Tilbury (1987)

Director: Viðar Víkingsson

Screenplay: Þórarinn Eldjárn and Viðar Víkingsson

Cast: Kristján Franklin Magnúss as Auðun; Helga Bernhard as Gudrún; Karl Ágúst Úlfsson as Tilbury; Erla Skúladóttir as Sigrún; Róbert Arnfinnsson as Rev. Thorfinnur; Aðalsteinn Bergdal as Barði Kemp; Bryndís Pétursdóttir as Lilja; Magnús Bjarnfreðsson as Gen. Tilberry

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Explained in the opening voiceover, an Icelandic production with a British voiceover for this opening to befit the importance of the British characters in this story, the “tilberi” is a witchcraft creation, born from a human rib taken from a grave and kept by a female creator’s breast. Fed on communion wine, it stole milk from other peoples’ cows unless caught and uses it to create “tilberi butter”. This TV movie takes this mythology, and creates a complicated horror period story, in less than an hour, dealing with a changing Iceland during the early 1940s when World War II is in full swing. On the 10th May 1940, the British and Canadian militaries invaded Iceland in 'Operation Fork' due to the concern German forces would take over the country. By 1941, as the film ends its own narrative on, the defense of the country was given to the United States in agreement by Iceland itself. The country was officially neutral during the world, but cooperated with British, Canadian and American military¹, but through this supernatural story we see how this would drastically alter Iceland when forced to open up to the new influences.

Auðun (Kristján Franklin Magnúss) is a young man training to become a swimmer and is asked by a priest to talk to his daughter Gundrun (Helga Bernhard), who was caught taking an excessive amount of wine during communion, and fears she has fallen from her religious upbringing. Because they grew up together, in the same church, the priest naturally thinks Auðun is a more appropriate person to win her own from what are her perceived sins of drunkenness, when it is obviously set up that her story is connected to the tilberi. Set in the capital of Reykjavík, with members of the public working with the British soldiers, the tone is grounded and keeping with the period, but also emphasizes the circumstances is their strangeness. In evoking the period with this grounded nature, we see the banality of the scenario without the glamour of the war, with the male soldiers cavorting with the local women. There is a possible flaw with the film that, at less than an hour, it fudges the complexity, such as having Gundrun come off as a stereotypical femme fatale in the midst of this, or demonizing the Allied forces whilst having one of the characters Auðun encounters being a literal Nazis they have captured. Particularly with that one scene character that yet has a major scene, that tries to throw in anti-Jewish beliefs in his explanation of what a tilberi, you can easily see flaws in nuisance here lost in the storytelling. There is however the sense that Tilbury the film is about the chaos of all this period, which influences the storytelling.

Isolated until this war, this is an Iceland being abruptly thrown into the cultural exchange without a knowledge, from how director/co-writer Viðar Víkingsson depicts it, of how bad the Nazis were, instead that a war is apparently happening but feeling like a place of banality. There is no combat, just sights like seeing a British soldier having sex with a woman at one point, possible a sex worker but at least with an older male driver as their cab waiting with them in the driver’s seat during the act, which completely undercuts the sense of historical importance of all this as the days pass. With soldiers occupying the place, everyone is however just floating along. Trucks drive around and mortar firing practice is done completely isolated from the real war, as despite all the sandbagged protective walls built. The soldiers are mostly comparing condoms (and laughing at the local guy who thinks its chewing gum), cavorting with the local women or at the parties at night, whilst the local women like Gundrun link up with said soldiers. Even if there is a sense of corruption from the Allied forced, it is not as if Iceland, as represented by Auðun, is a noble figure, instead a little naïve itself when the world around them has grown and become more complicated.

Within this sense of stagnation is the mysterious British colonel Tilbury who gives the TV movie its title, a young actor clearly in old man white makeup and a fake nose who is clearly unnatural. Among the British soldiers coming off more as nuisances, or arresting random locals who may be Nazi sympathizers, Tilbury is just hiding among them without anyone questioning his involvement as a general, who is connected to Gundrun. This does lead to Tilbury being a revealed as a goblin-like entity puking green goo, but Gundrun’s relationship to his is interesting as it is clearly weighing in on Iceland’s relationship with the British and how complicated it clearly became, such as the fact that this is shown as a very religious country. Thrown into a relationship to foreigners of the island who will undercut this in their relationships, when not on military drills, the world cannot go back to the perceived morals of the past as now the 20^th century has fully arrived, and it seems neither that the old Christian ideals are celebrated because they were merely what the likes of Auðun were raised with. Spirituality did not really form him for the better as his involvement is less for saving Gundrun, but as a fawning crush from her past that cannot get past her. Central to this is Tilberi butter chocolate disguised as Cadburys chocolate; as symbolic of Britain’s status to the Icelandic as with the Americans, when they appear in the last moments appear with their Hershey’s chocolate bars, there is definitely a negative or at least concerned view of what had possibly been lost due to this occupation over time.

At the same time, however, even Gundrun’s plan for this chocolate, which is not recommended to eat due to it causing seizures, whilst a negative on the types of influences on Iceland from the bigger countries is undercut (even if the script being vague) by her being on her own unknown mission. Tilbury the goblin-creature intends to influence Iceland with these chocolate bars, and it is important to remind one selves that, whilst World War II had clear-cut villains that had to be defeated in Nazis, it was still a morally complicated war where the Allies were not clear-cut themselves at times. It was not a good idea, in the moments where the film undercuts itself, to have Tilbury depicted with the fake nose, which unfortunately throws up anti-Semitic stereotypes. There can be arguments to be made that the film needed a lot more time to really explain some of its content to avoid these unfortunate aspects, like presuming that since he is helping Auðun, the openly fascist person who the soldiers arrested would be viewed as virtuous when he is forced into a hole in the soldiers’ camp like he deserves. I will give the film and its creators’ the benefit of the doubt as, in this war depicted onscreen, the severity of its fight is lost to this world, Iceland shown oblivious and just going off these soldiers, on the outskirts, who don’t present themselves as a positive but something even frightening. They treat the locals like crap despite being there to protect them, and the locals just get on with life. Tilbury comes off less like a problematic dog whistle stereotype but a strange creature of misfit whose chocolate, even if contaminated, is never shown in its full effect, likely more a comment that, even if they were fighting this major war, the British and American soldiers to the locals were less than graciousness in spite of the Icelandic people contributing to them helping the war. Even if the heroes, this presents that, as in the morally complex reality, that didn’t mean ever British soldier and general was exactly a bastion of virtue, cavorting and partying at night, even with a joke later on that one or two are doing inappropriate things to local farm animals.

Auðun himself is also a complicated lead. His love for Gudrún, including intonations that he had relations with her when they were young teenagers, the barn where this transpired to haunt him as he literally sinks into the hay in the last moments, is less a virtuous hero than a putz being dragged along. He comes along not really as a person who deserves pity, but a version of Iceland which will be obsolete and left out, mad, at the end whilst the influence of the other Western states come to Iceland. He is naïve to what is going on and that, whilst horrified by Gudrún’s openly promiscuous ways even before he learns the truth of Tilbury, he comes off less a bastion of virtue himself, but a naïve figure who can’t really talk as he has unfulfilled urges for her that were suppressed. His views of her open sexuality in the cold light of the modern day, decades after the film was made, come off as a prude or just clueless with hindsight. The most overtly elaborate scene, a sudden dance sequence with Gudrún and Tilbury, is clearly his jealous imagination, literally filtered in a green light, with them separated from the world and presuming he is an emotional vampire on her when she is clearly the one in control.

He is an appropriate figure in a world where the less likable people can still help him, but can’t be trusted. There is a joke that even the minor Nazi sympathizer is revealed to have been kicked out of the Olympics, as a swimmer in the Nazi held one, due to accidentally splashing Hitler’s personal viewing box, so there is even in the cynical humour the sense he too is just among a bunch of drifters, losers, also-rans and very confused Icelandic people just living through a major war. Iceland did lose casualties as a result, including 200 Icelandic seamen who died from war related deaths¹, so the country was integral to the war, but as we see in various works of various tones and realities on World War II. Its lasting shockwave on the world includes all the banal moments where things awkwardly transpired, like being stuck with numerous British and Canadian soldiers initially on your soil without warning, and the complicated relationship this would have caused.

Viðar Víkingsson’s film does had a greater sense of complication to this all. You can make the argument, for Tilbury’s biggest flaw, that it could dangerously flub some of its themes, in terms of the fact that less than an hour may be enough to examine some very significant historical themes. However how much it managed to depict, with the matter-of-fact naturalism undercutting any glamour to the proceedings, is still to be acclaimed. [Huge Spoiler] In the end, due to the lore of the tilberi, Auðun gets Gudrún killed by her own creation, so he is not a noble white knight rescuing the local maiden from the invading British, just a man lost in this goal to find her, lost in his madness at the end with the only lingering thoughts left rekindled when he realizing Tilbury is now just posing as an American soldier with Hershey’s chocolate with his own special ingredient added. Nothing he had done was helping at all, and he is a confused Icelandic man just seeing the world turn. [Spoilers End] For its possible flaws in not getting a clear message carefully out, this strange and fascinating folk horror work still comes off as very cynical about this major part of Icelandic culture on both sides. I’m not Icelandic, ironically British like those invading soldiers, so the irony is not lost if I stupidly presume to know what it would have been like for that generation when Operation Fork happened, but in spite of the fact that the UK military were on Icelandic soil to fight the Nazis, there is a greater sense of weight in how this depicts it almost as a farce, a stop gap where bars of chocolate are likely to have a more lasting influence than the biggest conflict on the 20^th century.

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1) The Occupation of Iceland During World War II, written by Sunna Olafson Furstenau and published for Icelandic Roots on May 25th 2023.

Theatre of Darkness: Yamishibai Season 1 (2013)

a.k.a. Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories

Director: Tomoya Takashima

Screenplay: Hiromu Kumamoto

Voice Cast: Kanji Tsuda as the Story teller

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows)/A 1000 Anime Crossover

 

The review linked to below comes with knowledge that, starting in 2013 and with more series being produced up to 2024 itself, Yamishibai may still continue into 2025 onwards. Taking the tradition of kamishibai, a form of paper play storytelling and theatre, and amalgamating it in a "micro-series" with urban legends, ghost tales and moments of general spooky misanthropy, it won me over. tIn mind that future series will even tie into cult cinema, with Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl (2008)) and Takashi Shimizu (the Ju-On/the Grudge franchise) getting involved from the second series onwards, and I cannot wait to get to the future series.

 

For the full review, follow the blog link HERE.

The Wicker Man (2006)

Director: Neil LaBute

Screenplay: Neil LaBute

Cast: Nicolas Cage as Edward Malus, Ellen Burstyn as Sister Summersisle, Kate Beahan as Sister Willow Woodward, Leelee Sobieski as Sister Honey, Frances Conroy as Dr. T.H. Moss, Molly Parker as Sister Rose / Sister Thorn, Diane Delano as Sister Beech, Mary Black as Sister Oak, Christine Willes as Sister Violet, Erika Shaye Gair as Rowan Woodward

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

OH, NO, NOT THE BEES! NOT THE BEES!

The perfect introduction to this remake is stating I had wanted to revisit the original 1973 directly to make comparisons, but decided against this as that would put Neil LaBute's film under an unfair shadow cast over it, let alone with the problems this has even if it had been an original premise. Contrary to popular belief though, I am going to argue no matter how ridiculous Nicolas Cage in a bear suit punching people out is, the real folly for this was how generic a lot of this film actually was for me to revisit, a slight horror film which missed out much of its loaded premise of a male cop Edward Malus, played by Cage, going to the island of Summersisle of the USA coast to track down a missing girl in a matriarchal commune.

The original Robin Hardy directed film has to be talked of in some form, and in context, that was the tale of a very Christian police office played by Edward Woodward, sent over to Summersisle off Scotland to a pagan community lead by Christopher Lee, a tale of the conflict of Judeo-Christian values and pagan heritage at a time past the sixties of re-evaluating mortality and spirituality. It was not always a canonical masterpiece, maligned as the b-side to a double feature bill and infamously with excised footage buried in a road under construction. Rebuilt to its intended form, it has lasted, and the issue the 2006 film had, with all remakes and sequels attempting to re-adapt these horror classics, is as with adaptations of classic horror literature, that they should be more what you can bring to them, something that needs to be more a concern then being "faithful". Screw remaking a film exactly, Neil LaBute could have really made his own weird folk horror film from an American's perspective, but instead you probably know how this (and laugh as I admit too) at Nicolas Cage screaming about the bees. Even as a huge fan of Cage who says he is one of the better parts of this production, this film became notorious for his career too.

Even without the shadow of the original Wicker Man over this, a lot of the issue I have is how LaBute made a pretty conventional horror film from the mid-2000s, which I sat through many from that time and was put off by their entire storytelling template even now. LaBute was from the American independent boom with films like Your Friends & Neighbours (1998), which suggested the potential for something very idiosyncratic with this film when it was being produced. These were also films however which lead to accusations that he was a misogynist for content in them, starring the likes of Aaron Eckhart as less than morally white male figures. LaBute, in mind to this, positioned himself in a loaded premise of Cage as the lone male in a world of women, where they are manufacturers of honey with any men he encounters mindless drones. Tellingly though, with Nicolas Cage reflecting on how he originally wanted the ending of the film more gruesomely absurd than it became, with him keeping the bear suit on even for the denouement¹, there was a sense that, in another context, this could have been more intentionally ridiculous than unintentionally as it became. The issue of gender politics part of the tonic whiplash this could have used for a point becomes less interesting, or one would hope would be for LaBute as he was the screenwriter as well as the director, because Cage plays his role as increasingly more dubious as he goes on. Considering Cage's character progresses from a heroic figure to become a questionable loose cannon, you see there was a misanthropic edge to all this. The original film had this, where Edward Woodward would be the hero to some, but with others in the cinema likely cheering on the pro-sex, musically vibrant pagans to roast him alive. Even if I became a mindless drone, a man like me would still cheer on the matriarchal cult here, led by Ellen Burstyn, over a man who pulls a gun on a woman to steal her bicycle, even if to rescue his daughter from a sinister cult she belongs.

The issue with the film instead becomes how standard this is, in that you have to wade through a lot of stock scenes of suspense which were the reason I once viewed this as one of the worst I had seen. Cage's character offers a potentially interesting figure, scarred by seemingly seeing a mother and daughter die as a highway patrolman, and reconnecting to an old flame (Kate Beahan) who left his life and whose daughter he is trying to find is likely his too. Cage plays this as a neurotic, as this nods to the question whether this community, said to sacrifice someone for replenishing their harvest, really believe that would happen and would attempt to try it out. Unfortunately nothing is made of Cage's mind in context of this, buying positivity self help tapes and someone with clear emotional issues, a type of character Cage would work with well, as he is very good at playing neurotic and morally unstable figures. I admit a bias to him, but his performances makes sense, already someone who hallucinates and is anxiety ridden, only to become more deranged and eventually expose himself with misogynistic comments. Even before the end, he shows as Woodward a sense of superiority that makes him a literal phallus, and that sense our hero, even if the mission is a noble one, is the wrong person for this. In another work this moral ambiguity, as the first version of this film, would be compelling.

This film was not helped by when it was made, absorbing a lot of the trademarks of horror films coming from Hollywood I grew up with at the time in the mid-200s, including coming at a time when a theatrical cut and an uncensored "mature" cut existed to sell the HD discs. For what could potentially be a problematic film in subject, it becomes not really about "evil feminists", but one where the feminist cult could be replaced with a vague one with any genders in power. Nowadays Cage's increasingly notorious line readings feels on point, even if he was the only one to read the tone right, to someone losing his mind as he goes, whilst my problems are from that everything else, that did not become on online meme, plays it too safe as a horror film. This leaves the middle acts to the bad habit in horror films I saw from this decade, minus jump scares, of pulling the carpet under your viewers over and over until it loses all weight to them. Be it false attempts to put Cage in peril to the many times he thinks he is seeing his daughter, only to realise he is dreaming, it is the tone of an action film in an inappropriate position, causing one to react as for an action film when we should only accept this pacing tone for a horror action film or a really good haunted house equivalent. This is the problem here as we never really get more about Cage, barely touching his character, or Ellen Burstyn as the leader of this commune of women and how they exist as more than just a sinister entity that may burn children, something explicitly part of the virtues of the original 1973 film even if they had not had the inspired decision to cast Christopher Lee who could provide sympathetic gravitas.

The thing about the original 1973 Wicker Man too, why it likely did not succeed back in the day but has its legacy, is that it is an unconventional and eccentric film. The plot is far less important in the original to its themes, its sensuality, and how it is technically a musical, as famous for its folk music and traditional songs as the performances and shocking conclusion. None of this is to be found in equivalence in the 2006 Wicker Man, and it is telling Cage became the iconic figure here because everything else is safe and/or not standing out at all. [Spoilers] Yes, it is pointlessly lurid, to a sick humoured level, to break his legs and sting him with bees, before putting him in the Wicker Man, but Cage screaming “Killing me won’t bring back your goddamn honey!” is among the few moments of personality, even if I laughed, because it has an energy to it. [Spoilers End] The notoriety of the film does feel over the top with hindsight, especially as whilst Nicolas Cage was able to ride the wave of this, Neil LaBute whilst still thankfully working after this probably took a shot in the chest with this as a big studio film for him, an albatross he would be stuck with. In the end, it is bad, but not infamous, just generic.

 

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1) Nicolas Cage on his legacy, his philosophy of acting and his metaphorical — and literal — search for the Holy Grail, written by David Marchese and published for the New York Times on August 7th 2019.

Axe (1974)

 

aka. Lisa, Lisa or California Axe Massacre

Director: Frederick R. Friedel

Screenplay: Frederick R. Friedel

Cast: Leslie Lee as Lisa; Jack Canon as Steele; Ray Green as Lomax; Frederick R. Friedel as Billy; Douglas Powers as the Grandfather

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

It is incredibly obvious why, when I first saw Axe, I could not appreciate this film as it was and once viewed it as one of the worst I had seen. As someone who grew up in Britain, naturally the Video Nasties was a concept I had learnt of as a teenager and gained a fascination for early on. Thankfully, this was also in the 2000s and the DVD era, when I was able to start watching these types of films and you could actually see them. One of the official members of the list, and among those which were actually prosecuted, I expected balls to the walls luridness, only to get this slow burn tale about a young woman named Lisa (Leslie Lee), living with her disabled grandfather in the middle of nowhere, terrorised by a gang of three member. It was a film I once found even at 66 minutes slow and dull to a painful extreme. Nowadays, I rightly see many of its virtues, the Video Nasties list a curious and at times motley crew of titles defining a lot of fascinating areas of genre cinema at the time, such as the Golden era of Italian genre cinema to this, among the regional American titles which flourished between the sixties and eighties.

With its more infamous title the one I prefer - it is snappy, yet fits the tone as well as befits the southern Gothic vibes the production has - it is interesting as a film not quite in the horror genre but in many at once. It begins as a crime drama, following a group of criminals - one the ruthless and cold leader, the second the sadist, and the last played by the director-writer himself as the one with morals, becoming more uncomfortable with that his colleagues are capable of. They are the kind of men, the two with a desire to harm, to put a cigar out in a man's mouth and dismiss accidentally killing him in his room whilst he was with his boyfriend. Even on the run, they terrorise a woman working by herself in a small store, tormenting her and even playing William Tell with a gun. Beyond this, due to the length of the film, and its succinct plot, there is not a lot to add to the premise, barring that it becomes obvious Lisa herself has mental health issues, with hallucinations and even contemplating suicide at one point, living by herself on a farm with a paralysed grandfather with only the chickens she tends to (and kill for food) there for her. She also, defying what they expect of her as a merely casual figure they can manipulate, someone more than capable with intelligence to get rid of their threat out of the house.

This is what one would think of a small regional production, made with a low budget, if you wished to have an example of this era of regional genre cinema, and with a premise which you could easily adapt into a short story or a radio drama. That is to its advantage as that does not mean the film has no personality. I could not help but think of a film which tried to recreate this era of seventies genre cinema but felt lacking for me personally. Ti West's X (2022), which attempted to be a seventies throwback by being set in the time period, in which a porn shoot at a farm ends up with the elderly owners finding out and starting to get violent, spring to mind and a lot of the reason why I felt it did not work was that it felt more like a horror film in terms of a series of shocks and gore moments than what Axe is, a drama which just happens to live in the skin of a horror film. A lot of modern horror films feel, for me, more inclined to a well worn series of sudden shocks rather than nestling in its mood, even if the point as with Axe originally, it felt like it dragged significantly with its dialogue scenes and lack of constant pervading threat in scenes until things escalate.

It does become horrifying, whilst in a way which makes the British prosecutors who viewed it as potentially harmful to British society ridiculous. Whilst not seeing many films like this would naturally cause one to feel shock for how intense this eventually gets, the Southern Gothic reference I made befits. Barring some extensive use of fake bright red gore, the gruesomeness is standard in horror films even from the Hammer horror films eventually when they had to catch up with their competition, or it is implied in an appropriately horrifying way. Blood on a pure white kitchen sink, which comes from a decapitated chicken, and the implicit idea of axe dismemberment, than explicitly show a fake mannequin being chopped up as Herschell Gordon Lewis would have in the sixties, is how Frederick R. Friedel depicts the violence. The most gore image onscreen is a simple prosthetic on the back of an actor's neck and a lot of fake gore, so it comes really apparent the notoriety this got on the Video Nasty list is a mass paranoia of what it suggests, evoking images of more gruesome dismemberment onscreen (like a few of the films which did get on the list) when it is merely perceived. There is even an ominous use of Campbell Tomato Soup which, whilst absurd out of context, fits for the scene in its shock.

The use of a tool which can be found in any D.I.Y. store was also clearly an additional fear at the time for being possible to have as a weapon in reality, not able to be separated from said reality. The idea of this being the film which got the name "Axe", like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise getting chainsaws and fellow Video Nasty The Driller Killer (1979) for drills, befits as here, the axe feels like something, in a true crime tale spun out in stories in the modern day, as here someone would end up using if not to murder someone but to at least dispose of the body, the gruesomeness felt with a weapon you have in the shed as a viewer, which could happen with greater ease in real life and not just in a movie. Additionally, the film has an ill-ease provided by its droning electronic score, composed between George Newman Shaw and John Willhelm, which helped emphasised a woozy atmosphere which helped the film immensely. Axe among some notorious films in the Video Nasty collection was one of the quieter members, befittingly like its lead Lisa in that the film seems out of place among the unruly and more controversial of that list like the cannibal films, but it has its own strength which has to be admired, alongside the knowledge this was really a project made by Frederick R. Friedel where he wanted to make a film even if from his own resources.

Smut Without Smut: Satanic Horror Nite (2021)

 

Including reviews of Sacrilege (1971), Satan’s Lust (1971) and The Devil Inside Her (1977)

Directors: Ray Dennis Steckler (Sacrilege); Zebedy Colt (The Devil Inside Her)

Cast:

Sacrilege:

Jane Tsentas as Cassandra; Gerard Broulard as Jay; Ruthann Lott as Maria; Charles Smith as Lucifer

 

Satan's Lust:

Judy Angel as Pamela Goodright; Ron Darby as Boris; George 'Buck' Flower as Manheim Jarkoff; James Mathers as Wayne

 

The Devil Inside Her:

Jody Maxwell as Hope Hammond; Terri Hall as Faith Hammond; Dean Tait as Joseph; Zebedy Colt as Ezekiel Hammond; Renee Sanz as Devil's Crony; Chad Lambert as Nicodemus; Nancy Dare as Rebecca 'Becky' Hammond; Annie Sprinkle as Orgy Girl; Rod DuMont as The Devil

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

I’ll buy you a dildo for Christmas.

Smut Without Smut, a concept created by American Genre Film Archive, works around the issue that erotic cinema would be off-putting for some, but have their compelling aspects even if unintentional. This is significant even in a serious way as, with the uncensored versions of three of the films covered as they were included in the AGFA Blu Ray release, these films represent a side of filmmaking for all their amateur and absurd tones which will be deeply problematic for some. It is worth putting ahead of time as, especially as actual hardcore films, some people will not feel comfortable (or want to) sit through work which have openly non-consensual scenes even if all these films are truly ridiculous times to witness, openly too silly (or frankly shambolic) to take seriously baring. They are from a different time, even if sadly pornography has its sleazy edges still to this day, so all these films have to be taken with a pinch of salt even in their cut-down Smut Without Smut versions, which will not be possible for all to stomach. Those who can, like myself, will witness truly strange works.

To be blunt as well, some people will not feel comfortable (or want to) sit through extended scenes of real sex if with the artificiality that it is acted out sequences which are prolonged and in gynecological detail. In mind the tone will end up having to be lowered to review these, but wanting to take into seriousness the content, even thought pornography has still a lot of distasteful content to it in tone, these films have moments for all their goofiness you would prefer not to have in them, as much as some people just do not want to watch a man’s hairy testicles up close for a prolonged five to ten minutes. Satanic Horror Nite is closer to what the point on this concept was as Smut Without Smut’s prequel. That one was before AGFA started releasing their mix-tape works to physical media, instead having a double bill of Things to Come (1976) and The Dirty Dolls (1973), two softcore sex films where the removal of said sex scenes made little sense. That title was only logical for outright porn, tackling the sordid world of hardcore that Something Weird Video accumulated alongside their other exploitation film libraries, in this case centering on the obsession in the seventies with Satan and the Devil throughout a lot of these productions.

The compilation version follows The AGFA Horror Trailer Show (2020), another early mixtape from AGFA in which it is initially set up as an actual cinema showing, starting with trailers including in the intermission, not surprisingly going for the obvious sex innuendo with the food trailers but with legitimately idiosyncratic trailers which come some of the best parts of the production altogether. Americana from a different country to mind, such as one for a Wizard of Oz Head Shop, or the obsession between these mixtapes with finding as many trailers for cinemas made for Toddy, a chocolate drink that could be served cold or hot, are an obsession I am developing through works like this. More popular in the likes of Brazil to Argentina, Toddy chocolate drinks were pushed in the USA in these types of trailers, such as one here which is an animated trailer like  an old sixties cartoon about firemen. There is even a Pac Man parody for another concessions stand food advertisement which is also memorable.

This is not about gluttony however, but the sin of lust, and trailers for other hardcore films even if one or two does at least produce a Count-Erotica film which immediately warns you of some of eye-popping content. Even if everything in the Smut Without Smut cut is softcore, the sight of a man humping into a rabbit hand puppet for what is a Count Dracula parody immediately is memorable whether you want it to be or not. These films, uncut versions as well, are weird for how they can straddle the line between legitimately sleazy, progressive, deeply dated and problematic, but also very quaint or weird, where “Englebert Humpsalot” for a pseudonym on the credits time stamps the films to their era or even earlier into the sixties, like a Carry On joke.

Sadly the first film in the compilation, Hotter Than Hell (1971), is not among those included in their full cut which is a shame as it presents itself as a sitcom about demons, presided upon by a Satan who is closer to a gregarious Saint Nick/Green Man figure, whose desire to corrupt the folks up above is less eternal damnation but orgies and sex even in the underworld. This feels like a sex romp comedy which just happened to end up with real sex, boing sounds and all, between demons magically appearing for women or being helpful to frustrated female psychologists. There is already though an inherent issue with Smut Without Smut in context too that, yes, splicing out all the hardcore scenes, alongside making some of these barely over fifteen minutes each between five films used, means that so much tonal context let alone story plotting is lost, which becomes a significant issue with appreciating it as a work by itself.

Sacrilege probably is not a film you would gain a lot of from having all the sex back in, but it is the most notorious of the trio as it is directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. Steckler, infamous for the likes of Rat Pfink and Boo Boo (1966), did make some porn films in his career, and starting with a nude woman (barring gloves and a cape) gyrating to drones and string instruments to the camera, we are absolutely in a strange territory even next to the other films involved in this collection. This woman, in the form of a more humble witchcraft enthusiast in more clothing, will temp a man reading a book in the countryside for what is a played satanic sex ritual. There is not a lot else to talk of, baring that he reads books on witchcraft, and that she has a Siamese cat named Lucifer who is the aforementioned Devil and starts a nice trend of cats in these films. There is also the weird decision to have our witch make erotic cat wails, which is probably one of the strangest aspects of any of the films as this happens even in the sex scenes.

The reason Smut Without Smut exists is that Sacrilege, bluntly, will force you to look at the lead’s testicles in close up for a long period of shots, which is not for everyone. The paradox with hardcore, which this mixtape has to work around, is that porn drags because of its hardcore scenes of actual sex but without them, not in terms of wanting to arose the viewer but for their tone, you cannot really cut around them depending on the film used without potentially losing so much of their tone, or feeling as here they abruptly change scene. Again, and with the desire to not repeat this repeatedly, these films do present a taboo nature when our male lead calls a female friend to join over when possessed by sex, the playing to a non-consensual nature to these scenes in all the films mentioned in this review something which is going to offend people, more so because of the uncut versions having real sexual acts transpire even if they are highly choreographed. Sacrilege out of the three full films I saw is the most lacksidasical, but this would still be seen as a taboo for some still even if that  the film in context, the repetitiveness of the sex scenes themselves, undercut the potential grimness with monotony. The film by the ending also possesses a very squeaky table the scene of the Satanic orgy plays out on top of, and jazz drumming on the soundtrack mixed with soundtrack pieces for a silent adventure serial, which is a realm of strangeness in itself, which cannot defend these to someone who feels sexual fantasies like this are indefensible, but do undercut such a film by reveal how absurd it is as a fictional piece, real sex or otherwise. For Ray Dennis Steckler, it definitely becomes an idiosyncratic production to watch if an acquired taste even next to the others in this. Its compilation version would probably suffice for most, but uncut, the repetition and tone becomes its weird aura.

As mentioned, there are films here which were not included as extras in their full feature form, Sexual Awareness (1974) one of these, about a religious sex cult.  A lot of clearly missing from its cut form, a fragment of curiosity that really does not stand out, and again, about a cult that use hypnosis, this does emphasis that with a childlike naivety in a lot of these films’ cases that they touch upon fantasies which many may find completely unacceptable. It emphases sexual fantasies as a complicated and at times difficult thing, notwithstanding the fact that pornography even into the modern day has problematic aspects, especially when it comes to fetishing race, where we do not willingly face these with the complexity they need as much as rightly challenge them. None of the films in this, though a few have some eyebrow raising and sleazy moments, can be seen as anything but utterly ridiculous, entirely artificial and able to dismiss as from another time in look, especially as  Sexual Awareness in the Satanic Horror Nite cut is played for all its awkward pauses in acting and non-sequiturs, alongside in the intermission afterwards subtly playing to the only innuendo in the trailer choices, with a hotdog advert terms which are far more explicit then one would presume.

Satan’s Lust, which thankfully comes with another cameo by a cat also minding its own business, tries to be a murder mystery with obvious culprits shown in their criminal act from the get-go, a Satanic cult whose murder of a female victim has people sniffing in on them. Those people are Pamela Goodnight and Wayne, who are investigating the strange death of a woman named Carla who was working for Satanic Films, a movie studio in Los Angeles who were not hiding their purpose in being an evil satanic cult. This film, even in mind to The Devil Inside Her really going for eyebrow raising moments, is arguably the skuzziest of the lot as, baring a few romantic sex scenes, which involves their leads shaking their heads in slow mo, this definitely is the one where any concern for trigger warnings is appropriate, Pamela Goodnight probably as put upon as anyone can get in terms of a secret sexual satanic cult. Even in mind that, with legitimate suspicion on my behalf from all the cutaways, that faked fluids were used to be polite about it for scenes, this does become even sleazier the further along it goes, barely over an hour for a film reduced to fifteen minutes or so without the scene. It manages to have a scene that is problematic and twisted in capitals when someone is unconscious for the sex scene, and the perpetrator is thinking of an eleven year old girl, which is gross as that sounds in mind to how slapdash it also is, especially as said scene is also pointless for plot reasons to ever have. The version in Smut Without Smut form is more ridiculous for what it is, emphasis the non-sex scenes as being an ultra low budget genre film with the lack of these off putting edges to deal with, like one’s sex partner to one’s horror turning into a skeleton mid way through. If you could not get the tone, that these films are incompetent for the most part with actors just earnestly going through them, it is completely understandable why those here would still be uncomfortable to experience. This is also in mind that Satan’s Lust does have its own ridiculous moments which could only be laughed at, the most inappropriate use of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, as an instrumental piece, finding itself here of all places the most obvious example of this.

Out of all the films, whilst with some of the most shocking content, The Devil Inside Her is the most ambitious of the trio as well, trying to be an actual film with a knowing transgressive streak at its heart. Set in 1826, a normal puritan farming family is undercut by the fact that, among the two daughters, one is romantically attracted to a young man, whilst the other is jealous of this. The father neither helps, as even kissing in broad daylight is enough for him to call one of these daughters a “harlot” and punish her with naked whipping, but the pleas of both sisters invokes Satan to appear, as depicted with KISS makeup, spike leather neck and wrist pieces, and the horn. Obviously this is again a film where its attitude to sex has dated extremely, but it is one that feels deliberately transgressive rather than being sordid; even if Satan is depicted nude barring boots, using a backwards talking masturbation ritual to turn into the love interest for both women, there is a clear knowing sense of provocation here not just from the film’s clear low views of this form of Christianity it depicts, even having Satan having the last words with God in the finale that, as long as people are sexually frustrated and he is the first on call, he will always get to the mortals first. Tellingly, its director Zebedy Colt has a compelling history which likely explains this, in that this was someone who clearly was bringing a lot of provocation to the production knowingly; birth name Edward Earle Marsh, he had two parallel careers, a musical and acting career including in several small Broadway roles, with his homosexuality something which he explicitly showed in music about romance and love between men, contrast with his directing and acting roles in hardcore porn, including having of all people a young Spalding Gray, famous for his acting and monologue work among other things, in a role in Farmer's Daughters (1976)¹.

With Satan able to shape shift, this is where the film gets more over the top and memorable. The film certainly has an imagination – where as the jealous sister goes to a witch for a love potion, we bear witness to some vivid dialogue such as the concoction using “the menstrual fluid of a Persian harlot” and Nicodemus the parrot who transforms into a human being, needing to be "milked" to finish the love potion. There is still a lot here which would be considered shocking for people, playing to how Satan disguises himself as members of this family, brining in some shocking concepts such as incest but two really out-there moments, one more acceptable in certain areas of erotica, a golden shower, which takes place at the Satanic orgy in the finale between consenting Satanists, but the other involving consensual use of vegetables which is quite a surprise. This in the Satanic Nite Orgy loses all of this, but also a lot of the tone, where this film which may be still indefensible for its content and tone still possesses a lot more in its tiny budget in terms of tone. It is telling that, even if it goes for the happy ending where the religious win, clearly horny Satanists were the ones we were supposed to be cheering.

The actual Smut Without Smut cut is a fascinating and fun ride to witness, but honestly, it can be argued to be a failure. There will be films people would prefer to have cut down into non-hardcore films to be able to enjoy their cheesy natures, and these versions will be easier to screen at cinema presentations, and more power to those both, but it really gets into the difficulty with what one does with hardcore adult cinema as a concept. There is still taboo some have with the concept of these films, let alone if they have any artistic merit, contrasted by the dichotomy of how one of their trademarks, emphasis on lengthy explicit depiction of the sexual act, is not something that is meant to be experienced for many as an actual film, rather than for titillation, but also is how their stories are structured around them if they have actual stories, making it insanely difficult to not undercut the tone and mood by splicing out the sex. Softcore cuts of these films are still made, which is telling in terms of the market for them, but Satanic Horror Nite also emphasizes the practical issues here that, wishing to re-edit these films for consumption, what this is just is censored cuts in a compilation, with not anything which could have emphasized the disjointed results on purpose and had for fun, such as more Satanic porn film trailers or jokes based on old advertising for drive-ins. I admire AGFA still releasing this, but it is telling that, not films to just jump into as they could be deeply off-putting for their content, the uncut versions are far more fascinating for what strange and sordid productions they are, one in The Devil Inside Her managing to be compelling for its clearly artistic goals among also being porn.

 

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1) The Many Sides of Zebedy Colt from Queer Music Heritage. This is NSFW for some of the archive materials included in the page about Zebedy Colt's life.

The Owl Service (1969–1970)

 

Director: Peter Plummer

Screenplay: Alan Garner

Based on the novel by Alan Garner

Cast: Dorothy Edwards as Nancy, Gillian Hills as Alison Bradley, Michael Holden as Gwyn, Francis Wallis as Roger Bradley, Raymond Llewellyn as Huw, Edwin Richfield as Clive Bradley

Ephemeral Waves

 

I think she longs for the time she was flowers on a mountain.

The Owl Service, first broadcast over eight episodes on regional Granada TV, between December 1969 and February 1970, is idiosyncratic; from the get-go, changing between strings to strange noises on the opening credits, this is an unconventional. Based on a novel by Alan Garner, adapting his own work to the production, this is a Welsh narrative explicitly evoking the stories of the Mabinogion, the earliest tome for Welsh legends, which begins in a manor home in the Welsh countryside where scratching noises in the attic lead our protagonists upstairs in their home, finding old china plates in the attic. These plates cause Alison (Gillian Hills), one of the siblings staying in the manor on vacation, to experience strange images. What this becomes, as well as a class conflict narrative, is not quite horror but a weird folk supernatural tale which fits at home with so many productions at the time, such as for children between this and Children of the Stones (1977), which were dealing with the peoples' relationship with the countryside.

Contextually, this is set around a single father Clive Bradley (Edwin Richfield) who remarried, his son Roger Bradley (Francis Wallis) and him going to the Welsh country home of the father’s new wife, a widow named Margaret who we never see, and her daughter Alison, who acquires the plates and becomes obsessed with their owl patterns. Their maid Nancy (Dorothy Edwards) has a son named Gwyn (Michael Holden) who is developing a chemistry with Alison, finding himself in a romantic triangle as, despite being new step siblings, there is a clear awkward relationship between Roger and Alison too. Their story ends up crossing paths with the tale of Blodeuwedd, a maiden created from flowers who was made for a hero but, understandably, is not impressed and falls for another man, leading to murder. Her punishment is to be turned into an owl, and the first scenes create the catalyst, the ceramic tea set with patterns which almost possess Alison, starting to create paper owls, beginning the cycle which starts to fully come to be with flashes to the cast in face paint for quick cuts and one being chased by birds.

The supernatural tone, as much due to the budgetary limitations, is at first merely implied, also psychological but as part of its tone, The Owl Service becoming more explicit in its plot with this as the episodes continues on. Time is repeated as Roger captures images on his camera mid-way through, clearly the current leads in the roles, of both a man throwing a spear, part of the legend, and of a motorbike, as the story includes Bertram, a cousin of Alison’s whose demise, by crashing his motorbike, may be part of a previous time this tale of Millennia has past. The Owl Service is as curious as my initial interest in the mini-series suggests, a whimsical fantasy tale undercut with grit, neither occult or horror but a family melodrama with implied psychosexual tension and an ending of explicit phantasmagoria as someone is about to turn into an owl unless love helps them. Recaps at the start of each episode will help a lot of viewers keep up with its plot, but at the same time, the legend in its centre keeps merely a frame for its story in terms of these young adults' anguishes and clashes, particularly Roger and Gwyn, as the later is attempting to romance someone "above his station" in Alison, part of a well-off family, much against the family itself, causing a greater schism for the legend to infect the present day.

The Owl Service as a result also becomes about class bias – where the family is English, staying in Welsh countryside, and Nancy and Gwyn are Welsh alongside the gardener Huw (Raymond Llewellyn), who seemingly lives in his own cryptic world, Nancy hating her working class roots due to a secret in her past, even threatening to pull Gwyn out of grammar school and force him to work at a Co-Op. He is later revealed to even have elocution records, because he feels even his Welsh accent is too prominent for him to get anywhere in his life, feeling he needs to speak “proper” English than with his natural accent. Barring in mind the limitations of the story – close up shoots of dialogue scenes, a serene 60s Britain with outside on-location shooting, apt for a supernatural tale where the tension already early on – The Owl Service stands out in terms of “Hauntology” where its themes of the past being vividly part of the present is found here. The elliptical nature of how the story is told, whilst likely to cause some frustrations to some viewers, is compelling when in tuned to its tone, the legend being told as much an outbreak of the emotions of these leads as it becomes real by its final episode. Able to appreciate this, I was able to find a lot in this mini-series which lived up to my expectations.

Eaten Alive (1976)

 

Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Kim Henkel, Alvin L. Fast and Mardi Rustam

Cast: Neville Brand as Judd; Mel Ferrer as Harvey Wood; Carolyn Jones as Miss Hattie; Marilyn Burns as Faye; William Finley as Roy; Stuart Whitman as Sheriff Martin; Roberta Collins as Clara; Kyle Richards as Angie; Robert Englund as Buck; Crystin Sinclaire as Libby Wood; Janus Blythe as Lynette

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

As with many Tobe Hooper films, there is an unhinged air to Eaten Alive, and it's weird and legitimately scary electronic score from the get-go, over a shoot of the moon at the beginning, is Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper himself composing instant nightmare fuel. It is a very simple story, and honestly, there is not much to Eaten Alive plot wise in general barring a set-up: Neville Brand is Judd, a man out of his mind running a hotel, with an alligator in the nearby water he claims is from the Egyptian Nile. The narrative is supposedly inspired by a real case - of bar-owner Joe Ball, who lived in the small Texan town of Elemendorf in the Thirties, and was convicted of murder and said to have disposed more women then presumed with the help of all the alligators he kept, something which has been challenged as being exaggerated over time from his more simpler crimes of murder¹. For Judd here, any woman (and frankly any man or child) is not safe from him killing them or letting the pet reptile after them. Even family dogs are not safe.

As a Video Nasty, the extremity is entirely felt in the evil intensity in Hooper's films, as much likely the reason it ended up on the list as the problem was when The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) became an enemy of the British censors. Artificially bright coloured lights cover the few locations, an artificial fetid Texas of cat houses and rundown hotels, entirely at night and shot on stages, which presents an unnatural reality to the production. Almost everyone here too is unhinged and wandered out of an entirely different world as well, where your bordello mistress (including her old age makeup) is a strange caricature in suit slacks and shirt, including a money tending cap, to William Finley (Phantom of the Paradise (1974)) and Robert Englund (the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise) adding to the weird aura.

A lot of the film is disturbed in general, the same manic energy of the original Chain Saw Massacre (and some fo the 1986 sequel) felt here. The setting and the character of Judd in the little we get is as vivid as the Leatherface family - that he has a caged monkey, the plot points about his wooden leg (and losing it to the pet), even a Nazi flag in the background in one scene, scarred and marked like an acquired from being a soldier and getting hold of it in combat. Without a lot of dialogue and drama to work with here, as a horror film, these details add to the production, but there is already from the get-go a sense most of the cast in unhinged. Before Judd is chasing a young girl under his hotel's foundations with a giant scythe, she is likely traumatised by her family's complete lack of stability, a returning Marilyn Burns from Chain Saw and William Finley having a scene, after the dog is eaten, which is just as disturbing for how he acts out a mental breakdown between parents. That there is stability, with an adult daughter and a father trying to find her sister, adds the sense of ordinary reality in its brief snippets as a contrast but how thin the veneer is. The bar is still full of guys like Buck (Englund), a stud whose bravado is with being a trouble starter, and even if he is harmless, he just has to drive his girlfriend of the night down the right country road and find himself in Judd's nightmare hotel.

The fact the crocodile is cheesy, a giant floating prop, is not going to detract from how alarmingly effective the rest of the film is. It has, as a result, a more visceral sense of peril even if not that violent, able to work around its slighter plot between legitimately disturbing aspects (such as Burns, again put through the wringer, being tied to a bed for a large portion of the film) against an absurd tone close to a very sick sense of humour. Credibly, Hooper would channel this into later films when the eighties came about, and whilst Crocodile (2000) tragically felt more of a sedate TV movie in tone, when it nodded to this film briefly it was still a nice wink at one of Hooper's underrated films.  

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1) Eaten Alive: the bizarre true story behind Tobe Hooper's alligator horror movie, written by Rebecca Hawkes for The Telegraph, published May 4th 2015.

Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible (2001)

 

Created by: Graham Duff

Directors: Matt Lipsey

Screenplays: Steve Coogan, Graham Duff and Henry Normal

Cast: Steve Coogan as Dr. Terrible / Captain Tobias Slater / Lester Crown / Denham Denham / Dr. Donald Baxter / Nathan Blaze / Captain Hans Brocken; Graham Duff as Josh / Norden / a Policeman / a Porter; Sarah Alexander as Beatrice Crown; Sally Bretton as Carmina; Julia Davis as Stephanie Wise; John Thomson as Sir Donald Tyburn; Louise Paige as Nurse MacReedy; Warwick Davis as Tygon

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows)

 

That day, I learnt an important lesson. Never eat your own chin. Had I feasted on my own chin, I'd be ill-equipped to introduce tonight's tale.

In terms of digging up a real obscurity, finding the time when Steve Coogan was co-writer and centre stage on a parody of horror anthology shows, and British pulp and horror stories, is pretty significant as a find. Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible is the creation of Graham Duff, an English writer/actor/producer. Steve Coogan, for those with no idea who he is, is an actor/comedian/screenwriter whose legacy includes Alan Partridge, a character of his and co-creator Armando Iannucci, over multiple productions and multi-media, who became a phenomenon alongside Coogan's extensive career in other productions such as his roles in 24 Hour Party People (2002). This, six episodes broadcast on BBC 2, was released on DVD, but has become an obscurity. He, alongside playing all the protagonists, plays the host Dr. Terrible, a horror show guide who, with his Count Orlok ears and fake teeth, contemplates in the first episode I saw his dreams of an erotic kind. He is a perversion of a senile old man who steals his deceased wife's coffin and has witnessed other macabre things like a man eating his own chin as his monologues suggest, alongside befitting that a show like this needs a macabre host.

Even the BBC DVD played a trick that, unlike the original broadcast order, episodes one and four were switched, leaving me with And Now the Fearing as the first tale, a story set in 1972 where Steve Coogan plays a sleazy businessman named Denham Denham, part of him clearly having it as part of the roles to have as many fake hair pieces, or hair stylists involved, per episode as he can. Denham, a feminist female reporter (Julia Davis) and an architect (Alexander Armstrong) are stuck in a lift which is heading towards a thirteenth floor which should not be there. A possible spoiler, but this is clearly Tales from the Crypt (1972), the Amicus anthology horror film, crunched into less than thirty minutes, including the punch line, whilst also being a parody of such Amicus and anthology films from the era.

It also presents that a) Coogan and the co-writers clearly like these types of films despite the piss taking that comes through all six episodes, and that b) unfortunately one of the clear problems, and likely why the series did not work, comes ahead in that this is a wildly inconsistent work. When this hits, it is funny, but when it misses the mark, this show has aged badly and is also broad as a brick. And Now the Fearing also sets this up with an alternative world scenario, if this had gained a cult audience and worked, of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004) before Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness created it, and if interpreted by Steve Coogan, of pastiching cheesy horror tales of the past, which is bizarre to consider. For my reservations with Darkplace that it played to "ironic bad" for its humour, thankfully, we got the timeline with that series, and this makes a lot more mistakes. Here you see that, for half the episodes of House of Horrible, the broad tone in comparison does not land as well. Feeling strange as an early 2000s television production trying to replicate the nineteen seventies, stranger for an inexplicable reason than any of the older periods being tackled, the production feels like it is going for the obvious jokes which do not work. The stories themselves could have worked - one's drunken hit-and-run of a homeless man damning you in a cycle, why you never try to cheat gypsies from their land, and the most openly silly like a Darkplace joke, why never to purchase a haunted table. But the tone is off, and it is only by the end of the series the show hits the point of itself premise.

Curse of Tongs, set in Limehouse in London in 1910, is not an episode to help as it is a Fu Manchu parody, which even if played for irony to damn it, is damned in itself by playing to it. Whilst a broad parody of "Yellow Peril" xenophobia of the infamous Sax Rohmer character, I had to think about what the Chinese cast to this episode thought of all this, as this is still as a parody a Fu Manchu pastiche, with actor Mark Gatiss in yellow face as Hangman Chang. Kidnapping the love of Steve Coogan's Nathan Blaze, Coogan is also still playing the heroic white savour over the Chinese villains in something which, for the 2000s, really shows that ironically playing with these themes was not a lesson that succeeded at this time period, more so as, alongside the sixties films when Christopher Lee played the figure, Peter Sellers played Fu Manchu in a comedy in 1980 called The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu. Not even having a Chinese detective on the heroes' side works to undercut this as, not even a sidekick, the character barely appears onscreen.

The legacy of Fu Manchu is more uncomfortable in mind that, whilst Sax Rohmer was a good pulp writer for tales like Brood of the Witch-Queen (1918), he was also a figure ingested with the xenophobia of his time, and as a British writer, I cannot help but feel more uncomfortable, even as someone who has found enjoyment in Fu Manchu tales, knowing it stems from not only British xenophobia, but also our really problematic relationship to China into the 20th century beforehand. A character like Fu Manchu, whose first tale was published in 1912, stems from British colonial influence as much as the fear of the East coming to the West, after the likes of the Boxer Rebellion - an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901 - and that, in mind to the scene here where Coogan is forced to become an opium addict by Hangman Chang, Britain is the villain for me as an Englishman in the two Opium Wars. The two Opium Wars, the First Opium War fought in 1839–1842 between Qing China and the United Kingdom, the Second Opium War fought between the Qing and the United Kingdom and France, 1856–1860, were the result of Western groups like the British trying to force opium trade on the Chinese. A parody in 2001 about this, ironically done, cannot work because I learnt this history in my university days in lectures, and even if I had not, as mentioned, it still involves Mark Gatiss in yellow face playing an Asiatic evil. Even the amusing special effects for the giant crab Tong has in the sewer, nor his secret crab claw hand, can help get over this.

Episode three, Curse of the Blood of the Lizard of Doom, can be argued to be as bad as an episode, in its many cheap jokes about red heads and the Scottish, the later likely as offensive just for the fake Scottish accent. It is also compellingly ridiculous. In Edinburgh 1880, Coogan plays a specialist burns doctor, Dr. Donald Baxter, who is experimenting with reptile plasma (at one point even gecko rectal fluid) to treat burns, even if it accidentally leads to patients developing webbed fingers and a need to crawl on the ceiling. There are more ironic sexism jokes as in the first episode, but for what is, frankly, an eye rolling parody, at least in this tale the humour is more about Coogan experimenting with lizards to treat burns, with a female doctor he begrudgingly works with, throwing caution to the wind in how silly it is. Chameleon plasma is experimented on, and alongside a man hanging himself with his own extending tongue, or trying to bluff around a conference with colleagues by incinerating a body of a man meant to have been a live patient, Coogan experimenting on himself leads to him turning into a giant chameleon, This is compellingly bad at least.

Episode four, in Upper Carpathians 1877 and the original first episode, is Lesbian Vampire Lovers of Lust, entirely based on Hammer's Karnstein trilogy. The trilogy - The Vampire Lovers (1970), Lust for a Vampire (1971) and Twins of Evil (1971) - are the children of the famous 1872 novella Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. It is a text which has gained greater weight as becoming an LGBTQ novel of gay desire between women, if in mind this period into the seventies, when Hammer were trying to sell their films on more sex, one should consider these movies from heterosexual film producers from the perspective they may have only included the content in a titillating way, not any possible interpretation from female scholars which could find more of note within the films, or the legacy of Carmilla as a story which gained weight over centuries in meaning.

This is again another premise which could pose problematic, as with a female vampire countess eyeing Coogan's newly wedded bride, the vampires are gay, even their human servant Rebenor, played by Ben Miller, a dapperly dressed and flamboyant figure who even makes a dress he stole from someone else look stylish. However it is fascinating it never touches the subject at all barring its source material as a parody, more interested in a lot of sexual innuendo as has also been common in the series. With the sense the series improved considerable by the halfway point, this is an openly silly pastiche, just from the get-go in having Coogan with his blue eyes and Hugh Grant hairstyle playing a heroic lead that is mostly useless. Sadly, the older female Van Helsing stand-in does not last long, but the tone, including the bombastic choral score, or the ending based around Steve Coogan playing tongue hockey by himself by a mirror, means this comes off as one of the strongest episodes.

In mind that was originally the first episode, the last two episodes of the series show the tone was improving. Episode 5, Voodoo Feet of Death, is also one of the stronger episodes too barring, however, it is parodying voodoo tropes in cinema, which is a huge issue as, with horror's longstanding history of demonising an actual religion, I do feel uncomfortable with even this parody. Even if I enjoy my old horror films - and will always think fondly of George Zucco playing bongos in Voodoo Man (1944) with Bela Lugosi - this is not woke for the sake of it, just admitting embarrassment at how narrow minded this area of storytelling can be, even accidentally as a parody of this narrow-mindedness. It also has no point in being included, barring the voodoo priest who demands Coogan returns his late brother's feet so they can be purified of the evil slowly corrupting their new host. The premise is strong enough as it is without the "voodoo" aesthetic, that this is The Feet of Orlac, or The Hands of Orlac (1924), which was remade as a 1960 British film, where Conrad Veidt, as a concert pianist, loses his hands in a horrible accident only to have experimental hand transplants that. To his horror, they may have once belonged to a murderer. This works with just parodying this, set in the 1920s, where there is a romantic triangle between Coogan, playing a dancer named Lester Crown, his wife and a trendy new tap dancer. An ill-advised scouting of possible adultery, involving a giant novelty barbershop pair of scissors, leads to a moment of comically levels of fake blood spurting and experiment feet transplants, taken from a dock worker who was crushed under a heavy crate baring those appendages.

The joke of sentient feet that kill is inherently funny by itself, and no one suspects that feet can strangle a person, or that extra long toe nails can slice a jugular in one swipe, which adds to this humour. It proves one of the funnier episodes, as does Episode 6, Scream Satan Scream, Coogan playing a Witchfinder General in 1645 Blackburn, who is burning witches and those who inappropriately use vegetables. Captain Tobias Slater is also a sex hound who is abusing his power, masquerading under finding witches to bed as many women he can within one location at a time. Throughout the show, there had been sexual innuendo, but Scream Satan Scream fully embraced this, to the point there is literally an inn called Fist Inn as a setting. With a curse over his head from a previous witch he burnt in the first scenes, this is a very funny episode, arguably the best as it embraces blatant sex comedy, Coogan playing a villain, and Warwick Davis makes a suddenly and welcomed appearance as his assistant Tygon, clearly a reference to Tigon British Film Productions, who released Witchfinder General (1968), the Vincent Price witch hunter film which this is parodying. Sadly, Davis does not have lines, but when the camera cuts to him in close up reacting to Coogan, it is perfect in itself.

Embracing its silliness, where Satan ends up looking like a Jan Švankmajer project, superimposed onto the screen when the Dark Lord is briefly summoned, this is what Dr. Terrible's House of Horror should have been. Not ironic attempts to mock racism or sexism of the past in horror and pulp cinema, the jokes tightened, just embrace the crude sexual innuendo, and just run with the silliest ideas possible, like The Feet of Orlock or Coogan reimagining Vincent Price's Witchfinder General just scrapping past being dunked in a river as a witch himself. There is a clear sense the people made this admire the horror cinema they parody, from the elaborate animated opening credits, and in how there is even a cameo in And the Fearing Starts of Sheila Keith, from Frightmare (1974) and House of Whipcord (1974). The show sadly faltered many times because, as I have found in other work, a lot of its humour was cheap ironic pastiches, and jokes, including enough Scottish stereotypes in one episode to fill a tin of shortbread. There was also content as well that show we did not really progress well in the 2000s in our humour as we thought we did, and other times where it did not work at all just as a joke. It is fascinating, and when it rewards, it is very funny. It is, as mentioned, that one Steve Coogan work, from a man who is an institution for many nowadays, which I have never heard brought up, as mysterious as that sounds.