BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (1971) - still shocking today

BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW
(1970, UK)

A classic British horror, also known as Satan's Skin for good reason...

Listening to the recent release of the CD soundtrack (that I bought off Movie Grooves) prompted me to revisit this unusual British frightener from Tigon Productions, a lesser known studio that also gave us The Haunted House of Horror, Doomwatch and Curse of the Crimson Altar. Seeing it on late-night ITV, years (decades) ago as a teenager, was unforgettable because of the shock moments and daring nudity.


Set in the 15th century English countryside, a farmer unearths a weird skull, unleashing an ancient evil on his village. Something scary in an attic sends a local girl mad and drives her fiance to self-mutilation. The evil spreads to the local youngsters as they begin to worship something nasty in the ruins of an old church, sacrificing anyone found to be cursed with Satan's skin...

In terms of atmosphere, this is the next best movie to Witchfinder General. The difference being that in this story, witchcraft works. There are more than a few similarities between the two films, like the extensive use of location filming in the English countryside, and the beautiful but menacing soundtracks. Patrick Wymark appears in both, getting top billing as the local judge in Satan's Skin, he had a cameo as Oliver Cromwell in Witchfinder.

It isn't as swashbuckling or murderous as Witchfinder, but is often just as shocking. There's also that scene that I get confused with The Wicker Man (1973), when a young woman strips naked to seduce her victim. Evil teenagers doing the devil's work, using murder and seduction, seemed very unlikely back in the seventies. Leading the cultists is the deliciously monstrous character of Angel Blake.


Linda Hayden imbues Angel with a devilish malevolence. Her career includes a remarkable list of horror roles, including Taste The Blood Of Dracula (1970) and Madhouse (1974). An excellent, recent interview is included on the DVD, as Linda talks about her sudden stardom, horror films and famous co-stars.

While the rest of the young cast are convincing, it's hard to forget some of their TV alter-egos. Michele Dotrice was soon to become a sitcom legend in Some Mothers Do Ave Em (opposite Michael Crawford), but had just appeared in the dark thriller And Soon The Darkness. Wendy Padbury had been a popular assistant to TV's Doctor Who in the sixties, making the fate of her character all the more gruelling. Rebecca Tovey had starred in both the Peter Cushing Dr Who films as his granddaughter, but isn't even given a screen credit. Robin Davies had been one of the many schoolboys of the rebellious if.... (1968) and starred opposite Geoffrey Bayldon (Asylum, Tales From The Crypt) in the children's TV fantasy Catweazle.


Among the adult cast is Anthony Ainley (The Land That Time Forgot) who gets a rare chance to play a goodie, as a priest - he was about to become the second actor to play The Master in TV's Doctor Who. The unlucky farmer is Barry Andrews, previously the star of Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968).

The script was originally envisaged as three short stories, but director Piers Haggard helped remould the structure into a continuous narrative. He succeeded, but the plot is still faintly episodic. His only other noteworthy credit was the last original adventure of Nigel Kneale's Professor Quatermass, starring John Mills in TV’s The Quatermass Conclusion (1979).

The nudity and sexual violence are still shocking today, the cast is convincing, and the only real downfall is the finale, which is an anticlimax. But the director agrees, he simply didn't have any budget left to fix it! But the low budget doen't show, except maybe for the barely-seen monster itself. Everything else about the film, atmosphere, locale, cast are almost perfect.


The Anchor Bay DVD was released in the UK but not the US. Even though the picture is clean and crisp, the widescreen DVD isn't anamorphic, yet the documentary is. There was a reversible cover with a choice of modern or original artwork. It was also available as part of the coffin-shaped Tigon boxset, and as another single DVD release in Australia.

VIRUS (1980) - whoops apocalypse

VIRUS
(1980, Japan)

Slow, grim, apocalyptic disaster that might eventually haunt…

I tried to upgrade my tatty old VHS copy of Virus by buying a recent DVD release, only to find that while it’s called 'The Director's Cut', it’s shorter than my VHS copy, and it isn’t widescreen, while the VHS was!

Both the UK and US DVD releases are listed as 1.33 – which means they are severely cropped down from the original widescreen, an injustice to the spectacular location cinematography, one of the few saving graces that Virus has to offer.

The running time of 100 minutes represents the international cut (which failed to get a cinema release in the UK or US, back in 1980), a whole hour shorter than the original version released in Japan.

One of the US DVD releases

The UK DVD starts with a long explanatory build up as the deadly MM88 virus is stolen and then accidentally exposed. The introductory scenes are full of badly disguised exposition, using unknown actors, giving the wrong impression of the film that is about to unfold. Only when the virus begins to kill large numbers of people around the world, does the story take off. Some horrifying scenes of riots breaking out around the world are taken from actual news footage, including a very nasty incident where a protester catches on fire.

As recognisable actors appear, they are lumbered with embarrassing dialogue and melodramatic conflicts. Unlike more recent apocalypse stories which ground the story among the public, this is very Japanese in structure – where huge disasters are only dealt with by the authorities. Politicians, military, scientists receive the latest news and use cold, hard logic.

Some of the Japanese scenes are the most involving – where a hospital is overrun with people needing treatment, and the police have to burn piles of bodies in the streets, unable to cope with the mounting death toll. But these scenes are just illustrations, aside from the main drive of the story in the Oval Office. Glenn Ford plays the US President, aided by Robert Vaughn, whose lumbered with some very awkward direction...

This DVD cover illustrates the missing prologue scene

As the board meetings continue among the last people on Earth – in Antarctica, where the virus can’t survive the low temperatures. The new World Council includes a young Edward James Olmos. Even a case of rape is coldly discussed in a meeting. The ratio of 855 men to 8 women is simply unfortunate. The women will have to have babies with new multiple partners. Well at least condemn the rapist, guys!

Many different countries are represented reasonably well, but casting Chuck Connors as a British submarine captain is bizarre. The actor normally plays cowboys. Two cheeky cockneys represent the British crew in yet another example of the Mary Poppins/Dick Van Dyke stereotype.

The overall story is realistic, doomladen and slowly paced. The vision of a world decimated by a biological warfare accident, and a climactic plot twist may haunt anyone who stays awake to the very end of the movie.

The worldwide locations are impressive, especially among the polar icebergs. Though there are unusual choices of establishing shots for various capital cities. Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) directs, favouring the Japanese scenes and actors. But without their back-stories, and without a fluent command of English, it’s hard to know why they are the only civilians at the centre of the action.

The prologue on my old Intervision VHS seems to be taken from the climax of the longer Japanese version, which is supposed to be a superior experience all round. As it stands, this is another example of the Japanese spending a huge budget aiming at international success, and floundering badly. The tedious Sayonara Jupiter also springs to mind - a huge budgeted, internationally cast, botched, sci-fi catastrophe...

Gotterdammerung has a host of screengrabs and plot spoilers if you want to investigate Virus further...

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GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA (2002) - monstrous entertainment

GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA

(2002, Japan)

I'll watch any movie with Godzilla in it. But for a Black Hole review, I have to consider if I can recommend it to you. Godzilla films can be very uneven - the monster action is always fun, but the plots can sometimes drag, or even be embarrassingly bad.

From the last wave (1999-2004), I rewatched Godzilla x Mechagodzilla, while thinking of an audience who may be new to the franchise.

Mechagodzilla first appeared in two films in the seventies, and resurfaced in the early 1990's. This time around it's a more agile giant robot cyborg monster, with more built-in missile launchers than ever, and a few titanium tricks up its sleeve...

After the stupendous Gamera trilogy of the late nineties, from rival studio Daiei, the annual Godzilla movie franchise had to modernise its approach. Godzilla Millennium relaunched the series (after the American Emmerich/Devlin remake of 1997), and these were all stand-alone stories, spinning off from the original premise.

A grittier Godzilla emerged. He's back to being a problem of mass destruction, rather than a children's hero. Once more he’s threatening Tokyo and the Japanese government have to find a way to stop him. They remember that the original Godzilla skeleton still lies at the bottom of Tokyo Bay (where he was defeated in the very first film in 1954). Using a Jurassic Park ruse, scientists propose to use the skeleton as a framework, combined with the Godzilla DNA in the bones, to create a duplicate monster. Enhanced with a robot exoskeleton and under military control, it should defeat the oncoming threat.

Chosen to operate Mechagodzilla's controls, is a young pilot, (Yumiko Shaku, the star of Princess Blade and Sky High), who isn't trusted by her team-mates after a disastrous incident while trying to kill Godzilla using maser cannons, several years earlier. Having a female action hero is a twist in Godzilla films. Add to this her tragic backstory and she has reason to look perpetually grumpy.

The producers still can't resist adding a cute little girl and her klutzy father for extra pathos and comedy relief, but these are far less painful than they sound.

The realism is greatly enhanced by the use of actual full-size tanks - toy tanks bouncing towards Godzilla are traditionally a funny, guilty pleasure in the series. But here the modelwork and explosions are bigger than ever, and they even use a little CGI, though the look of this has dated already, the suitmation less so.


Men in monster suits wrestling, is the mainstay of the special effects. Albeit fantastically designed and constructed suits, surrounded by intricate and extensive cityscape models. But as the action scenes wear on, there's no actual build in the excitement or the story. Mechagodzilla has very few tricks up its sleeve after its first fight, and ends up repeating itself. For once it's launched by VTOL aircraft, rather than by the unlikely rocket jets in the soles of its feet.

The movie is good, solid spectacle, above average for a G-movie, and the action kicks off early with a quick appearance of the big G right at the start. The plot is fairly old-fashioned, as are characters and the overall feel - you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for a film ten years earlier.

The Maser cannon weapons are a welcome blast from the past, and there are some surprising flashbacks to lesser-known monster attacks from classic Toho films. This is a good example to showcase the latest generation of G-films, while we wait for Godzilla to endure his eight-year hiatus, self-imposed by Toho Studios after Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004.

Columbia Tristar released a good DVD of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla in the US, correctly aspected in 2.35 anamorphic, with English or Japanese language options.

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CHOSEN SURVIVORS (1974) - bats and bombs

CHOSEN SURVIVORS
(USA, 1974)

All I knew about this was that it was post-apocalyptic and had vampire bats in it! As it was on the DVD double-bill release with The Earth Dies Screaming, which I simply had to have, I finally got a chance to see it. Earth is a black/white sixties British space invasion, Chosen Survivors is seventies US sci-fi with a TV look and a TV cast. But its adult approach and grim plot elevates it to filmic status. Both films have been hard to see until now.

Chosen Survivors starts with a dozen drugged civilians being dragged from a military helicopter into a cave in the middle of the desert. Down deep inside is a huge, futuristic, self-contained bunker. As the drugs wear off, they get shown a presentation video informing them that the world has just been obliterated in a nuclear war, and they were all pre-selected as experts most likely to help humanity re-populate.

They try to grasp the fact that everyone else in the world is dead (apart from those in other bunkers) and settle down to life together for a few years, until the radiation levels are tolerable again. But if life wasn't tough enough, they discover a problem with their underground sanctuary - killer vampire bats...

It’s not as corny as it sounds. Intelligent plotting, sexual and psychological drama and an offbeat directorial approach make this quite a unique little movie. Director Sutton Roley was obviously trying to break out of TV with this one, though he was a master of top TV shows for decades.

Skewed camera angles are effectively used to show the disorientation of the survivors as they arrive, wide-angle lenses to accent their claustrophobia. There’s also an impressive, experimental, electronic soundtrack by Fred Karlin, just after he scored another downbeat sci-fi, Westworld.

While the cast aren't A-list, there are a few familiar faces – like, Alex Cord (Archangel in Airwolf), Jackie Cooper (Perry White in Superman – The Movie), Barbara Babcock (Hill Street Blues) and Richard Jaeckal (Grizzly and The Green Slime). And once again, Lincoln Kilpatrick gets a tricky climbing assignment, like he did as one of the night-people in The Omega Man.

I’m very glad to have seen this. Now where's the CD release?

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LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS (1977) legendarily bad

LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS

(1977, Japan, Kyôryuu: Kaichô no densetsu)

More like... the legend of one dinosaur and one monster bird…

I'm really impressed with DVDs from Media Blasters - spectacular presentations of classic Japanese fantasy films. They’ve released many classic giant monster movies… but this isn't one of them. Instead, this is a perplexingly bad riff on Jaws, with a dinosaur instead of a shark.

Worse still, it seems to have been influenced by other Jaws rip-offs, like Tentacles (as a victim is lifted clean out of the water screaming her lungs out). Jaws also prompts the use of a little more blood and gore than is usual with Japanese monsters.

The premise is that a sort of Loch Ness monster has been found in one of the lakes round Mount Fuji, and it’s killing local people and holiday-makers. Unfortunately Toei Studios isn't known for its giant monster movies and the resulting special effects, despite the use of some full-size props, are totally laughable. The rhamphorynchus is even stiffer than the pterodactyl in The Land That Time Forgot (1975), the plesiosaurus is inexpressive and less frightening than the puppet 'Space Monster' in the children’s series Fireball XL5 (1962), which it closely resembles.

Add to this a completely inept explanation as to why it’s all happening, plus the worst use of music I can recall (using only a few tracks, none suitable for monster action, though the disco track sort of works) and you've got one of the worst ever Japanese monster movies.

By the end of the film, the producers seem to have given up on anything approaching convincing - the wire work, back projection and editing all get even worse. However, for fans of bad movies that are so consistently bad they become enjoyable, this could be for you.

Like Media Blasters' other Japanese movies, this has both the original Japanese and English language options. The few extras include trailers and posters that amusingly promised a worldwide release (in 40 countries) and boast it was Toei Studios' most expensive film to date. Yikes. I prefer it when they stuck to a low budget. Having seen it, I now know why this movie was so rare.

For a selection of other, better movies about giant monsters, see the 'Giant Monsters' links in the sidebar...

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CRACK IN THE WORLD (1965) - apocalypse then

CRACK IN THE WORLD

(US, 1965)

Science-free, disaster movie, now on DVD and Blu-ray! 

This was a regular Saturday night action film on TV in the seventies and it horrified me when I first saw it. The offscreen body-count quickly runs into tens of thousands, and a scene showing a nasty train wreck gave me an early experience of death in the movies. A recent viewing was much more fun. It's a well-made sci-fi adventure, where science and logic take a backseat to unsubtle melodrama.

(Screengrab from VHS)

'Project Inner Space' is an ambitious scheme to harness molten magma for unlimited energy. Why they don't just relocate to a volcano isn't explained. After glossing over the potential dangers, Dr Sorenson gets the go-ahead to fire a nuclear missile (!) downwards into the Earth, in order to break through a troublesome mantle of superhard rock. Unfortunately for the Earth, dozens of underground nuclear tests (in Africa?) have already weakened the tectonic plate. A crack in the Earth’s crust rips open and keeps on cracking (whoops). A growing death toll of those killed by earthquakes and tidal waves (all offscreen) weigh heavily on Dr Sorenson’s conscience - he needs an almighty quick fix. As the rift starts ‘travelling’ along the ocean floor, there’s even some submarine action as is usual in tectonic thrillers, also evident in The Submersion of Japan movies.

(Screengrab from VHS)

The scientists’ solution to stopping the crack is to head it off at the volcano, by dropping a second atomic bomb... by hand! In a scene reminiscent of the ‘Pit of Peril’ episode of Thunderbirds (coincidentally from the same year), two men lower themselves into the volcano with a nuclear device. Surprisingly, this only makes matters worse, and our heroes face the apocalypse (like the rest of the world) as well as a troublesome love triangle.

Dr Sorenson (played by Dana Andrews, again looking through large lucite maps, just like he does in The Satan Bug) is married to Maggie, an exceedingly young bombshell played by Janette Scott. Maggie soon starts flitting between her husband and her ex-lover, (Kieron Moore) like a glamorous ping pong ball. The usually restrained Dana Andrews is encouraged way outside his usual acting range in an attempt to match Moore’s usual, surly, overloud style. Janette gets to let rip her impressive Triffid scream, and displays an Earth-shattering amount of thigh during the climax.

This movie surely inspired the moment in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks, when little cute animals emerged from hiding after the Martians were defeated. This is an entertaining example of sixties ‘apocalypse movies’, following the thrills of When Worlds Collide and Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Before the localised catastrophes of the disaster movies of the seventies, B-movie sci-fi aimed high by promising global chaos on a low budget. Other apocalypses are the more serious The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and of course The Day of the Triffids, which is closely related to this production.

Crack in the World manages some excellent special effects, courtesy of Eugene Lourie (director of the similarly colourful Gorgo). In his autobiography, Lourie describes his effects work, particularly the large-scale models of the project HQ and a flawless hanging miniature used to make the underground laboratory look even more impresive - it bears a striking resemblance to Hugo Drax’s underground mission control in the James Bond movie Moonraker (1979). I can’t remember seeing such a striking use of sloping walls that wasn't designed by Ken Adam! Lourie also mentions that the glowing lava effects he developed for this film, he later used again in Krakatoa, East of Java (1969).

Crack in the World was entirely shot in Spain, where much of Day of the Triffids took place. Triffids also starred Janette Scott and Kieron Moore together. Moore, who passed away last year, could only ever muster leading roles in lower budget movies, and supporting roles in bigger movies. But despite, and because of, his surly acting, he is always a highlight. A trilogy of his leading roles, Crack in the World, Day of the Triffids and Dr Blood’s Coffin, make an enjoyable cross-section of sixties genre movies.

The bombastic soundtrack by Johnny Douglas strengthens the mood of impending doom, certainly for a ten-year old. The wall-to-wall background music also over-emphasises every single possible emotional corner of the already unsubtle acting.

Thankfully, this has now made it to DVD and Blu-ray (!) in the US.

There's no trailer on YouTube, but there's a brief clip (from VHS)...

(This article was last updated October 2011, originally posted in April 2008).

Charlton Heston - goodbye to THE OMEGA MAN

It had to happen eventually, but I was hoping to write this tribute before Charlton Heston passed away.

Before Star Wars came along, he was my sci-fi hero of the seventies. While he'd made a name headlining the hugest of Hollywood epics (Ben Hur, El Cid, The Ten Commandments), I was far more interested in his futuristic/apocalyptic films, all still re-running in cinemas. Towards the end of his A-list career, he bravely entered the genre that was rarely taken seriously. But with Heston starring, it helped persuade audiences to take a new look at sci-fi.

His gravitas helped make Planet of the Apes (1968) a hit with critics and audiences. Rod Serling's brilliant script illuminated the parallels between a fantasy world of intelligent animals, and the problems of real-life America, as well as providing a compelling futuristic adventure. Heston returned to reprise his role as Taylor in the gritty sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, which is just as good.


He then hit a sci-fi groove, first starring in The Omega Man (1971), an adaption of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, that's heavily influential on the current Will Smith version. Though if you want better villains, more action and a better ending, you should see Charlton Heston as Robert Neville.

There's also Soylent Green (1973), a reminder that ecological disasters have been on people's minds for decades. Heston plays a detective trying to solve a murder in a massively overpopulated city, stricken with a permanent heatwave. The depiction of metropolitan food riots and voluntary euthanasia are not easily forgotten, as is the ghastly secret of Soylent Green itself.

Heston then went all 'disaster movie' in Earthquake, Airport '75 and Two Minute Warning. Despite chaos, danger, and the dam about to break, with Charlton Heston running around, you knew things were going to be all right.

Seeing these all on the big screen, cemented him in my mind's eye as a cornerstone of essential seventies cinema.

Come back, Chuck...

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