A few words on Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut: The Kitchen Sink Edition at Scary Movies 7

Nightbreed is the story of Boone (Craig Sheffer), a young man in love with a nice young girl. He had troubling dreams so he had gone to see a shrink named Decker (David Cronenberg). Decker is actually a nut job serial killer who hopes to pin his crimes on Boone and use him to find Midian, the place where monsters live. Decker's plans send Boone to the mythical city and set in motion a battle between humans and monsters.

The version screened Saturday night as part of Scary Movies was the now legendary Cabal Cut, which is an attempt to get the film back to what director Clive Barker intended. We were told that this version is the seventh version of the Cabal Cut. The film runs 45 minutes longer than the theatrical cut but actually has an hour of new material since the studio mandated footage was all removed. Its a version that puts in every bit of footage they have (its a mix of VHS and DVD) that fits in context. Its a version that will be trimmed for the eventual Blu-ray and DVD releases.

Seeing the film closer to what Barker intended it's clear that the film is less horror film than adventure fantasy. This is the story of how Boone comes into his own as both destroyer and savior of the Nightbreed. It's been too long since I've seen the original version of the film to say if it's better, though I will say it's different and very good on it's own terms.

Dealing with the film on it's own terms is often tough. The majority of the cut comes from VHS work print copies that Clive Barker had stashed away. The material is run down. Some of it borders on unwatchable. Because some of the new material was small clips a great deal of the VHS footage is used because it's wasn't worth constantly going in and out of various versions, they simply let the VHS prints run. (I think the fact so much is VHS lead at least one person in the audience to insist that much of the new footage isn't new and can be found in a cable TV cut. While it might be possible, the producer of the Cabal Cut seemed skeptical since this was the first time they ever heard of it despite years of searching.)

I've always liked the film a great deal and seeing it this way was a real kick. I'm not sure that  they are going to make a lot of new fans with it, but they just might. I say this because in this day of HD perfection the rough video edges are going to annoy many who don't know or don't remember VHS decay. Many younger film fans who won't watch black and white films will balk at this. On the other hand if you are a fan with a great love of the film or even just some one with a like of the film and you get a chance to see the film this way do so because it adds so much.

The Nanny (1965) Scary Movies 7

Joey returns home from a home for disturbed children after allegedly killing his baby sister. He is deathly afraid of his Nanny (Bette Davis) and refuses to eat the food she cooks or do what she says. As turmoil erupts in the house we're left to wonder who is the monster that is loose.

A great performance by William Dix as the potentially monstrous ten year old helps a great deal at keeping things off balance as to who is really to blame for the dire events transpiring. Is it the troubled kid or is it the nanny made up almost like a monster with too much makeup? I'm not saying but all is very much not right in the house.

One of the better films that came out in the wake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane which gave new life to old school Hollywood stars in dark gothic and psychological thrillers, The Nanny packs a punch and is full of a great deal of unease. Things are very much rotten in Denmark, or in this case London and odds are you're going to be fearful of finding out just how rotten.

While I'm not a huge fan of psychological thrillers of this sort, The Nanny is one of the best, and it's easy to understand why Bobcat Goldthwait picked the film to show at Scary Movies.  If you've never seen it it's worth the effort to get to Lincoln Center and see it when it plays tomorrow with Bobcat doing an introduction.

Baby Blood (1991) Scary Movies 7

What twisted pit of hell did this film crawl out of?

This is a strange bloody affair about a primordial life form that travels from Africa inside a leopard to a circus in Northern France. Devouring it’s host it then moves on to take up residence in one of the circus performers replacing her unborn baby. It then drives the woman to gruesome acts of violence to get blood to feed it. And I should probably tell you the whole thing is told from the point of view of the monster.

A head scratcher and stomach turner here’s a film that completely was off my radar until Lincoln Center decided to run it. I’m not sure if that a good thing or a bad thing. While I pride myself on attempting to see every film eventually, sometimes things fall outside of my view and in this case this one was outside of my view.

A bloody, I mean really bloody, affair the film rocks between being blackly funny and really creepy as frequently naked Emmanuelle Escourrou battles the monster inside her, more often than not giving into the beasts sinister urges and painting rooms and herself red with blood. In it's way this a perfect midnight movie, however if one isn't watching it at midnight I'm not sure how it will play. The back and forth nature of the film certainly makes you feel really uneasy but I'm not sure it adds up to much. It also doesn't help that there several long periods where not much happens- though when it does it kicks ass.

Adding up to much or not the film is very much a one of a kind affair and worth seeing for anyone who likes their horror tinged with psychotronic insanity- more so since the print running tomorrow at Scary Movies is the uncut French version. See it if think you can stomach it.

Twins of Evil (1971) Scary Movies 7

I have a general rule that any Hammer film is better than no Hammer films. The rule has a list of exceptions for specific titles, but for the most part I’d rather watch any of the Hammer Horror films out there then most other horror films, especially if Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing is in them. Yes some are better than others but all are the cinematic equivalent of comfort food for me.

Twins of Evil is one of the lesser Hammer films for me. I like it, I’m hoping to see it when it runs at Scary Movies this weekend, but it’s not one of the best, however it’s still worth seeing.

The plot has two beautiful blonde twins going to live with their uncle (Cushing) who is the head of an order trying to wipe out a vampires. They are battling the evil Count Karnstein the main vampire in the area. The count is taken with the twins and one of the twins is taken with the count. Cushing isn’t happy.

Allowing that the plot is run of the mill as far as the Hammer vampire films go, it’s a Van Helsing character fighting a Dracula character, the film is pretty good. It doesn’t have many surprises but it does what it does very well. Basically if you’ve seen any of the other Hammer vampire films you know what to expect.

The problem with the film is that in trying to spice up the formula they derail the film. While the idea of beautiful twins as lust objects is keeping with the Hammer shift from blood to sex is a good one, the problem is that Mary and Madeline Collinson are not really that good at acting. Sure they look good, but once they open their mouths they just seem out of their depth. They aren’t horrible, but they aren’t up to anyone else around them.

While I’m not one of my favorite Hammer films, it’s still good, and if you’ve never seen a Hammer horror on a big screen you are ordered to get to Lincoln Center to see this when it runs this tomorrow  as part of Scary Movies 7.

House by the Lake aka Death Weekend (1976) Scary Movies 7

Brenda Vacarro is invited to spend a weekend with rich guy at his mansion in the country. Unfortunately the weekend party is crashed by some locals looking to wreak havoc.

I am old enough to remember when this film came out in theaters. I remember this film very clearly for two reasons, first the film hit theaters with a great deal of buzz from several film festivals where its “home invasion” plot had rattled a good number of critics cages. There was a great deal of talk that it was too disturbing to be rated R and should have been X. The other was that the film generated some talk of Vacarro possibly getting an Oscar nomination. Sure the film was a low budget low brow film.

I saw the film when it played on HBO. I was too young to go to the theater to see it so I had to wait for cable, and a late night showing when I could sneak down and see it when the parentals were asleep. My reaction was that it was good, but I couldn’t understand what all the shouting was about. I couldn’t understand why people were so rattled by it, the film was just a variation on a theme.

Seeing the film again for the first time in a very long time I was struck by a couple of things. First it’s very much of the time it was made. There is a weight to the characters and the situation that you don’t find in later variations to the theme. Nowadays when you see a film like this it’s all short hand, character development is kept to a minimum. There is a lazy assumption that you know the characters and the situations and we’ll just speed to the cruelty because that’s what you’re there for. However with House by the lake (the title I know the film by) there are characters. There are real situations and there is a pacing. The film wasn’t tossed off it was made very deliberately.

The other thing you notice with the film is that Vacarro is really good. This isn’t typical horror movie heroine. There is a weight to her performance that most of today’s actresses don’t have. While probably not the best performance of the year the film came out, I could see how some people might suggest that she were Oscar worthy. It’s also the sort of performance that makes you wonder why she never got better roles.

I like the film. I completely understand why the film stayed in my memory (beyond the hype) after all these years.

Worth a look see, more so when you consider the film is playing this Sunday at Lincoln Center’s Scary Movies and you can see it as few people have in the last 40 years on the big screen.

Rituals (aka The Creeper) (1977) Scary Movies 7

Every year a group of doctors get together and go to some out of the place location do fish for a week. This year they go to the wilds of Canada, to a place called by the Indians The Cauldron of the Moon. Cut off from the world, some 250 miles from anywhere the group hike to a campsite. One day while fishing they find that someone has taken all of their boots. Since only one of the men has extra shoes, he's forced to leave to try and get help and boots. That night the men who remain find a deer head just on the outside of their camp. They then decide to go after their friends. However it doesn't take long before they realize that someone is hunting them.

One of a number of Deliverance riffs that popped up in the 1970's  Rituals was kind of legendary growing up because the bad guys took the shoes of their victims. Not many of us saw it, it was on some odd cable station late at night, but I remember it leaving a lasting impression on those who saw it.  Actually I shouldn't have said us, since it was years before I finally saw the film.  when I did it was kind of by accident, and it wasn't until I ran into the shoes that I realized what I was seeing. Back then it didn't quite live up to its reputation, however seeing the film again I was impressed.

A tense trip into the wilderness the film smartly keeps the film focused on the dwindling group of doctors. Things are not amped up to bring scares, rather we've simply been dropped into the woods with them. Events play out in long sequences that kind of equate to real time. We feel their pain, we are always are aware they have no shoes. We, like the men on screen do not have answers which makes things scarier.

More thriller or adventure than gone wrong rather than horror Rituals is one of those nasty little films that gets under your skin and makes it crawl. Re-watching the film at home on my couch in order to write it up for the Scary Movies series I was struck by how glad I was not to be seeing it in a theater where I couldn't look away, I couldn't distract myself. The first 75 minutes or so are really really good. While it's not a perfect film, its too long at 102 minutes and the reasoning behind it isn't perfect which makes some of the end disappointing but, it's still a damn fine film- one that will make you not want to go into the woods.

It's also film that I;m guessing you haven't seen before which makes it the perfect film to see at Scary Movies. Go see it when it plays on Saturday afternoon at Lincoln Center,

Briefly : Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) Scary Movies 7

not Jessica and not dead

Jessica, her husband and a friend move to a small town. When they arrive at the house they find a squater living there. They invite her to stay. During the first night together they hold an impromtu seance calling on the spirits of anyone who died in the house.  After that strange events begin happening and Jessica begins to see bodies. Is Jessica going insane once more?

What was once probably a scary little film, now is a quaint little curio with a great name. While the film has some great moments and a nice sense of is she crazy or not, the film suffers from Zohra Lampert's performance as Jessica. A collection of ticks and weird turns that are suppose to show her as a woman on the edge, the result is to make her kind of unlikable.

The other problem is that what is going on, kind of doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. Sure you could argue that the film is from the point of view of a crazy woman, but at the same time there is more going on and it never quite comes together (a curse that many early 1970's horror films suffer from).

This isn't to say that the film doesn't have some chills, it does, but the things that work seem to have been brought in from another movie. If only I had come in about half way in I would have loved this film.

The film screens Saturday at Lincoln Center.

Curtains (1983) Scary Movies 7

I miss the days when you had to go to the movies to see the latest slasher flick. I miss the days when a new horror movie would open and everyone would pile in the car and go to the local single screen or twin cinema and see the latest horror movie. I miss the days before home video really took off- when you had to go see a movie because you had no idea when you’d get to see it again.

Back in 1983, not long after I got my driver’s license I went to, I believe, the Plainview Twin theater and saw Curtains. The place was packed with horror nuts like myself. It was back in the halcyon days just before videotape I would hit every horror movie on the night it opened sometimes they would be packed, sometimes empty. Sometimes they were good sometimes they were bad. Very often you’d see the same faces at each new movie because everyone wanted to be the first to see the latest lest someone tell you what happened. The screening I saw of Curtains was packed.

Curtains is the story of a great movie director (John Vernon) that his favorite actress (Samantha Eggars)she needs to research her next role and has her locked up in an asylum- for research. Of course he intends never to let her out.. Meanwhile he invites 6 actresses over to a creepy mansion to compete for the lead role. As the auditions proceed, Eggars escapes and someone starts killing off the actresses.

This sort of film has been done to death of late, it’s easy and cheap to do and you can cheat. As a rule I don’t like this sort of a film since they are now so by the numbers that its extremely rare that they generate any suspense. They are so bad that I very often won’t even go back and watch films in the sub-genre I like because I ‘m so fed up with where it’s gone. Curtains, on the other hand I actually like. I like it so much that I recently bought a 15 film set of horror films of the sort you see in the supermarkets just to get the film.

To be honest it’s not a great film. Actually its just a good film, but there is something about the performances that make it stand up after 30 years. To be honest until recently I hadn’t seen it in probably a decade, but the film has always been in my mind. It’s always distinguished itself as being better than the rest. Yea its little more than your typical mad killer in a house film, but somehow it works, somehow it remains in your mind when others go away. It’s a film that I would always pull out when I would talk about mad killer movies that are good, or horror films that no one talks about…

…which makes me wonder why did it take Scary Movies for me to finally write it up? I don’t know. My guess is simply the crush of films. Whatever the reason isn’t important, what is important is that I’m telling you about it early enough that you can go out and see the film when it runs this Friday at Lincoln Center.

Cemetery Man (aka Dellamorte Dellamore) (1994) Scary Movies 7

Strange horror comedy based on a novel by the author of the Dylan Dog comic book, Tiziano Sclavi is a mixed bag. Nominally the story of Francesco Dellamorte a man who is the cemetery care taker in a small Italian village the film spins off into some truly weird directions, chief among them is that seven days after burial the dead rise up and have to be killed. Things get weirder from there.

Until I saw the film to write it up for the Scary Movie 7 series I had managed never to see this film. I am a fan of the Dylan Dog comic and a fan of star Rupert Everett, so seeing the film should have been a no brainer. Unfortunately reaction to the film was really mixed, actually mixed to negative so it never was priority to see it.

Now having seen it I'm very mixed as well.

Yes the cast is good and all the bits work, hell there is a wonderful sense of unease to it all,  but at the same time this film is just weird, I mean really weird. The hows and whys of what is going on, hell even some of the things that go on, are so off the deep end that you kind of have to just go with things. I mean what is the deal with the ending? I don't know. I suspect that the story makes some sort of sense as a novel but as a film it's simply one of those Italian horror films that is full of doom and gloom and feeling but not meaning.

The film plays Thursday at Lincoln Center.  If you like Italian strange give it a shot.