prior to my departure.  I disagreed, pointing out that my then line manager had signed them off, which he wouldn't have done without double checking my leave entitlement.  After much too-ing a fro-ing, threats of being taken to court, formal complaints and so on, they finally conceded that they'd never checked with said line manager and finally agreed to do so before taking any further action.  After which, I heard no more from them.

Fast forward some two and a half years - to Wednesday this week - and, out of the blue, I receive an email from the buggers.  Guess what?  It turns out that I never owed them any money as my elusive line manager, (who they tried to blame for the delay in getting back to me, as they couldn't contact him - in reality he had simply moved to a different department, the real reason for the delay, I suspect, being that the issue had been filed away and forgotten about for a couple of years), had confirmed that I was entitled to all the leave I had taken.  (Something, obviously, that they should have checked in the first place).  In fact, as it turns out, they owe me money.  Apparently, not only was I entitled to that leave I'd taken, but there were several days of my leave allowance still outstanding, as I'd never taken them before leaving and that they should have 'bought' from me when I left.  So, I'm looking forward to my small (but still significant) windfall being paid out in time for Christmas.  While my issues with my former employer have been resolved with a positive (for me) outcome, I'm still left bothered by the idea that there are probably plenty of other former employees out there being badgered for 'overpayments' they might not actually owe.  How many of them, who aren't as sure of their facts and as down right bloody minded as me, have been brow beaten into paying up money they might not owe?  Because the letters they send out are pretty aggressive, stating everything as written-in-stone fact and threatening legal action if you don't pay.  They don't give any proper explanation of their calculations or any mechanism for contesting their claims.  Moreover, as I found, they will try to ignore any correspondence from you, simply sending out more threatening form letters.  You have to stand firm and be persistent: I had to make a complaint and threaten counter legal action against them for harassment before they'd acknowledge my correspondence.

I really think that this whole issue of employers chasing ex-employees for alleged overpayments of salary needs to be looked into by someone at a higher level.  As my personal experience has demonstrated, much of it seems to be them chancing their arm and seeing if they can harass you into paying based purely on their word that you owe them money.  It's clear that their calculations are based upon the most cursory of 'checks' and that when they are forced into a proper investigation, the situation ends up being reversed.  Maybe I should be writing to my new Labour MP, (the notoriously pro-Tory local paper is still smarting from this constituency electing anything other than a Tory in its history, running all manner of rather pathetic anti-Labour stories), in the hope that, unlike his useless Tory predecessor he might raise the issue with the relevant authorities. 

It Wouldn't Get Made Nowadays...

You often hear people say of an older film or TV series, 'It wouldn't get made nowadays, as if there is some sinister organisation or official edict out there actively preventing films and TV shows that aren't 'woke' (or 'politically correct' or whatever the current right-wing buzz words are for dismissing such things as sensitivity and/or plain good taste) enough being made.  Which is to completely ignore the fact, (as those pushing the concept of the 'woke agenda' which is supposedly restricting our freedoms always do),  that such things as tastes, social mores, opinions and concepts of morality, change over time.  This, in turn, shapes popular culture, which constantly shape shifts over time.  What was considered acceptable by society at large ten, even five, years ago might not be now - and in another five years it will probably have changed again.  In truth, of course, as most films and TV series are commercial enterprises, money is the main determinant of what does and doesn't get made at any particular point in time: there's no point in investing financially in a project unlikely to find favour with a current audience.  It's the same way when TV shows are cancelled or cast members dropped for 'woke' reasons - research has shown that they have, in some way, offended a key demographic that sponsors and/or networks can't risk alienating.  Ultimately, it all comes down to the almighty dollar, rather than so called 'wokery'.

Conversely, there are some old movies and TV shows that I watch now, that I can't believe were actually made then.  A case in point was 1982's Dolly Parton- Burt Reynolds vehicle The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  The use of the term 'Whorehouse' in the title of a major studio picture, alone, is remarkable in the early eighties, when there were still restrictions on language and an increasingly moralistic atmosphere in the US.  (Indeed, in some US states the film was promoted with 'Cat House' replacing 'Whorehouse' in the title in an attempt to avoid offending moral majorities and religious lobbies in those markets).  But the subject matter - a comedy set in a brothel with its madame as the main female character, which shows prostitution as a beneficial public service - is also quite startling for a major release of the era.  Clearly, the studios (RKO and Universal) were encouraged to produce it as it was based on a hugely successful Broadway musical of the same title, so thought that there was an audience out there for it.  The presences of Reynolds and Parton comes down to the fact that both were desperate for a hit film, with the former's career as a top line star beginning to falter and the latter wanting follow up the success of her film debut, Nine to Five.

Watching the film, which I did for the first time in its entirety last weekend, it quickly became clear that the studios hoped to ameliorate the potential offensiveness of the title and subject matter by making the film itself as bland and harmless as possible.  'There's nothing dirty going on', Dolly sings early on and she's right - we don't even get any nudity until two thirds through and even then its just some mild topless shots.  Which is the film's main problem - it sits somewhere between a 'Carry On' film and a British sex comedy, but with considerably less vulgarity or 'sauciness' than either, instead giving us a mild satire of media hypocrisy with regard to sex.  When you sit down to watch a film with 'Whorehouse' in the title, you expect lashings of both, (not to mention plenty of nudity).  Which is possibly why, although reasonably successful at the box office, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas wasn't a mega success - it just failed to deliver on the title's promise that it was going to offend the 'moral majority' lobby, (arguably the true 'woke warriors' of the era, in that they really were out to spoil everyone's fun).  The most shocking thing about the film is the presence of Jim Nabors in a film that even hints at sex and depravity.  This is one film where I think that we can safely say that 'they couldn't make that now', as nowadays audiences would demand (and get), far more raunch and offensive humour in a movie with that title.

Dark Echoes (1977)

A true obscurity, Dark Echoes (1977) is a Yugoslav horror movie, shot in Austria, in English, with an American director and international cast.  The result, perhaps not surprisingly, is an uneven mess that never settles on a tone, let alone a theme, with the script mixing in elements of ghost story, zombie film and witchcraft.  As far as its quality and production values are concerned, these were difficult to judge fairly as the version I saw was taken from a VHS with Japanese sub-titles, (for many years, this Japanese VHS was the only available version of the film).  Consequently, the picture looks fuzzy and the sound quality is variable - I'm willing to accept that these were artifacts of the video transfer rather than a reflection of the film as shot.  At times it feels like a travelogue sponsored by the Austrian tourist board as we get nice views of lakes, waterfalls, castles and other scenic landmarks.  All of which are there to pad out the film to feature length in the face of a very thin plot.  This concerns a pleasure boat captain, drowned when his vessel sank, who has returned from his watery grave to take revenge on those he holds responsible for his death.  The question which is never properly addressed is whether he is a ghost or a zombie, as he takes the very solid form of his rotting, waterlogged, corpse.  Unlike most zombies though, he isn't shambling and brainless, his spirit apparently still being very much in control of his dead body.  

An American investigator turns up to help out his old friend, the local police chief, find out whether the murders plaguing the area really are the work of a ghost/zombie.  Also involved is the local witch - a weird old biddy who presides over some fairly dull rites performed by her coven which seem yo be in the film solely to provide some gratuitous nudity.  When the witch isn't doing this, she's making all sorts of doom-laden pronouncements and predictions.  There's some underwater ghost/zombie action before a lame climax which involves a poorly staged decapitation, (the film's only real gore sequence), a mob of young villagers running to help the middle-aged heroes defeat the ghost/zombie, (a turn of events reminiscent of late fifties/early sixties AIP teen drive in horror movie) and the creature being defeated by mirrors, (he can't stand his own reflection).  The comparison to an AIP drive-in movie is apt, as the whole things seems modelled on such productions, with its combination of middlle-aged authority figures and plucky young people who turn out to be OK in the end, pulling together to defeat a hokey monster.  And the monster is hokey - it wouldn't be too bad if he had been played by a better actor, who could at least move like he was a soaking wet mouldering corpse, instead of wandering around casually, looking like a regular dude in corpse make-up.  The tone varies wildly, from ill-advised humour (usually involving the police chief's beer-drinking being interrupted by the latest ghostly goings on), to horror with various murders and people being chased by the ghost/zombie, (again, the resemblance to an AIP drive-in picture is clear).

The film is notable as being the sole directorial credit of noted stunt performer George Robotham.  Unfortunately, his direction here is flat and uninvolving, feeling more like a TV production than a feature film.  He isn't helped by a script which is far too talky, although the dialogue is clunky and poorly written, which doesn't give the actors much of a chance either.  Indeed, leading man Joel Fabiani gives the impression that he can barely keep a straight face.  Euro-exploitation favourite Karin Dor is surprisingly bland as the leading lady, seemingly unable to make anything of her character, while Alex Davion continues his descent down the cast list, (not so long before Dark Echoes, he'd had featured roles in things like Valley of the Dolls).  Not released, even in Yugoslavia, until the early eighties, Dark Echoes is, perhaps, deservedly obscure.  That said, there is something perversely enjoyable about it.  Sure, it's bad, but not offensively bad.  Despite all of its defects, it somehow holds the attention.  I certainly don't regret watching it, (although I'm not in a hurry to watch it again).

Adventures in AI

 Everyone's talking about AI these days, with half the web, it seems, taking advantage of various developers making their AI models and applications publicly accessible, to create all manner of imagery, video and text.  So, I thought that I'd join in and start conducting some AI experiments of my own, but in audio.  Actually, I was spurred into action after reading an online article about Google's NotebookLM application, which is currently free to use, while it is in development.  This is actually intended as a tool for analysing and summarising sources input to it and outputting its conclusions in several formats, such as bullet point reports, digests, etc.  You can input all manner of sources, including text documents, video files and audio files, in multiple if you choose.  As well as its written reports, it can also create an audio analysis of the sources.  But not in a straight narrative form, instead presenting it as a conversation between two AI characters, who sound disarmingly real, as does their conversation.  If I didn't know that this audio 'Deep Dive' was AI created, I'd swear that these were genuine human beings chatting.  

Naturally, I decided to test its capabilities by feeding it a story from The Sleaze, specifically 'Spanking the Monkey', which had been inspired by a BBC article about a monkey torture ring that I'd read.  The results were quite fascinating.  There is something almost surreal in hearing a satirical story, made up of invented facts and featuring completely made up characters, being discussed and dissected as if it were a real news story.  The AI seemed to have grasped the main thrust of the story, but its analysis approached it from some fairly obtuse angles, presumably because these better suited its presentation in the format of a discussion.  There were, however, some points it appeared to have become confused over, getting the name of one character wrong and subsequently skipping over the entire point of that character's sub-plot.  But at least it didn't appear to have fabricated anything in order to plug gaps created by a failure to grasp some aspects of the story, (a common complaint levelled at many of the current AI models).

My next experiment involved me inputting a post from this blog - 'Modern Movies are still Rubbish (Well, Some of Them)' - to see what the AI made of something written from a personal perspective, expressing personal opinions on a fairly esoteric subject.  Again, the results were fascinating.  The 'Deep Dive' indicated that the more personal, opinion-based nature of the piece had been recognised and it was approached as such.  It also exhibited a background knowledge of B-movies beyond the article, knowing what they were.  But it stumbled over the chronology of the films discussed and at one point, actually made something up, when it stated that David L Hewitt had paid off the lab bill for his film The Lucifer Complex!  Quite where this came from, I don't know.  I've been over the source post several times and remain mystified - the post makes clear that he lost control of the movie and somebody else bought the film from the lab and released it, (with additional footage that tried to bridge the gaps resulting from missing footage that Hewitt hadn't filmed).  The audio ends with one of the AI characters even inviting replies via social media!  

I've also been experimenting with AI voices.  Text-to-Speech (TTS) apps have been around for a long time, but the last time I used it, the voices were all somewhat metallic-sounding electronic voices, but nowadays they use far more realistic AI created voices.  Moreover, there are now TTS apps which offer a range of celebrity voices.  Now, these are usually paid services, but I found one that gives the opportunity to test voices by creating twelve second clips of text read by them.  Now, the results aren't downloadable, but, you can, of course, use Audacity (if you have it installed - other audio editing apps are available), to record any audio played on your laptop.  So, I created a series of twelve second clips, using a facsimile of Donald Trump's voice, which were actually lines from a script I'd written, recorded them, then edited them together on Audacity, to create a series of fake 'sound bites' of Trump.  While it is still obvious that these aren't real, the voice comes close to being convincing.  Getting the rhythm of Trump's speech was the biggest challenge, achieved via the punctuation of the script and some judicious editing.  Also, as with most TTS created speech, it benefited from slowing down the tempo slightly.  I also added some reverb and background crowd noises to give the impression that these are audio clips taken from a Trump (or 'Trumper', as, for legal reasons, his AI counterpart is referred to in the clips) rally.

So, what was the point of all this activity?  Well, it is my plan to produce a complete podcast using AI, probably centered around some of those NotebookLM 'Deep Dives', with an AI TTS created narrator providing a framework.  In the meantime, the B-movie 'Deep Dive' (complete with the condiment business) forms part of an upcoming podcast,which also features the 'Trump' clips, to be published soon on the Onsug.

The Crimson Circle (1960)

An early entry in Rialto's series of Krimi films derived from the works of Edgar Wallace, perhaps the main point of interest for UK viewers of The Crimson Circle (1960) lies in its portrayal of London.  Outsider's views of the UK are always fascinating, particularly when they try to recreate part of it overseas.  In the case of The Crimson Circle, Copenhagen stands in for London, which isn't quite as crazy as it sounds - with lots of establishing shots of the real London skyline and landmarks, not to mention then contemporary British built cars on the roads and road signs and adverts in English, it actually isn't that difficult to suspend disbelief and accept that the streets and buildings we see are the real thing.  After all, once you get past the instantly recognisable landmarks, the back streets and lesser thoroughfares of Northern European cities can look surprisingly similar.  The giveaway, though, is that the cars, while UK models, mainly have their steering wheels on the wrong side for British roads.  While it is true that films like this weren't really made for British audiences and would mainly be seen by people who had probably never been to London, having seen it only on TV or in films, so wouldn't notice the small details, driving on the left is one of the most characteristic (and well known) features of the UK.

Plot-wise, the film is pretty typical Edgar Wallace fare, with a shadowy criminal, (who conveniently has a distinguishing mark on his body from which he can be immediately identified), variously blackmailing and murdering prominent citizens, often using third parties to carry out his crimes.  Conveniently, he always announces his murders in advance, via a crimson circle either sent to the potential victim, or painted on trees, walls etc on their property.  Despite this, Scotland Yard, as always, is baffled, so an outside investigator is called in. Sub-plots and red herrings proliferate, with various characters turning out not to be who we thought they were, comic relief policemen bumbling around and numerous coincidences before a 'surprise' culprit is unmasked.  As always with Edgar Wallace Krimis from this period, the dramas play out in moody monochrome, with director Jurgen Roland doing a pretty good job of summoning up a suitably Gothic feel for the proceedings.  Kicking off with an intriguing opening in which a condemned man avoids execution in France when the guillotine malfunctions, the early part of the film then unfolds interestingly, setting up characters and plot, with plenty of incidents piling up in order to keep things moving, but as it reaches its middle, the film starts getting bogged down in sub-plots, slows down and loses direction - something from which it never quite recovers, despite a spirited climax and nicely framed closing shot.  While not exactly exciting, The Crimson Circle doesn't feel as plodding as some other Wallace adaptations, providing an enjoyable enough ninety minutes or so  of criminal intrigue.

Blackmail by Idiots

When you've been arsing about online as long as I have, you encounter a lot of phishing spam, scans and hacking attempts.  They go in and out of fashion - as they become well known, they become less effective and tend to fade away - been contacted by any Nigerian princes lately?  Every so often, I find myself surprised when one of the old ones suddenly reappears, apparently rediscovered by some sad little guy in a bedsit who doesn't seem to realise that those of us on the receiving end have seen it and ignored it a thousand times before.  Following the great Yahoo hack some years ago, when most of their e-mail users had their accounts and passwords exposed to hackers, who sold the details on to the bedsit boys, my Yahoo Mail account was plagued first by phishing e-mails, none of which succeeded, then a spate of those fake blackmail letters, where some saddo claims to have hacked your computer via the e-mail hack and have copies of all your porn photos, which they'll release to your contacts if you don't pay them.  All of which were also ignored.  Realising that the e-mail password ploy had played out, they changed tack to claim that they had taken control of your camera and had filmed you whacking off to online porn videos and if you didn't pay them then - well, you get the picture.  All utter bollocks, of course, but they kept on coming.  Then stopped.  For several years.  Then, recently, I've had two in quick succession.  This is the most recent one, sent to my old Yahoo Mail account:

"You're running out of time, and fast.

It's important you pay attention to this message right now. Take a minute to relax, breathe, and really dig into it. 'Cause we're about to discuss a deal between you and me, and I ain't playing games. You don't know me however I know you very well and right now, you are thinking how, right?

Well, you've been treading on thin ice with your browsing habits, scrolling through those videos and clicking on links, stumbling upon some not-so-safe sites. I placed a Malware on a porn website and you visited it to watch(know what I mean?). When you were busy watching videos, your system initiated operating as a RDP (Remote Protocol) which provided me total control over your device. I can peep at everything on your screen, flick on your camera and mic, and you wouldn't even notice. Oh, and I've got access to all your emails, contacts, and social media accounts too.

Been keeping tabs on your pathetic life for a while now. It is simply your misfortune that I came across your bad deeds. I invested in more days than I probably should have investigating into your data. Extracted quite a bit of juicy info from your system. and I've seen it all. Yeah, Yeah, I've got footage of you doing filthy things in your house (nice setup, by the way). I then developed videos and screenshots where on one side of the screen, there's the videos you were playing, and on the other half, it is you jerking off. With just a click, I can send this garbage to every single of your contacts.

Your confusion is clear, but don't expect sympathy. Frankly, I am willing to wipe the slate clean, and allow you to move on with your daily life and forget you ever existed. I will offer you two alternatives.

Option One is to turn a blind eye to this e mail. Let us see what is going to happen if you opt this option. I will send your video to all of your contacts. The video was straight fire, and I can't even fathom the embarrasement you'll endure when your colleagues, friends, and fam check it out. But hey, that's life, ain't it? Don't be playing the victim here.

Option 2 is to pay me, and be confidential about it. We will name it my "privacy tip". Now Lets discuss what happens if you pick this option. Your dirty secret remains your secret. I will wipe everything clean once you send payment. You have to make the payment through Bitcoins only. I want you to know I'm aiming for a win-win here. My promises are non-negotiable.

Transfer Amount: USD 1500

My BTC Address (without spaces): 1L3Nd5u G7ZVxXkd3S vivjZk4cr VPAKNqQA

Once you pay up, you'll sleep like a baby. I keep my word.

Important: You now have one day to make the payment and I will only accept Bitcoins (I've a unique pixel in this message, and now I know that you have read this e mail). My system will catch that Bitcoin payment and wipe out all the dirt I got on you. Don't even think about replying to this or negotiating, it's pointless. The email and wallet are custom-made for you, untraceable. If I notice that you've shared or discussed this mail with someone else, the video will instantly start getting sent to your contacts. And don't even think about turning off your phone or resetting it to factory settings. It's pointless. I don't make mistakes.

Honestly, those online tips about covering your camera aren't as useless as they seem. I am waiting for my payment.."

First up, learn to spell properly or employ a spell checker, buddy. It's a bad look to be demanding money for menaces if you come over as illiterate. Secondly, don't come over so smug - it just ensures that, in the extremely remote possibility that we ever meet physically, I'll knock your teeth out. Thirdly, even if I was inclined to pay you, it's no good trying to get me to do it via bitcoin - I'm too old to understand or have any truck with your online play money. Plus, why do you go on about my phone? Nobody watches porn on a phone - the screen resolution isn't good enough, makes the nipples all blocky. Your fake chuminess doesn't help, either, because it is patently obvious that you don't know me well. If you did and really had been spying on me for some time then you'd know that your security 'tip' about covering up the camera is redundant: I did that years ago, probably before you could eat solid food. So I'd love to see that video you supposedly have, (funny how you don't offer any screen caps as proof of its existence). Go ahead and send it to all my Yahoo contacts - some of those addresses might still be active. Several I know are dead. Quite literally dead, as a door nail, in fact. Oh, about your threat about not sharing your pathetic blackmail attempt with anyone, I think it clear what I think of that.

Which is the response that anybody receiving this sort of thing should give to the sad little boys who send them. Expose them, ridicule them, make their pathetic emails public, show them that you know their threats are bullshit. But sadly, many people still fall for this bollocks, which is why I feel it necessary to go through this rigamarole again, (I did something similar here some years ago), in the hope that anybody reading this who has received something similar won't fall for it. I also hope the little boy who sent this particular effort sees this post, (unlikely, I know, but there's a chance they're vain enough to search the web for responses to their handiwork), and realises that this sort of shit is just too old to fool anyone. It's been done to death. For God's sake, try coming up with something more original!

Curse of the Alpha Stone (1972)

It's a constant refrain of mine here that those people who profess to be aficionados of so-called 'bad movies' are unadventurous in their viewing choices.  Sure, they like to revel in how many times they've watched the movies of Ed Wood and just how hilariously bad they are, but they rarely seem to venture beyond these.  How many of them have endured the exquisite agonies of watching an Andy Milligan film?  Or sat through any of Ted V Mikels bizarre micro-budgeted features?  Very few, I suspect, mainly because while these are 'bad movies' by any critical standards, they are usually low on the laughter scale, (particularly Milligan's films), instead delivering their entertainment value in other ways.  Ultimately, it is their outlandishness, their bizareness, which mark them out as the products of a truly unique world view, which makes them perversely enjoyable.  Well, to cut to the point, this past weekend I stumbled across a movie which deserves to stand right up there as a classic of bad movie making.  Not only does it present a warped world view, it is also, unintentionally, very funny.  While The Curse of the Alpha Stone  might have an early eighties release date, it was actually shot somewhen in the seventies, (either 1972 or 1979, sources differ, but personally, on the basis of the film's look, I'd go with the earlier date), something apparent from the costumes, the grainy film quality and overall style.  To say that it had no budget would be an understatement, as no-name actors (for most of whom the film is their only credit) wander around various anonymous offices and apartments, delivering dialogue rendered even more unspeakable by poor sound quality, (the locations clearly weren't chosen for their acoustics and post-synching the soundtrack was clearly beyond the budget's reach).

But the most fascinating thing about The Curse of the Alpha Stone lies in the collision of genres it represents, resulting in a truly 'What the Fuck?' experience for the viewer as it takes one bizarre turn after another, building to a truly mind-boggling finale.  It kicks off as a mad scientist-type film, with a young University professor conducting experiments in his home lab - there are lots of shots of him taken through racks of test tubes, just to reinforce the stereotype.  Apparently he's seeking to tap the energies of the titular 'Alpha Stone', which he thinks is some kind of philosopher's stone.  He also gets naked and has slow motion sex with his wife (who lives in a different apartment), before she goes home and he returns to his experiments, in which he has found that exposure to the stone's energy can increase the size of his test animals' genitalia and increase their sex drive.  Next thing you know, he's conducting human experiments - first of all, he injects a gay drug addict he meets in a bar with a serum mage from a ground up sliver of the stone.  The result is that the dude turns rampantly heterosexual and runs around attempting to shag anything woman shaped - even a mannequin.  He quickly graduates to chasing and raping random women.  All of which dismays his now rejected boyfriend.  Next up, the professor heats up the stone, causing it to give off vapour which gets into the apartment block's ventilation system, resulting in various women coming to his apartment, tearing their clothes off and having sex with him.  Oh, his cleaning lady is also affected, pleasuring herself with her vacuum cleaner before getting her kit off and bonking the prof.  

Unfortunately for the prof, he also shags the Dean's wife when she comes under the influence of the stone, which displeases her friend, who tells all to the Dean, before she goes to remonstrate with the prof herself.  Inevitably, all he clothes fall off and he rapes her so vigourously that she dies.  The homo-turned-hetero guy is still out there raping every woman he bumps into, resulting in him also deciding to confront the prof.  But before he gets there, he bumps into the prof's wife, (who had previously been watering her plot plants naked in a purely gratuitous scene), who he drags into the apartment's laundry room and rapes amongst the washing machines and dryers.  He then turns up in the prof's apartment, finding the prof still staring in horror at the woman that he's just shagged to death, closely followed by the prof's wife, still reeling from her rape ordeal.  With things now resembling the last scene of particularly dark British bedroom farce, the gay/straight guy gets his hands on the stone, his eyes glow as he is possessed by 'Alpha', who destroys the prof via some bad special effects, before declaring that he can take any form.  At which point we cut to a shot of the now sexed-up Dean's wife walking down the street, implying she's now possessed by Alpha, or maybe it was just a random shot they had left-over and tacked on to the end of the film for want of a proper ending.

As described, the whole thing sounds as if it is some kind of zany black sex comedy - except that it is all conducted in absolute earnestness.  It seems to want to be taken a serious science fiction horror film with some fashionable sexy asides.  Which is the frustrating thing about the film: like so many low budget exploitation films, it has the germ of a promising idea, which could have been developed in a number of ways.  You could easily imagine a version which plays out like a British sex comedy, 'Confessions of a Mad Scientist', perhaps, (imagine Robin Askwith in a white coat and wearing glasses with thick black frames, saying 'Bloody Hell,Missus!' as an ape he's just turned into a beautiful woman tears his clothes off and drags him off for sex behind the cyclotron).  Equally fruitful could have been one of those US campus comedies, with bevies of cheerleaders coming under the influence of the stone, while the crusty old Dean's wife suddenly turns into a vamp.  The best serious approach might have been a Cronenberg-style body horror, with those enlarged genitalia violently bursting out of guy's trousers as they become aroused, their giant members literally splitting women in half as they are rapped by the monstrous instruments.  (Or, if it was a Troma film, the prosthetic monster penises might have mouths and faces and start hurling out sexist abuse before they go about their 'work').  Unfortunately, Curse of the Alpha Stone never settles on any particular cinematic approach, instead seeming to want to incorporate elements of soft core porn, horror and science fiction into the film, resulting in an untidy mess than can never settle on a suitable tone or style.  On the positive side, though, the movie as it stands -inept in virtually every department - is gloriously bad to the extent that it is also wonderfully entertaining.