WHIRLPOOL
Vivian Neves stars as a young model who goes to live with a creepy photographer and his equally strange aunt, in Jose Larraz’s debut feature, beautifully restored on Arrow’s Larraz boxset.
I really like Larraz as a director - I think he has quite a unique style. His obsession with the beauty / danger of the English countryside is in very much in evidence here. Great extras here too, including Parky’s cringey interview with Neves from 1971.
THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE
Basically a retelling of THE HAUNTING, this 70s version has Pamela Franklin as a medium, called in with three others to investigate paranormal happenings at Hell House, which has been abandoned for 20 years ever since a bunch of deaths there twenty years ago.
This is very atmospheric and the scares and effects are cleverly done. In other hands this could have been quite exploitative, but director John Hough goes for atmosphere instead, making an enjoyable, if restrained for the 70s, movie experience.
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