Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop  HELLGATE – This notorious example of accidental surrealism makes less and less sense as the years go by. Sometimes I can’t work out whether it’s a bad film played straight, or worse, an attempt at comedy that turned out excruciatingly unfunny, but whatever foul magic pulled it into existence, its unholy collision of zombie-producing laser crystals, bad western film sets masquerading as towns, ghostly can-can dances and guys with random bits of metal stuck to their faces still leaves me feeling a bit high to this day. Highest recommend.
CRUCIBLE OF TERROR – Really good seventies Brit horror which is a bit like a coastal giallo until its crazy plunge into the supernatural at the end. Unlikely lad James Bolam is a groovy gallerist who visits the retreat of his drunken pal’s mad artist dad. Nothing heavy or sleazy, just a few tame murders and a parade of weird characters and strange moments, but lots of good atmosphere and eccentricity.
FRANKY AND HIS PALS – I would say that this stillborn ‘horror comedy’ has to be seen to be believed, but, having seen it, I can’t quite bring myself to believe it. Shot on video in 1990, it follows a bunch of classic movie monsters – Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Wolfman, The Mummy, Quasimodo – as they wander around a hotel looking for ‘the secret gold’. That’s literally all that happens, apart from odd asides such as the one where the quintet judges a bikini beauty competition and performs (really badly) as a band. I would attempt to communicate how excruciating all this is, but my literary wherewithal is not equal to that task. Instead I will simply note that Dracula looks and sounds a bit like internet guru / f*ckwit Jordan Peterson, Wolfman comes out in a subplot that is too scrambled to decode as either liberating or deeply homophobic, no-one minds being groped by the middle aged dude who looks like he owns a car show-room and it all ends with everyone happily going back in time. That last option might appeal to viewers wanting more than just their money back, but somehow I can see myself watching it again.
THE BLACK CAT – This Luigi Cozzi film is amazing. It’s a sort-of riff on Argento’s ‘The Three Mothers’ cycle, but really it’s just loads of freaky imagery set in a big posh house and comes complete with Bava-lighting overkill, gut shower explosions, random shots of deep space and just a really massive quota of nonsense. I won’t go into details because I’ve reviewed it on the Labs before, back when it was only really available as a cruddy bootleg or a knackered tape. I was never expecting it to land on Blu-Ray, but here it is courtesy of Severin, and wonderful it looks too. Surely a pinnacle of endgame Italian horror back in the late eighties. |