Wetherby

directed and written by David Hare. 1985. starring Vanessa Redgrave, Judi Dench, Tim McInnerny, Suzanna Hamilton


A quietly disturbing, beautifully written meditation on alienation in Thatcher's Britain. They really don't make 'em like this anymore. They didn't make many of them then.


This is a story of loneliness, about the unbridgeable gaps between people. It is quiet and it is savage; full of unspoken/unspeakable moments and furious drunken soliquising. And while it is unmistakably a period piece now it is also a timeless study on what it means to "live a life of quiet desperation"; or what it is to be English.

Vanessa Redgrave, in a TOWERING performance, plays Jean Travers, a teacher in the Yorkshire suburb of Wetherby. A drunken dinner party she holds for her friends is attended by John Morgan (Tim McInnerny) an enigmatic young man whom she assumes is a guest of Marcia, (Judi Dench) her best friend. Shortly afterwards he returns to her house carrying a pair of dead pheasants and without warning commits suicide in front of her at her kitchen table.

So there is a puzzle at the centre of "Wetherby" - why did Morgan choose to shoot himself in front of Jean? Was it the desperate act of a lonely man looking for any sense of connection. The police investigation reveals that Morgan was obsessed with local librarian Karen Creasy (Suzanna Hamilton) described by Jean as "the sort of girl people become obsessed with" but known to Marcia for her "central disfiguring blankness". Karen invites herself to live with Jean for the next few days until a tense confrontation sends the young woman away.

This is a film about emptiness and dislocation, about one generations inability to interact with another: the drunken ranting post war generation and the numbed separateness of Thatcher's babies. This dislocation is reflected in the film non-linear structure too, and in the haunting parallel narrative of Jean's doomed romance with an Air Man.

This is a quiet film, intercut with splenetic ranting, a simple human story, striated with shadows thrown forward and back, colouring, shaping and obfuscating. And it is simply a classic of English cinema from a time when English cinema was about to stop.

The Night of the Demons

Adam Gierasch's re-make of the "big-in-Detroit" 80's gore-fest is a surprisingly fun way to waste your time. Assuming you can get past the soundtrack: there's horror and there's just bloody awful.

Well this was a surprise. I was expecting a version of "Night of the Demon", Jacques Tourneur's inky black foray into shadow and suggestion, fatally flawed by the unwanted intrusion a big scary monster. But this is a remake of "Night of the Demons": tawdry 80's shlock-horror gore-fest. And things dont stat well...

Director Adam Geirasch's "mission statement" ( and I am franky horrified by the idea of a director's mission statement! ) reveals "My aim for "Night of the Demons" was to make the ultimate film that my seventeen-year old self wanted to see. Punk rock, demons, scantily clothed women, gore and big scares!" I suspect me and Adam were very different kinds of 17 year olds, given that my idea of a good time was wearing an off-the shoulder cardigan, covered in badges and hanging around in record and coffee shops never buying anything. But I'm older now and sufficiently coarsened so I can see where he's coming from.

The film opens with some dodgy sepia back-story. Eighty years ago, on Halloween night, Evangeline Broussard hanged herself from the balcony of her New Orleans Manor house. This Halloween Angela (Shannon Elizabeth) has rented the place out and everybody who's anybody is going. This doesn't include local drug dealer Colin ( Edward Furlong, and he's really let himself go - he looks like James Dean Bradfield!) who is desperate to get inside and reap the rich rewards of a captive audience. When the police arrive and break up the party only seven guests remain behind: three moronic men and four nubile young women in light bondage gear. It's then that they realise that the gates have been locked and their "cell-phones" have stopped working. And that's when weird shit starts happening.

Inspired stuff, eh? Did i mention it comes with that dull, chugging American version of goth-music that was everywhere in nineties, and fewer acting chops than you might expect from your local butcher's window.

However, HOWEVER. I did quite like it. Sure, it's the sort of film that IMDB reviewers would describe as a "turn off your brain, get a pizza and a six-pack" classic but in fact it's not quite that stupid. Furlong is remarkably unaffected and scuzzy and, despite the uber-boobedness of many of the women, the playing is fairly naturalistic. There are some great lines: "Maybe pantry is French for fucking deathtrap" and "she stuck a lipstick in her boob and it fell out of her pussy, okay?". It's the okay that gets me every time!

And it has the best "breasts-behaving-badly" scene since Ken Russell's "Gothic".

By the end you are really rooting for Monica Keena's Maddie, so much so that at the rather matter of fact end to the film,she makes it seem cool and stylish, rather than hastily pat. No mean feat.

So "Night of the Demons" came from behind, hacked bloodily away at my preconception and eventually made me like it. Though maybe i'm not such hard-arse after all: I DID thrill to the blink and you miss it Linnea Quiqley cameo. And it takes a special kind of pathetic nerd to do that!

Daughters of Darkness

From the sheer oddness of seeing the words "Cine Vog" before the credits sequence, from the squat black font of the titles played out against the blood red back-drop, from the oscillating progishness of the music, you know that "Daughters of Darkness" is going to be a wild ride. And it doesn't disappoint. There is something cruel and kinky at bottom here; this is a world (well a Belgium) where relationships are marked by violence and betrayal, where nothing is tender or kind, and words when spoken are not used to mollify and placate but to wound. That's when words are used - the Francois de Roubaix' furious player-piano soundtrack does a lot of the talking here.

Daughters of Darkness is the story of newlyweds Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) and Stefan (John Karlen - Harvey from "Cagney and Lacey" unrecognisable here as a kind of evil Bjorn from Abba!) who arrive at the amazing Hotel des Thermes in Ostend as a stop-gap before taking the ferry to England to meet Stefan's mother. It's at the hotel that they meet Countess Elizabeth Bathory (the sublime Delphine Seyrig) and her secretary Ilona ( an astonishingly foxy Andrea Rau.) A rash of bloody murders anticipate both of their arrivals and all is not what it seems: Stefan is in no hurry to get back to England, and the Concierge recognises the Countess from 40 years before and though he is in in late middle age she hasn't aged a day.

There is a lot going on in Daughters of Darkness. It's an exercise in glorious style which never-the-less has a coherent narrative. It has a truly international cast but this only adds to the starkness and oddness of the circumstances: the two couples wander around the enormous, Art deco hotel haggling over who will get the Royal Suite to the only member of staff! The food is delicious but there is no one to cook it! The film should be a picture postcard from Belgium, in the same way "In Bruges" was, but Ostend pictured here is unremittingly bleak, the sea view from the hotel window turbulent and dotted with ferries. The retired detective who investigates the murders "as a hobby" spends much of the film standing on the grey sand-flats outside in almost comically torrential rain.

There are old and new horror tropes here; when Stefan cuts himself shaving, a la Jonathan Harker, he is wearing a modish shorty dressing gown. The Countess clearly models her style on Marlene Dietrich but Ilona is a dead-ringer for Guido Crepax's "Valentina" comics, themselves a a reference to Louise Brook's timelessly chic bob. (Crepax's creation was filmed as "Baba Yaga" in 1973 but I maintain Andrea Rau's creation is he more impressive).

It's Delphine Seyrig's film, from the first time we see her; her brilliant teeth framed by blood-red lips, framed by the darkness of her veil, like a 40s key-light was trained upon her. She is seductive, mesmerising and controlled, perfectly presented and precise. Her fluttering hands, the way her inner life moves like changing weather across her bone white face. And then suddenly she is ruthless and pragmatic. The masks slips to reveal another mask.

I love this film. Beautifully shot, wonderfully realised, stinking of decadance and amorality like three day old lillies. And this is a rare bloom, director Harry Kumel made hardly any other films of note ( barring 1973's little seen "Malpertuis") his last outing being almost 20 years ago. This is a timely realease and while it's difficult not feel short-changed by the complete lack of extras ( a travelogue around Ostend from the time would have worked !) it's good to see this amazing film released for a wider audience.

The Flesh and Blood Show

1972. dir. Pete Walker. starring Ray Brookes, Jenny Hanley, Robin Askwith, Luan Peters

It took four goes before my DVD player accepted the disc for "The Flesh and Blood Show" - it evidently had some difficulty digesting it. When it did finally stutter into life the first thing on screen, apart from a muted, grainy sea-scape is the legend: "The final sequences in this film have been photographed in THREE DIMENSIONS". It then advises me to reach for the "coloured viewer" provided on my entrance into the theatre. Balls. I will now never be able to enjoy "the pleasures of the THIRD DIMENSION".

The caption dissolves into the murky sea and, once a spectral mist lifts, we see the west Pier at Brighton hove-ing* into view, like Lina Romay parting the veil at the start of "Female Vampire". The camera moves slowly towards the pier and the soundscape distorts from lapping water and wheeling gulls to a snatch of "Othello" extravagantly applauded and as the camera moves down amongst the blackened supporting struts beneath the beleaguered structure, to a woman's screams. And there on the dark water we see a slick of Kensington Gore coiling through the tide. It's a surprisingly effective opening, or it would have been if the print wasn't so horribly muddy and indistinct.

We cut to a London "pad" where the doorbell rings in the middle of the night. The flat's occupants, two girls in their early twenties, one of whom is naked, bicker about answering the door. This being the seventies, and a film, the naked one goes. It's Luan Peters, Hammer-babe and all round good egg. On opening the door, still naked, she encounters a man clutching a knife which is buried deep in his chest. He stumbles into the flat, stumbling and painfully rising to his feet again, like James Brown winding up a show. In fact it is the two girls he has been winding up and he produces the fake knife with a flourish. What a good joke! Turns out he's an actor; they're all actors. That's why instead of phoning the police about this unfunny mad-man, Luan slips on a dressing gown and makes everyone coffee, ready for a chin-scratching session about cahier de cinema.

It turns out that all three of them have been invited to perform in a theatrical piece called "The Flesh and Blood Show", rehearsals starting in an old abandoned theatre on the pier at "Eastcliffe-on-Sea". This isn't so much clumsy exposition as the entire plot being given away early so we can see the cast being hacked to pieces as quickly as possible. So what's next? Meeting the cast; a series of human scabbards each more dopey than the last. We've met bosomy social nudist Luan already, as well as her plain-Jane flat-mate and chuckles the comedy stab-victim. Next up is Jenny "Magpie" Hanley, as an up-and-coming starlet, tied to the engagement with an iron-clad contract and desperate to get away. There's throbbin' Robin Askwith and his familliar bum faced grin, an exact cross between Brian Jones and Doctor Zaius. Ray "Mr Benn" Brooks brings his usual pragmatic charm to the proceedings and the rest of the cast are made up galumphing "New Generation" types with voices like "I speak your weight" machines and the sort of rangy, gangling bodies you just don't see any more: austerity kids who didn't see a Sherbert Dab until they were 15. There will be a winnowing. A muddy and unecessarily murky winnowing, where breasts could be knee-caps and thighs could be shoulders and the best cuts are all over the floor of the editing suite. Luckily the explanatory dialogue is as thick as the shit smeared over the camera's lens.

First murder: hearing screams the thesps go and investigate. In the bowels of the theatre they find a row of wax masks. Wait a minute - THAT'S NO WAX MASK! After the gruesome discovery a long tracking shot with a gloved hand stuck on the end of it hyperventilates over the corpse. Well there's your baddy!

(an aside)

The soundtrack by Cyril Ornadel (well known to...well to me as the composer of "Sapphire and Steel"'s theme music) is surprisingly varied and affecting; the mournful oboes giving it a sort of "Small Films" melancholy. It would never be allowed today where everything would be Murray Gold-ed to the max, but here, with this creaking narrative and submarine palette, it adds much needed colour and detail.

The actors descend upon a local cafe and are loud and rude to the staff in a way that suggests they are "Free-Spirits". They meet a retired major there who is very taken by them and they refuse his offer to go back to his. Then Candace Glendenning turns up to replace the murdered girl that nobody, save Ray Brooks, gives a shit about.

Murder 2: Our bosomy pal goes for an unbelievably inky stroll along the pier after an arguement with her boyfriend. Not a good idea. She gets chatting to some sort of wheezing tramp who subsequently attacks her in a way that's not immediately obvious as the screen is basically black throughout. I wonder if a young(ish) Derek Jarman sat through this. She survives but weirdo stab-myself-in-the-chest-guy has disappeared.

Candace's aunt has a guest-house and they de-camp there for baths and tea. Candace's aunt starts, unprompted, to tell them the story of the famous actor Arnold Gates who performed on the pier during the war and disappeared mysteriously with his young wife and another actor. She goes into this in some quite exacting detail. Then the boring major turns up and Jenny Hanley is rude to him. He doesn't mind, he's just happy with the company of the young people, but she is getting de-ja-vuey all over the place! There may be something afoot!

I have to say, even discounting her bosom's bra-vura performance, Luan Peters is pretty good in this, about the only actor who impresses. Her Carol is, in turn, snippily sarcastic, a sneering bitch, fluidly theatrical and itchily panicked. She spent most of her career, sadly, as a pair of comedy tits in ITV sitcoms but she is he only one in this film, apart from dependable Brooks, who appears to be acting at all! Of course this is a Pete walker film and acting in a Pete Walker film isn't everything - in fact it's rarely anything! She dies, falling out of the bottom of a pier. You don't really see it. It IS filmed but you don't really see it. Then Candace dies, tits out under a spotlight, and knackering the actor's chance of free bed and board with her aunt. That's the final stroke for Ray who immediately works out who the real villain is prompted by the mysterious major.

No spoilers here, well no further spoilers here, but pretty soon we're in 3D murder recreation scenario-land. You couldn't call Pete "Unlikely Stand-up" Walker a meat and potatoes director, this is some pretty thin gruel, but there's lots of ace fun to be had with a great cast and lots of early seventies "physical theatre" bollocks contrasted with Arthur Gates fruity Donald Wolfett stylings. I really wish you could see what was going on though: this is like a glass-bottom boat-ride without the glass-bottom-boat: there's lots to see here but no way of seeing it.






*east sussex coastal town pun, there.

The Horror of The Black Museum

1958. dir. Arthur Crabtree. starring: Michael Gough, June Cunningham,Shirley Ann Field

I'm often asked which film is my favourite film. (I'm not, I'm usually asked "Are there any films that you don't like?" To which I usually answer "Of course: I don't like "Apocalypse Now", "The Exorcist", "The Godfather" or any of the "Star Wars" films. There's usually a fight. I'm often called "a professional contrarion" which is inaccurate: I'm never paid for these opinions. Or anything else for that matter.)

So, if I'm rarely asked to name my favourite film I have had stock answers for years: "A Matter of Life and Death" (I'm not sure that's even my favourite Powell & Pressburger film now) or "Valerie and her Week of Wonders". Both great films to be sure but not the films I watch the most. That peculiar honour belongs to "The Horror of The Black Museum". In terms of sheer watchability it destroys the competition like a BBC producer rigging the results.

It starts well; the rigged binoculars are literally blinding and open up some of the charged and tin-eared dialogue that binds the entire production together: the seam that runs through this film like fat through bacon is dunder-headed, clumsy and often unecessary exposition, most obviously in the tin-mouth of Shirley Ann Field who invests lines like "I certainly hope I can come again because some day soon I expect to be part of Rick's life" with a sort of sing-song lifelessness; like an echoing chorus of a skipping song from a long abandoned play-ground. She is equally, remarkably, dreadful in Edmond T Greville's "Beat Girl" a year later and in "Peeping Tom" the year after that (though Michael Powell cannily cast her as an excruciatingly bad actress in that one!). At the other end of the spectrum is a truly apoplectic performance from Michael Gough; swivel-eyed, limping, lip-smacking and sneering Gough has clearly decided that the only way to get the bitter taste of the dialogue out of his mouth is to spit it like chewing tobacco into a spittoon.

Gough plays Edmond Bancroft; true-crime writer and professional gadfly to the local police. Indeed we know he's a bad egg from the very off so the only real mystery to this film is why the police keep allowing him into their headquarters, crime-scenes or parties. He turns up, limps around a bit, calls them cocks and toddles off again. A series of terrible murders are baffling the police and of course it's Bancroft who's doing them. In the safe confines of his own self constructed Black Museum ("better than the police's")he details his plans to his dozy ward Rick (Graham Curnow). For a crimial genius he leaves a lot of loose ends lying about: the woman he buys his horror-props from and whom later attempts to blackmail him (she meets a sticky end). The blousy girlfriend who calls him half a man (another a sticky end). The doctor who recognises a link between his heart palpatations and the crimes and follows him back to his evil lair (a sticky end followed by a very clean end). He's right to mock the police - they haven't got a clue!

There's so much to enjoy here: the Welsh madman the police interrogate over the murders ("I have a death ray in my eyes!"), the transatlantic accents used to indicate tough-guy hepness, June Cunningham's suicide blonde performance as Bancroft's bought woman, including a cha-cha-cha for one in an empty fifties saloon bar. Rick's Jimmy Dean bomber jacket and gargoyle death-mask combination. The fact that Bancroft's Black Museum appears to have both a working laser and acid plunge pool (it really is better than Scotland Yard's!)and that he has invented a Jekyl and Hyde serum! In most films that would be the plot - here it is barely even mentioned! That's the strength of this film - it is truly organic, it buds and grows off in all sorts of directions as and when it feels like it! The ending feels like a parody of King Kong! Why not? That neatly sets Crabtree and Gough up for their next endeavour - Konga!