Reviews

I wasn't expecting much, but "The Redeemer" really entertained me. The low budget, poor quality stock, and choppy editing didn't distract from what is a weirdly atmospheric mash-up of a stereotypical "school reunion" slasher movie with a late 1970's satanic supernatural chiller. There's some excellent almost dreamlike scenes, especially the duck hunter, the use of masks and giant mascot heads, and the theatre performance, which comes complete with a creepy life size puppet. There's also plenty of religious symbolism, including the victims seated at a buffet similar to the disciples at the Last Supper. The appearance of six fingers on the hand of one character reminded me of an Old Testament biblical reference to fallen angels, which would match with the words of the written narration at the beginning and end. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but certainly worth a watch if you're bored with the same old modern horror cliches and want something different.

Strangely this has little to do with the classic tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde : rather it's a werewolf film, but with a plot based on folklore closer to the Universal style of vampire movie. I suspect that Edgar G. Ulmer (who also made the brilliant "The Black Cat", and the Noir favourite "Detour") really wanted to make a vampire film, but ended up having to use the more marketable and helpfully out of copyright Dr Jekyll theme due to the studio's insistence. Low budgets probably also didn't help. Despite this mismatch, there's plenty for the fan of old horror films, and occasional flashes of the director's potential . Agar and Talbott are watchable regardless of having little to work with, there's some atmospheric dream sequences with excellent cinematography, and a proto-slasher murder of a woman on a telephone which undoubtedly influenced later filmmakers. I can't help but wonder what classic Ulmer could have turned in if he'd had a decent budget and less interference?

The first film in Yamamoto Michio's "The Bloodthirsty Trilogy" is usually viewed by fans of macabre cinema as the weakest of the three. Personally I find it stunning. Fully titled "The Fear of the Ghost House : The Vampire Doll" ("Yûrei yashiki no kyôfu: Chi wo sû ningyô") , Michio wasn't expected to turn in anything special for Toho (makers of the Godzilla films). just a simple pot-boiler rip-off of a typical European Horror.

Writers Hiroshi Nagano and Ei Ogawa however delivered a script which relied heavily on traditional Japanese ghost stories, which Michio then shot on Gothic style sets (the house, for example, is straight out of a Hammer, with oil portraits and suits of armour) with nods to western vampire tropes. The mix they created is intoxicating: full of atmosphere, genuinely creepy, and, in places, with unexpected scares of the quality of the earlier "Les Diabolics" or the later original "Ringu" ("Ring"). Highly recommended for anyone who likes classic horror, 1960s Hammer, or Asian Horror.

Startlingly different to other Chinese martial arts films of the time, Tsui Hark's directorial debut is a lost gem. Combining traditional Chinese ghost story elements with plenty of action, atmospheric settings (the caves under the castle are particularly menacing), and a complex murder plot based around killer butterflies, this film is both entertaining and engaging. My main criticism would be the rather disjointed plot and uneven pacing, reminiscent of the average Italian Giallo, and the rather undeveloped motivation of the main villain. Neither of these however spoiled my enjoyment. I'd love to see this in a restored version.

I distinctly remember the impact of Alternative 3 at the time of its broadcast, as the effect it had on our parents and adults was the talk of the playground. Watching it now I can see why. Closely mimicking the news documentary format of the time, which albeit primitive in our internet age, was trustworthy to everyone in the 70s , the programme played as a realistic expose of themes that most people then found frightening. A coming global catastrophe, secret elites, murderous conspiracies, media cover-ups, a dash of cold hard space paranoia, and that pre-instant playback feel of "what exactly did I just see on my TV", must have been a heady mix. No wonder people were annoyed when it was revealed as an April Fool fiction.

Badly paced and exceedingly boring, "Claw" certainly didn't grab my attention. It feels like a student film, with amateurish cinematography, flat and emotionless acting, clumsy dialogue, and a plot which fails to go anywhere interesting. While the three protagonists are supposed to be friends, their incessant arguing and abrasive personalities just highlights that they were thrown together randomly by a seemingly inexperienced scriptwriter, rather than being fully realised characters the viewer could care about. Worse, there's no tension, suspense, credible mystery, or even decent b-grade horror movie gore to make up for the rest of the film's weaknesses. Avoid : there's better things to waste your time on.