THE SECT – Had the vaguest memories of ‘The Sect’ before I watched it a couple of weeks ago. I certainly couldn’t remember whether I liked it or not, and, at two hours, I was a bit worried its run-time might send me the way of ‘The Church’ (Soavi’s previous flick was generous with the fried-looking visuals but wasn’t afraid of uneventful build-up, either). I came away from it thinking that ‘The Sect’ is Soavi’s strongest moment. It’s a really odd film – in a way, nothing much happens for a lot of it, but, unlike ‘The Church’, its relative non-eventfulness is injected with heightened ambience and atmosphere. The plot is all vague Satanic conspiracy stuff, with Kelly Curtis being groomed by Herbert Lom to become some kind of devil’s bride, but ‘The Sect’ is more about twilit stylistics and the steady accumulation of weird details then sense. The cinematography really soaks up the shadows and lends the lead character’s living space an expressionistic tilt, whilst the recurrence of objects and images – rabbits, weird blue ribbons – works up vibe of foreboding. There’s some ickier stuff at points and we get to see insects going in through people’s mouths and a face being ripped away by hooks, but for the most part, ‘The Sect’ is more ominous rumble then lightning bolts of gore. I really liked it, I know many just think it’s a bit boring, but for me this stands at the peak of Italian horror surrealism.
ALIEN FROM THE DEEP – Bought this after reading Demoncrat’s review – cheers, man! I’d never heard of it, although it’s an Antonio Margheriti title. It’s from the late eighties fade-out of Italian exploitation, a rocky terrain for some. All I can say is, for those into the bottom of the Euro-barrel, AFTD shouldn’t disappoint, and speaking personally it’s exactly the kind of Italo production line schlock that I lap up. Although it announces itself as a sci-fi horror flick, AFTD is more a splice between two thirds environmentally aware actioner and one third ‘Alien’ rip-off. There’s a chemical plant that’s been doing bad things with radioactive material and a couple of intrepid activist types keen on exposing foul Charles Napier and his frothing mouth. After a few jungle chase scenes and a groovy snake attack, an alien with a massive crab claw rises ‘from the deep’ and does some slimy damage. Margheriti keeps things functional and straight faced, which offsets the alien absurdity later in the film. It’s competently put together, too – I can’t help but wonder what Bruno Mattei might have done with the same material! Doubt he could afford the massive crab claw, though. Enjoyable stuff.
THE TOOLBOX MURDERS – I’ve seen ‘The Toolbox Murders’ three or four times over the years. There are always things that stand out about it. The most obvious for me is the strangely lopsided construction – the film begins with a pretty vicious murder spree, then settles down into a psychodrama dominated by Cameron Mitchell’s unstable performance. It’s hard not to take a shine to Mitchell when he does his warbling monologues concerning, amongst other things, the accident that killed his little girl. The latter is not very convincing as a plot device to explain the genesis of a power tool - fixated murderer, but it’s the springboard for a delivery that seems risible and disturbing all at once. In a way, Mitchell is the best thing about TTM, although the first twenty minutes take some beating for grindhouse harshness and there is an appropriately bleak atmosphere of seventies cheapskate nihilism running through it.
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