Alex's Viewing Log

Little Alex

It's about time I started getting through all these horror DVDs. Starting with...

The Beast Must Die

An Amicus production from 1974 featuring Peter Cushing, speaking in a strange accent, Charles Gray and a young Michael Gambon. Six people are invited to a Bond villain-style hideout and the host begins going about finding out who among them is the werewolf. Soundtrack is funky 70s jazz. Not a great movie, to be honest. Amicus' star was fading at this post-anthology stage.

3/10

Little Alex

Dracula - The Great Undead aka Vincent Price's Dracula

A documentary in which Vincent Price invites you to spend a most civilised evening with him while recounting to you the story of Dracula. Concentrating mostly on the history and legacy of Vlad the Impaler, it also takes in Bram Stoker's novel and the Hollywood vampire.

Vinent is in fine form and I have fond memories of seeing this when it was screened at Christmas time way back in 1985 or so (the credits say it was made in 1982, IMDB says 1985). I recently rediscovered this on the internet and just watched it again now. Not sure of the copyright status, but it's certainly long forgotten and could possibly be even public domain by now.

7/10

Little Alex

The Legend of Hell House

A group of four people are tasked with spending a week in a haunted house with a terrible history in order to unravel its secrets.

A solid British horror from 1973, filmed in a beautiful, mist-clad Gothic country manor. The house, Wykehurst Place, both inside and out has a satisfying "Hammer Horror" look to it, but the setting is in contemporary times. Overall, an enjoyable enough flick.

6.5/10

Little Alex

Red State

It's billed as a horror movie, but I'm not sure about that...

Westboro Baptist Church meets Waco Siege meets No Country For Old Men and The Departed, stylistically speaking, I think. Three teenagers out for a good time encounter a family of religious maniacs with a misanthropic agenda.

I'm not convinced by this movie. There are no real surprises, but it will give you food for thought if you like a good conspiracy theory about American government agencies.

5/10

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Horror Hotel aka City of the Dead

I actually saw some of this on The City Channel about two years ago, but didn't get around to watching it in full until now.

A student in the furtherance of her studies visits Whitewood, New England, a town haunted haunted by the witch trials which took place there almost three hundred years before and which presents itself as a ghost town shrouded in murky perma-fog, full of good old horror movie foreboding.

Despite being released in 1960 and the fact that Hammer were already establishing themselves in the horror genre - although this movie stars Christopher Lee it is not a Hammer production - this B&W movie has an old-fashioned feel to it and could pass for having been made in 1940.

apart from a brief lingerie scene :pac:

This is now public domain and can be watched on YouTube.

6/10

Little Alex

Brides of Dracula

A classic Hammer Horror that ticks all the boxes of what makes a Hammer a Hammer.

This Dracula episode is a sidestep to the rest of the Hammer Draculas in that it does not feature Christopher Lee, but does have Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. Instead, a voiceover announces that Count Dracula is dead, but that his disciples live on. One of these being the villain/vampire of this movie, Baron Meinster.

The picture is remarkably crisp and vibrant for a 51-year old movie and as a Hammer fan I thoroughly enjoyed it and am even willing to overlook a very serious plothole where

the vampire is kept as a captive by means of a leg iron until charming his way free, yet he can turn into a bat at will, which would surely have enabled him to have freed himself.

I also just noticed that the priest (a Dublin-born actor by the name of Fred Jackson) appeared, briefly, in Horror Hotel.

8/10

Little Alex

Twins of Evil

A Hammer movie from 1971 in which nubile, young twins, Maria and Frieda, having been recently orphaned go to live with their uncle. The girls, although identical, have very different personalities: one is meek and submissive while the other is strong-willed and very bold. Their uncle is none other than Peter Cushing playing a thoroughly dislikeable puritan witchhunter character.

It does not take long for the local bad-boy nobleman to become aware of their presence and start plotting the seduction and corruption of the puritan's nieces.

Another fine Gothic Hammer Horror with all the trimmings.

7/10

Little Alex

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

Five business travellers, all strangers to each other, are joined in their railway compartment by a mysterious European gentleman. After polite introductions the newcomer - Peter Cushing - invites each in turn into his "House of Horrors". Recultantly, one by one they - including a haughty Christopher Lee and an at the time litte-known Donald Sutherland - agree.

This is an early Amicus movie from 1965. I enjoyed it, but they made better ones in later years.

6/10

Little Alex

The Abominable Dr. Phibes

A very enjoyable movie from 1971 with Vincent Price in great form as Dr. Phibes, accompanied by his beautiful companion, Vulnavia, and his musical ensemble; Dr. Phibes' Clockwork Wizards, hiding out in his art deco mansion.

Dr. Phibes has an axe or two to grind and sets about settling scores in a very imaginative way.

I feel it is clear that Se7en and Saw were inspired by this film.

8/10

Little Alex

The Wicker Man (2006)

So... it was on TV last week...

I'm a big fan of the original, with its quirky indyness and its fantastic soundtrack (which I have on CD). The sterile US "remake" has none of the original's charm.

Nicholas Cage was simply annoying and the time for his appointment with the Wicker Man could not have come sooner. He was dispatched without the benefit of Summer is a coming in (Sumer is icumen in).

Dreadful.

2/10

Little Alex

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

This has always been one of my favourite horror movies and is a fleshed-out version of Edgar Allan Poe's short story of the same name with another of his stories, Hop-Frog, woven in as a sub-plot.

Vincent Price is again in great form as Prospero, a cruel Satan-worshipping prince who has assembled favoured nobility in his castle whilst many plagues, among them the Red Death, rage through the land.

It is a visually splendid movie.

8.5/10

Little Alex

Creepshow (1982)

Stephen King's come-to-life comic is split into five stories wrapped up into an anthology introduction and ending.

My favourite story is the one with Stephen King himself in the starring role.

Creepshow is in the style of a 1950s creepy magazine with dark humour and would be an ideal movie for a Halloween party. I first saw this movie on The Deadly Ernest Horror Show on Sky Channel. It was definitely one of the better of the films that were screened.

7/10