BEWARE THE MOON: Remembering AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON - a preview

At the Pittsburgh HorrorHound convention in June, An American Werewolf in London was screened, just before the preview of a new feature-length documentary about the making of the film. I was again reminded how good it was and how well it stands up today, as a horror film, a drama and a black comedy.

First I'll recall the original film, then preview the new documentary, Beware The Moon.

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
(1981, UK)

When I first saw this in an English cinema back in 1982, its shock-moments were what impressed me. It was bloodier than the slasher movies of the time, but was still recognisably a John Landis comedy. But the humour could cruelly flip into nightmare at any moment – one scene memorably mixed the Muppets with terrifying Nazi demons. This was the first film where I was caught out by someone waking up from a dream within a dream.

It’s an unusual werewolf film, depicting the nightmares that prefigure David’s realisation of what he’s becoming. The creature’s victims also hang around in limbo to haunt him, a new angle to the mythology that enables his dead best friend to keep him company, despite advancing decomposition.

Besides delivering a horror film that avoids horror cliches, I also love the film because it’s a great London film. I grew up here, and to see an accurate and witty depiction of the city from an outside perspective is a treat. Besides using locations especially familiar to tourists, there’s also the backpacker experience out in the countryside, where entering a local pub feels like breaking the law. American Werewolf captures this bizarre experience, that’s also just as intimidating for city folk as it is for tourists. London hospitals, the police, public transport are all amusingly observed and a great introduction to the London behind the brochures.

At the time the publicity concentrated not on the comedy, the romantic heart of the film, the location, or the psychology… but on the special effects for the werewolf transformation. With no A-list stars I guess this was logical, but similar werewolf effects had already just appeared in The Howling, (the embarrassing reason for that is explained in the documentary). The humour of The Howling was more subtle, Joe Dante’s trademark in-jokes were aimed at horror fans. It’s also a great film, but even less widely seen. 1981 was a crowded year for wolves because there was also Wolfen, starring Albert Finney and a young Edward James Olmos. An overly serious eco-thriller about urban wolves, Wolfen had showcased the use of a low-slung steadicam doubling for a wolf’s point-of-view. Coincidentally, it also has a police decapitation, though American Werewolf did it far better.

These three wolf films were heavily cross-compared, but this isn’t important now that we’ve had over a quarter century of perspective. American Werewolf easily stands the test of time and works just as well today. It’s originality and humour certainly makes it certainly worth all the attention it’s getting again.

BEWARE THE MOON: Remembering AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
(2008, UK)

Paul Davis presented this 'director's cut' of the new documentary that he wrote, directed and presented, about the making of An American Werewolf in London. The Pittsburgh screening is the longest it will ever be, in an 105 minute work-in-progress version. He dedicated the screening to monster-maker Stan Winston, who had sadly died just a few days before.

Almost all the main cast and everyone involved behind the scenes is interviewed. It tells the story of the film, of how it came about and how it was received. Besides John Landis and Rick Baker’s extensive involvement, there are the leading actors David Naughton, Griffin Dunne and Jenny Agutter (Logan’s Run, Equus, Walkabout). There’s even most of the British supporting cast, down to the actress from the faked porn film, shot specially for the Piccadilly cinema scenes. Unfortunately for Landis, the soft-core porn scenes were the very first to be filmed, which gave his British film crew a very slanted idea of what kind of story they were going to be working on!

It’s good to hear the traditional British thespian perspective of John Woodvine, who played David’s psychiatrist. Regular Landis collaborator, George Folsey Jr, has a particularly disturbing screenshot looming behind him, and talks extensively about the problems he faced as the producer. The rest of the crew are well-represented, from the cinematographer Robert Paynter, to the stunt driver Vic Armstrong, who’s now a major stunt-co-ordinator and action unit director for the biggest Hollywood thrillers. It’s all the more interesting for being a film made outside of a Hollywood studio.

The idea for American Werewolf began in former Yugoslavia, back when Landis was in the junior production staff working on the war/heist/comedy Kelly’s Heroes (1970), when he was also training as a stuntman. On location he witnessed local gypsies who resembled extras from the old Universal horror The Wolfman (1941), who actually believed in ancient superstitions and were burying a man swathed in garlic, in a ceremony to prevent him from rising from the dead.

The incident inspired a script, which he was still talking about with Rick Baker when they were making Schlock (1973) together. But only after three smash-hit comedies (Kentucky Fried Movie, National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers) could Landis finance the unusual story, mainly because of the edgy mix of humour and horror. In the end, it needed help from a British film financing fund, ending up as a ‘$10 million negative pick-up deal’.


Rick Baker, integral to the success of film, had been mulling over Landis’ ideas over the years as to how he could engineer special effects for the transformation. Landis was very specific about what he wanted to see, which made the direction clear but not the techniques to be used. Baker had started off in horror films and as an assistant to Dick Smith (the modern godfather of make-up effects). In Schlock, a savage satire of Trog, he dressed Landis up as an apeman throwback. Baker also appeared in Kentucky Fried Movie as a gorilla running amuck in a TV station (Landis cameos as a TV director fighting with him). I remember being impressed by Baker’s work on Squirm, It’s Alive, and The Incredible Melting Man in the seventies. His early creations even helped pad out the cantina bar in Star Wars (1977). But Baker also had a specialty for realistic animal make-ups, especially large apes. He played a huge part in the 1976 King Kong, which he famously received no credit for. Although he performed inside the suit built by him and Carlo Rambaldi, and was in 99% of Kong’s scenes, the producer Dino De Laurentiis span the publicity as if a life-sized robot was all that was used!

Baker’s work on American Werewolf was ground-breaking and hugely influential, the central transformation having to withstand the scrutiny of a harshly lit set. Jekyll-and-Hyde scenes had traditionally been done by optically cross-fading between make-ups while the actors were held in position. Baker and his crew instead built mechanical effects that would change shape before the camera, while still looking organic. Baker and the actors describe in detail shot-by-shot how the scene was achieved. At the time, Landis ensured no publicity photographs of the final creature were released.


Baker, still hugely busy in Hollywood today, tells a great story about the scene when the boys are attacked by the wolf on the moors. The interviews with Baker and Griffin Dunne intercut as we hear both sides, when the two of them try to appear to fight to the death without wrecking Baker’s effects. We then hear from members of the crew nearby, hearing the blood-curdling sound in the middle of the night, when Dunne is asked to ‘scream as if he was being murdered’.

There’s also the real story behind how The Howling ended up using similar effects but was released beforehand – a howler originally reported as Baker’s assistant, Rob Bottin, running off with his special effects secrets!

The wolf make-ups aren’t the end of Baker’s contributions, he also had to envisage the many dream effects, the living dead make-ups of all David’s victims and especially Jack’s decomposition. The original actors involved, in particular Griffin Dunne as Jack, have much to say about the physical and psychological effects of looking and acting as a corpse with its throat ripped out.

Landis and Baker continued to team up, first on Michael Jackson’s groundbreaking pop video for Thriller. Jackson’s enthusiasm for American Werewolf lead to them being hired to change Jackson into his very own wolf creature. Baker also had to create the famous zombie make-ups for the dancers, with little preparation, and even appeared as a zombie in the final promo. (For more information, I’d recommend Cinefex magazine, issue 16 was devoted to all Rick Baker’s early work, up to 1984).

Later, Rick Baker made up Eddie Murphy as radically different characters in Landis’ Trading Places and Coming To America – early multiple roles for the actor who still uses the technique as a regular basis for his Hollywood comedies.

I don’t want to spoil the many anecdotes. It’s full of stuff I didn’t know and it’s great to see everyone again. It helped me appreciate more about the agonies of make-up effects, as well as the trials of seemingly easy location shoots. With jokers Landis, Naughton and Dunne providing a lion’s share of the stories, the documentary is as funny as it is engaging. Davis has succeeded in both exploring his obsession, as well as explaining it for anyone who hasn’t seen the film. It’s rare that a feature-length documentary about a movie can be so entertaining.

Behind the behind-the-scenes documentary

Before the premiere, there was a Q&A session with the the documentary director Paul Davis, director John Landis, and the star David Naughton.

Landis said he was initially shocked to hear that someone had started on a movie documentary without sorting out clearances and copyrights first – normally the way it’s done. He said that the whole project could have been doomed from the start, never to see the light of day. (Thankfully, with his help, this has now been sorted out).

He was amused to have been tracked down for his Beware the Moon interview via MySpace, but was sufficiently impressed by the roster of interviewees that and is now a strong supporter of the documentary. He even announced that it would be included in a Blu-Ray release of American Werewolf within the next two years – much to the surprise of the director, Paul Davis. This is the logical place for the documentary, but I hope it gets more public screenings when it’s complete, and even finds a wider audience, possibly on TV.

David Naughton talked about first getting cast werewolf and admitted that the nude scenes looked a lot less intimidating in the script than when he actually had to perform them. Naughton looks very different today, mainly because his hair is now strangely uncurly. Perhaps it was the experience of filming…

The next day I talked to Paul Davis and his producer Romy about this big project that started out small. They had all travelled from London for the screening.

Spookily, Davis was born while American Werewolf was being shot (the porn theatre scenes, he reckons). He first saw it on VHS at the age of three! Indelibly impressed with the film, but exasperated by the lack of extras on a DVD release, he decided in 2006 to interview everyone connected with the movie.

Romy Alford-Sancto took a year out from her film production course to produce Beware the Moon, and described the process as a domino effect, that got easier once people heard who’d already been interviewed. The crew ended up visiting New York and Los Angeles to get the biggest names.


Cameraman Anthony Bueno shot it all on HD video and also edited it – arguably the hardest task. They also travelled around so that Paul Davis could present the documentary from the original filming locations as they appear today. Beware The Moon therefore also serves as a great guide to making your own American Werewolf pilgrimage – London Zoo in Regents Park, Tottenham Court Road Underground Station (doubling for Piccadilly Circus) are easy to find, but the original Slaughtered Lamb exterior was shot in darkest Wales, and was almost impossible to locate, as it is now a private residence. Romy described a chain of coincidence that helped them find it eventually f. Apparently John Landis still has the original prop of the legendary pub sign.

Thankfully, most of their wishlist of interviewees agreed to appear. The only notably missing contributors are the late Elmer Bernstein, who composed the original music, and actor Brian Glover who issued the original warning “Beware the moon, lads…”. They both have a good excuse for not being interviewed, as they are unfortunately neither living or undead.

As a fan, and having shot hours of usable footage, Paul Davis would ideally like it to be much longer, while Landis is advising a shorter cut. But Beware the Moon will officially be completed in Los Angeles later this year, hopefully adding more of the rare behind-the-scenes footage. I can’t wait to see it - it’s marvellous when your favourite films get this much attention.

A complete list of participants, and a couple of clips have been unveiled on their ‘KesslerBoy’ (it’s the name of Naughton’s character) MySpace site and the website is also being prepared.

As the original script for The Wolfman (1941), written by the late Curt Siodmak, is being reinterpreted for a new wolfman movie, it’s the ideal moment to spend time with An American Werewolf in London. They’ll have a tough time making a better film.

HorrorHound Weekend: Pittsburgh - convention report

The HorrorHound Movie Convention
20th - 22nd June 2008

Return of the zombies to the shopping mall

It's a long way to Pittsburgh from anywhere, especially from England, but because of the zombie theme and being only a few hundred yards away from the original Dawn of the Dead shopping mall, I simply had to go to this particular horrorcon.




Only a few hundred yards across the parking lot from the Monroeville Mall, the convention took place inside the Expo Mart for a three day event.

The guests included actors, directors and make-up artists from famous horror films, as well as artists like Joel Robinson who provided the awesome poster art for the event (pictured at the top).

Besides the main room which housed the vendors and the guests' signing tables, there were special screenings in a nearby hall. Friday there was a special American Werewolf In London (1981) evening starting with the film itself. This was followed by a Q & A session with the director John Landis and the star David Naughton, together with Paul Davis who's just finishing work on his documentary about the film, called Beware the Moon.

He had first been impressed by American Werewolf when he saw it on VHS at the age of three! Two years ago, exasperated by the lack of extras on the DVD release, he set out to interview everyone connected with the project. John Landis observed that the project was potentially doomed unless he'd first cleared up the rights issues (which has since been sorted out). Other independent documentaries are currently in limbo because of this issue. For example, Landis had seen and enjoyed Spine Tingler, all about the director William Castle, but predicted it will only be seen at conventions unless about $4 million can be found to sort out licensing issues!

Paul Davis then presented what he called a 'director's cut', an extended 105 minute work-in-progress version. Of course, the fan in him wants it to be longer, but Landis is advising a shorter cut. Only one shall win! Beware the Moon will officially be completed in Los Angeles later in the year. It's an enjoyable look at a great film, full of surprising and interesting behind-the-scenes stories told by some great raconteurs. There are clips posted at their MySpace page. I'll review it properly shortly.

John Amplas and me

Pittsburgh is of course where George Romero shoots most of his films, and many of his cast and crew still live in the area. Besides a sprinkling of zombies from Dawn of the Dead (1978), actor John Amplas was there all weekend. I especially liked his character in Day of the Dead (1985) and it was a pleasure to talk to him at this his first convention appearance. Amplas appeared in many other Romero films, notably as the title character of the modern-day vampire film Martin (1977), but nowadays he teaches acting at a Pittsburgh university.

Al Cliver, me, and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua (wormeye!)

It wasn't all about American horror films - I also met a zombie and a zombie-slayer a long way from their homeland of Italy. Al Cliver and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua both appeared in the awesome Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979). Cliver, who sported a beard in his Lucio Fulci films back then, is now clean-shaven and speaks pretty good English, thanks to his American wife. Of course, I'm used to him being dubbed into English!

Far less recognisable was the poster zombie from the film, the fearsome worm-eyed creature who still ranks as the most nightmarish undead ever. In real life, he's a good-looking Italian stuntman who appeared with his five brothers as various zombies in the film (he no longer remembers which others he played). Ottaviano is now a major stunt coordinator in Italy and was working on the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace earlier this year.

The two performers were being looked after by Mike Baronas, who has put together many of the excellent documentaries on the DVD releases of Lucio Fulci's horror films. He has his own DVD out now called Paura - Lucio Fulci Remembered: Volume 1. Again, I'll be reviewing it soon.

Me and ex-zombie Lenny Lies.
Who knew a machete in the head could bring such fame?

Saturday saw Griffin Dunne join David Naughton and John Landis to sign autographs all day. Out of the blue I mentioned to Naughton that I'd met the Ladies of The Evil Dead at a convention and he said he'd just made a movie with them - Brutal Massacre, a horror comedy. I also talked to Paul Davis and discovered that he only lives a few miles away from me in south London.

In the screening room, Doug Bradley, better known for playing the fearsome cenobite Pinhead in the Hellraiser series, presented the first completed episode of Spine Chillers, a successful attempt to bring the words of famous horror literature to life. In the first episode, Bradley reads H.P. Lovecraft's The Outsider, while it's illustrated by layers of impressionistic and evocative artwork. The effect was to bring the story to life without discarding the original text, like most screen adaptions do. A clip from The Outsider is online and Bradley hopes to tackle The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe next. He's also thinking of getting horror celebrity narrators to work on episodes in this proposed series - but I thought he was already perfect for the job.

Tom Savini (left) and Fluffy

Tom Savini then appeared cracking his bullwhip, VERY LOUDLY. He also brought along the animatronic head of 'Fluffy' (the monster in the crate from George Romero's Creepshow) newly restored by Greg Nicotero. Savini talked about how his gory make-up effects for Friday the 13th and Dawn of the Dead led to a decade of fabricating similar effects for splatter and slasher films. But nowadays he only consults on special effects work, concentrating instead on acting and directing - he talked about his appearances in From Dusk Till Dawn and the forthcoming The Lost Boys 2. I particularly like his remake of Night of the Living Dead (1990), which he didn't enjoy directing at the time, but has recently rewatched and thinks better of it.



Later on was the much-anticipated screening of Dawn of the Dead at the nearby Monroeville Mall where much of the film was shot. Hundreds turned up to the event, some dressed up as zombies. Some of the original zombie cast spoke beforehand, including Mike Christopher (the Hare Krishna zombie), Clayton Hill (the sweater zombie), Sharon Hill (the nurse zombie), and the very tall Jim Krut (no wonder he lost his head to the helicopter blades).

The charity screening was held inside, at one end of the mall where the big circular fountain used to stand. There were complaints about the fuzzy sound system and the projected picture couldn't always compete with the mall lights, which were supposed to have been dimmed. But it was still a first-time event that nearly didn't happen at all, so I was thankful to have been there. It was a treat to hear 'The Gonk' muzak being played inside the mall, and a great opportunity to do a live side-by-side comparison of how the mall has changed in thirty years.

Further photos from the weekend events can be seen on the HorrorHound website and their MySpace page.

I'll soon review the documentary Beware The Moon - Remembering An American Werewolf in London at length, and will also post my own location tour of the mall.

THE CRAZIES, SHIVERS, RABID - nasty seventies virals

Three North American horror movies from the mid 1970's where people turn into mindless, predatory animals, decades before the fast-moving 'zombies' of 28 Days Later and I Am Legend.

THE CRAZIES

(1973, USA)

George Romero had already laid down the rules for the modern zombie genre in Night of the Living Dead (1968). But before he started with the sequels, he made The Crazies, in which society breaks down in a remote town when a military nerve gas turns everyone into psycho-killers.

While the premise had horror potential - with innocent-looking children and grannies turning homicidal – the amateurish acting has always made this a tough one for me to sit through, even when it came out. Besides the budget being too low to do ‘a city in chaos’ properly, the gore effects severely lack Tom Savini, with fake-looking limbs and even unconvincing blood.

But the ideas were ripe for recycling, and the image of the military dressed head-to-foot in white gas masks, suits and hoods proved enduring, soon appearing again in The Cassandra Crossing (1976).

SHIVERS
(1975, Canada)

David Cronenberg was obviously inspired by Romero’s film (he even cast Lynn Lowry from The Crazies), but added more inventive angles, like making people homicidal and sexual maniacs. Shivers was his first feature film, and he ladled out enough controversy to launch his career.

In it, a medical experiment to mutate parasites into missing organs comes to a tragic end when the doctor kills, disembowels and pours acid into the stomach of a naked schoolgirl. Little does he know, she's been sleeping around, fuelled by the parasites' sexual appetite. Now several men in her apartment block are breeding parasitic slugs of their own... internally.

While this is far more interesting than The Crazies, the amateur quality of acting is still pretty distracting, though queen of Italian horror, Barbara Steele (Mask of the Demon) is a welcome exception. Her bathtub scene is still squirmingly effective, and was the basis of many poster campaigns.

By his own admission, Cronenberg was still learning to direct during the production, but the film was still an international hit. He pushes the concept way out, and it's unusual to see sexual horror outside of the realm of vampires for once.

RABID
(1976, Canada)

Cronenberg tweaked and expanded the same concept of infectious psychosis for his next, far more assured film. This is the easiest of the three to recommend, with a more able cast, and a bigger budget.

Another medical experiment misfires, this time using skin-grafts. After a bike accident, Rose (Marilyn Chambers) finds herself with a vampiric spike in her armpit and a lust for human blood, not realising that she's infects her victims with rabies.

The stage is set for random violence, with Cronenberg dreaming up kills more creative than the story or the characters. Not many horror films feature a pneumatic drill as a murder weapon, or Santa Claus gunned down by a hail of machine-gun fire.

This is efficient, unusual, indie horror mayhem, from the heyday of Canadian horror, with buckets of subtext only if you want it. Watching this again, I noticed that there's no original soundtrack music, just a few library tracks repeated to exhaustion! It certainly worked at the time. Shivers and Rabid then made perfect partners on a double-bill re-release in cinemas. Check out any trailers you can find - the voice-over is a classic.

(Cronenberg then continued with a run of interesting horror films - The Brood, Scanners, and the marvellous Videodrome, before hitting the big time with his 1986 remake of The Fly).

These three quasi-zombie films were labelled as 'body horror' in the eighties, and lumped in with the remakes of The Blob and The Thing - today they're the fore-runners of today's 'fast and furious' genre of the undead.

Incidentally, the US DVD of Shivers (from Image Entertainment) looks good in 1.33 aspect ratio, but my UK edition of Rabid (from Metrodome) is severely cropped on all sides of the 16:9 frame, cramping the action and even clipping off parts of the opening titles - a case of 'widescreen edition' meaning less rather than more... but there's an interesting introductory talk from Cronenberg on both discs.

ANATOMIE (2000) - gutsy German thriller

ANATOMY
(2000, Germany, Anatomie)

Go up the lab, and see what's on the slab...

Franka Potente is reason enough to watch this slick slasher from Germany. The actress scored an international success with Run Lola Run (1998), then starred in Antomie before a short run of Hollywood parts - in Blow (2001) opposite Johnny Depp, The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004). She also starred in another horror, Creep (2004) in the UK.

Paula and Gretchen are two medical students who get the chance to study anatomy at an old revered college in picturesque Heidelburg. But while they dissect dead bodies during the day, two masked maniacs are using the same high-tech facility at night to carefully cut up victims while they're still alive.


(These scenes reminded me of the unfortunate runner in Scream and Scream Again (1970) who wakes up without a leg, then another leg, then his arms).

As the two roommates start to get popular with the male students, Paula starts to suspect that something nasty is going on in the college...


This is gripping and enjoyable while it lasts, but the climax arrives a little too quickly, leaving enough loose ends for a sequel (in 2003).

The special effects all look exactly like the squishy nastiness, though it's far less bloody than I anticipated. Plasticised bodies that look like those made famous by Dr Gunther Von Hagens, are used as exhibits in the research wing of the college. I felt they were under-used by the director and would have liked a closer look at these extremely creepy replicas. For instance, a huge set of shelves decked out with skulls deserved far more attention.


To ease the tension, and almost dissipate it, there are one too many scenes of upbeat college life, with an intrusive pop soundtrack - indeed Paula’s roommate Gretchen is played my German singer Anna Loos, who gets an unlikely sex scene on a metal dissection table.

Franka Potente ensures the character of Paula is as realistic as the medical mayhem around her. Benno Fürmann is also impressive as the self-obsessed muscle-boy, Hein. Fürmann has a long list of credits in Germany, but recently appeared as Inspector Detector in Speed Racer.


Anatomie avoids most of the cliches of modern horror, using more Hitchcockian suspense and a steadily-unfolding story, which is all the more creepy for remaining in the realm of the very possible.

What makes it different from American horror is the mixture of nudity, sex and death. Most of the corpses are young and good-looking, adding a necrophilic edge to the flesh on display.


The UK DVD from Columbia Tristar is presented in anamorphic 2.35 widescreen, and has plenty of extras (including an Anna Loos pop video and interesting interviews).

OTOSHIMONO (2006) a creepy Japanese GHOST TRAIN

GHOST TRAIN

(2006, Japan, Otoshimono)

Even after 10 years of Asian horror films riffing on the scary elements of the original Ring (1998), I really don't mind yet more ghosts with long black hair, as long as they are scary. Besides, the ghost in this one is wearing a black dress - that's completely different!

Ghost Train delivers the chills, and attempts to add a new dimension of its own, enough to set it apart from the rest. I'm very partial to movies set in subway systems, and I've actually had nightmares about London's Underground stations. This film taps into scares that I didn't feel during horrors filmed down there, like Death Line (1972) or Creep (2004).

Otoshimono has been retitled several ways in other countries, but it's not to be confused with the South Korean 'ghosts on a train' movie, Red Eye.


The story starts in the busy Tokyo subway system, when little Takashi picks up a train pass off a platform, only to be told to "give it back" or he will die. He later tells a schoolfriend Noriko, and her older sister Nana, of the warning from a woman in black. He soon disappears off the face of the Earth, and the train pass re-appears on the platform. This time Noriko unwittingly picks it up...

On the same line, train driver Shunichi sees a bloodless mangled corpse lying on the tracks in the tunnel ahead. But when he stops and looks underneath the train, the body has disappeared. His boss is concerned that he's not only seeing things, but that he keeps making emergency stops. On another subway train, Kaeru gets a cursed bracelet that she can't remove. What is going on?


This story has its roots in the Japanese custom of leaving lost objects precisely where they were lost, so that the owner can find them if they retrace their steps. In Japan, I even heard stories that wallets will be respectfully left alone, wherever they were dropped, until claimed again by their owners.

The creeping camerawork and carefully orchestrated sound mix help keep the film constantly and effortlessly scary, right from the start. Though some of the shock moments are needlessly cranked-up by repeat edits and zoom-ins, for anyone who missed them the first time. But for once, the scares are all for genuine reasons, and not false starts. The pace is kept rolling by the constant intercutting between the parallel hauntings - Nana and the train pass, Kaeru and the bracelet, Shunichi and the train company.

Early in the story, Nana is trying to decide on her higher education and is reading a brochure from the Miskatonic University - a hint at where the story could be heading - a startlingly different ending to other long-haired ghost movies. I even detected a slight trace of the Underground station horror Quatermass and the Pit (1968). Writer/director Takeshi Furusawa previously worked on the influential Kairo (Pulse), but this film is a far more straightforward chiller than anything by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.


The cast are engaging, with Erika Sawajiri (from Shinobi) as Nana, and Chinatsu Wakatsuki (from Ju-rei) as Kaeru. Shun Oguri as Shinuchi the train driver is a familiar face from Azumi, Azumi 2, Takeshi Shimizu's Reincarnation, and (a possible in-joke) the Train Man TV series (a romantic drama about a manga geek defending a 'normal' woman from bullying on the subway).


Ghost Train isn't very gory, and uses a few cliches, but it's an enjoyable story packed with scares, in a setting ripe with possibilities. I watched it on DVD from IVL in Hong Kong, and it's currently available on DVD in the US from ADV.

KAKASHI (2001) - everyone's got a creepy SCARECROW

KAKASHI
(2001, Japan, Scarecrow)

Not as scary as it should have been

Junji Ito’s many horror manga have also inspired the Tomie series and the wonderful Uzumaki, but this film is less well known, and I’ve not had the chance to see his original comic book version either.


In it, Kaoru travels to the remote Kozukata Village high in the mountains. She’s trying to find her brother, who in turn went there looking for his girlfriend, Izumi. Approaching the village, Kaoru turns off the main road, up a dirt-track and through a long and daunting tunnel.

(This is very similar to the start of Spirited Away, and I’m sure that in Japan a tunnel can symbolise a passage to the afterlife.)

Beyond the tunnel is a little farming village nestled in a deep valley. Even though Kaoru is missing a close relative, the local people are unfriendly, unhelpful and obsessed with an upcoming festival. They are all building scarecrows, and planting them around a huge windmill.


Kaoru visits Izumi’s parents, where she think she sees a woman in a red dress, but they warn her to leave immediately or "she won't want to leave". As the local policeman helps her investigate, she discovers that some of these scarecrows are not what they seem...

There’s a long, slow, atmospheric build-up, that's eventful but with no really effective scares for until near the end. Creepy characters in red are more usual in European horror, and there’s also a moment directly lifted from the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But this is still an unusual piece, reminiscent of, but more successful than, the similarly situated Kidan.

Director Norio Tsuruta went on to direct the third Japanese Ring, Ring 0: Birthday, which I’m very fond of, especially for the humanisation of Sadako’s character. But his more recent Premonition (Yogen) wasn't as successful.


The cast were largely unfamiliar, though the policeman had a familiar face - Yoji Tanaka also appeared as the boy's father in The Great Yokai War and Ju-On: The Grudge.

I watched Kakashi on a Hong Kong DVD (from Universe Video, cover pictured at top), and while it's still not been released in the US or UK, the HK region 3 disc can still be found here on HK Flix, for instance.

PRINCESS AURORA (2005) - more vengeance from Korea

PRINCESS AURORA
(2005, South Korea, Orora gongju)

If you’re getting withdrawal symptoms from not getting any more Vengeance movies, and I’m A Cyborg didn’t work for you, here’s another tale of revenge from South Korea…

As a scenario, this is superficially similar to Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, as it certainly doesn’t pull any punches revenge-wise. But unlike the Vengeance trilogy, rather than analyse the nature of revenge and the resulting cycle of violence, Princess Aurora has a more one-sided viewpoint as a film, and more single-minded than Dirty Harry as a character.


From the very start, we get the full brunt of the raw violence of the central character, as she mercilessly murders a step-mother for beating her little girl. Then she snuffs out another young woman who has been verbally cruel to a pizza delivery woman. This is extremely rough justice for the respective crimes, but the police are immediately on the case.


Little does one of the detectives know, just how involved in the case he already is. As the killing spree continues, the police are still clueless about her motive or identity, except for a Princess Aurora sticker left at each crime. Though it’s not shown in much detail, it looks like the Disney cartoon character from the animated classic Sleeping Beauty (1959).


This is a compelling thriller from the start, and just as it looks more like a typical cat-and-mouse detective story, the plot starts twisting. It’s not a whodunnit, but her motivation is more of a mystery - not a shallow Friday the 13th explanation, but the core of the film. This is a slickly-made, bloody thriller, with intelligent well-rounded characters. The plot gets a little far-fetched towards the end, but it doesn’t spoil the intensity of story.


Jeong-hwa Eom has the toughest role, showing the turmoil of her character, and having to play-act various other roles to infiltrate her way into her victims’ lives. Sung-keun Moon plays the Detective on the case, while he’s trying to study to be a Pastor!


Gorgeously shot in 2.35 widescreen, Princess Aurora is being released on DVD in the UK by Tartan at the end of June.