| Product: |
Pete Walker Collection (DVD) |
| Date: |
14.06.05 (349 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Bleak but really great, films from the end of Britain's, horror golden age
Disadvantages: A couple of films, in the set are weak and not, really up to scratch
Anchor Bay do these great box-sets of 60s and 70s English horror movies in cute little coffin-shaped boxes. The latest deals with the work of director Pete Walker, who made the last good British horror films. Originally a producer of the kind of soft core porn that was so ubiquitous in the 70s, Walker branched out into horror films to memorable effect, and three films he made from screenplays by David McGillivray (responsible for a lot of horror scripts that decade) are really the last flowering of the British horror cycle that Hammer started in the 50s.
The first film in this set, Die Screaming Marianne, from 1971, isn't so great. Walker hadn't hit his stride, and there's not much of interest beside the hilarious fashions and groovy incidental music. Marianne (Susan George) knows the safe combination where her family's wealth is stored, and her evil father and sister try to drive her mad, torture her, etc. in an effort to get her to tell. Far less exciting than it sounds, the film is too long and lacks the intensity that makes Walker's later work so distinctive. Susan George, soon to appear in Straw Dogs, is pretty but not much else (In the accompanying documentary, Walker describes her as "the hottest, sexiest little girl around, and not without ability." Why oh why are we not allowed to say things like that about women nowadays?)
The next three films are real winners. House of Whipcord (1974) is an attack on the Mary Whitehouse brigade. A sinister old lady and a blind, ineffectual judge (obvious analogues for Whitehouse and Lord Longford) run a private prison where they torture vivacious young ladies who don't live up to their standards of moral rectitude. Pretty model Anne-Marie is their latest victim, and most of the film involves her efforts to escape, risking solitary confinement, flogging and even death as she attempts to outwit her captors. Nowhere near as kinky as it sounds, this film has a genuinely grimy feel, while the provincial pettiness and fear of modern life exhibited by the prison owners is frustratingly convincing. It has an astonishingly bleak and downbeat ending and a strain of something like genuine nihilism running through it. It even looks good, avoiding the cheap, down-at-heel appearance of most of its contemporaries.
There's some nudity, but most of it is resolutely unglamorous, and the violence is convincing and unpleasant. It has a few regrettable aspects - it's a bit too long, and some of the character names are just silly (Mark E Dessart, for goodness sake). The acting for the most part is excellent. Only Penny Irving as Anne-Marie is a bit weak (a pity, since she's the main character - if she’d dropped the silly French accent she may have done better, and I think her hair is a wig). Barbara Markham as the prison governess is superb, and Patrick Barr as the weak old judge even better. The real revelation is Sheila Keith, playing a prison warden. She's the most evil and sinister old lady in history, with her sly lopsided half-smile and her clipped English accent (she sounds like Arthur Lowe, but female). She became Walker's favourite collaborator, and appears in every other film in this set.
Frightmare (1974 again) is the best film here. Sheila Keith now takes centre stage as mad old cannibal Dorothy, who masquerades as a nice old fortune teller in order to acquire victims (to eat their brains!). Rupert Davies plays her ineffectual husband Edmund. Their daughter Debbie is a delinquent hanging out with a bad crowd, and Edmund's daughter from a previous marriage, Jackie, tries desperately to sate her step-mother's hunger by keeping her well-stocked with animal brains. This is one hell of a film. The sordid, depressing atmosphere of mid-70s English suburbia is perfectly evoked, and my god the ending is nasty!
Although the subject matter is lurid, the gore is surprisingly restrained (at least compared to Walker's later films), and this, coupled with the cannibalism and dysfunctional family, makes Frightmare effectively England's answer to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but without the humour. The acting, again, is perfect (Sheila Keith here gives one of the greatest horror performances ever), and all in all this is a very classy little horror film. It's unfairly obscure, overlooked because most of the great horror was coming from the other side of the Atlantic by this time.
And then there's House of Mortal Sin (1975), the last of the Walker/McGillivray collaborations. This one involves a lunatic priest, Father Meldrum (Anthony Sharp) killing sinners. He becomes obsessed with Jenny (Susan Penhaligon), stalking her and killing her boyfriends. Her sister (Stephanie Beacham) doesn't believe the priest is evil, and to complicate matters she's in love with Meldrum’s fellow priest, Bernard (a young, progressive priest who cooks breakfast wearing only his pants). Meldrum lives with his senile mother (Hilda Barry) and his deeply sinister housekeeper (Sheila Keith, inevitably).
The plot is complex and twisty-turny, but the pace never flags, the violence is harsh and explicit, and the ending is almost as bleak as Frightmare's. That said, this isn't quite as good as the other two. It's perhaps a bit over the top, and the Catholic church seems like a bit of a soft target for this kind of thing (although it does give Walker the chance to throw in some inventive murder methods, such as poisoned communion wafers and rosary strangulations). The cast is great, again, with Sharp perfect as the twisted priest, Keith her usual reliable self and Hilda Barry incredibly effective as the aged mother. The younger cast members do well too, especially Beacham.
The last film is The Comeback (1978). This wasn't a McGillivray script, and isn't anything like as strong as the films the precede it. An American pop star (Jack Jones) comes to England to record his comeback album. His estranged wife is (very gruesomely) murdered. His sinister manager (David Doyle - Bosley out of Charlie’s Angels!) sets him up in a sinister old house, where the sinister housekeeper (Sheila Keith, surprise surprise) and her sinister husband (Bill Owen - Compo out of Last of the Summer Wine) act in a most sinister fashion. He has an affair with Pamela Stevenson (before she did Not The Nine O’Clock News - if you’re hoping to see her norks - and I know I was - you’ll be disappointed, although I seem to remember she gets them out in Stand Up Virgin Soldiers). Basically, *everyone* behaves in such a sinister way that you'll never guess who the villain is, but in spite of some impressive suspense sequences this doesn't really work. Jack Jones, a real-life crooner (he sang Wives and Lovers, one of my favourite songs), is pretty bad as the lead, and he sings a couple of really atrocious songs (kind of Scott Walker meets Don McLean, but not in a good way). The rest of the cast are fine (Compo does a very creditable Karloff impression), but ultimately it doesn't have the intensity of the earlier films, and is actually pretty funny.
There are director's commentaries on each film, and Walker's a likeable and interesting guy (even if he does tend to talk about his cars a bit too much - I forget which film it's from, but his comment "I *think* I sold that car to Albert Finney" had me giggling like a little girl). There are trailers for each film (be warned, these often give the endings away) and some film notes and biographies (the text is too small, as ever, and I don’t think the notes were written for the DVDs). There are also a couple of documentaries, one (Courting Controversy, 40 mins) about Walker's films in general, and one shorter one about Sheila Keith (who sadly died shortly before the disks were put together). The Walker documentary is good - David McGillivray is in it giving his side of things (he isn't on any of the commentaries; he and Walker apparently had a falling out years ago). The Sheila Keith one is a bit less worthwhile; everyone seemed to like her, basically. The picture quality on the films is slightly variable - some parts of Mortal Sin, for instance, look pretty shop-worn. This is a shame, although it ultimately isn't really noticeable enough to spoil things.
Overall this box set is about as close to essential as it gets for the horror fan. The three main films here have stood the test of time well, and have a grimness to them that you won’t find in many other places (and it's wonderfully suburban grimness - there are plenty of grim rural horrors (Wicker Man, Witchfinder General) or urban ones (Deathline, Peeping Tom), but these are the only ones I can think of that use the suburbs to their full sinister potential). The other two films in the set are less good (although The Comeback is fun), but the three good ones make it well worth getting hold of.
Only £30, quite a bargain, and obviously cheaper if bought online.
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