Where it all began.

Back in the day when I as a kid first played the Wolfenstein 3D demo, I had no idea how influential this game would be. Concepts like first person shooter wasn't in my vocabulary at all. Later titles like Doom and Doom II were massive favorites of mine, and then later on games like Duke Nukem 3D and Blood were likewise games I spent hours playing. This is the start of the entire first person shooter genre. 

But where did this all come from? Today's video takes a look at idSoftware and where the 3D first person shooter began. So please enjoy this documentary about old school gaming.

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIuCOsB4nHs 

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

 

Terror Creatures from the Grave

This week I finished the list of Barbara Steele's Italian Gothic movies with:

Terror Creatures from the Grave (1965).

This movie is a US/Italian coop, which means that depending on the version you watch, the director and cast may have Americanized names, which might cause some confusion. The director, Massimo Pupillo was credited as Ralph Zucker and actress Mirella Maravidi was credited as Marilyn Mitchell. You know, just to make it a challenge.

A lawyer, Albert Kovac (Walter Brandi) arrives at a lonely manor and finds the doorbell broken and no one answering the door. As he enters the house anyway, he meets the maid Louise, who brings him to Corinne Hauff (Mirella Maravidi), who brings him to meet her stepmother Cleo Hauff (Barbara Steele). He tells her that his business partner received a letter from her husband, Dr. Hauff who wants to draw up his will. However the partner is unavailable so Kovac came in his stead. Cleo is mystified since her husband died a year ago. Trapped by a storm and unsure of what to do with the letter, Kovac sticks around. The next day he meets the new town doctor, Dr. Nemek (Alfredo Rizzo) who joins him on his quest to figure out what's going on. They soon learn of the plague spreaders who back in the day, well, spread the plague and are rumored to haunt the area with a creaking cart and pox-ridden hands.

People die in mysterious circumstances, the mystery deepens and everyone is in grave danger.

First off, Terror Creatures from the Grave is in rough shape physically. There are scenes that are too dark and some that are horribly over exposed. I was very worried that watching this movie would have been unbearable, but these scenes are fortunately not too many and most of the movie is okay.

The actors are fine, and the movie is competently shot, but the music is problematic. At times the score is good, but they completely overused a theremin to make the typical ghost sounds. Once you notice how frequently it appears it becomes a lot more distracting than atmospheric.

Compared to most of the Italian Gothic's I have explored lately, Terror Creatures from the Grave has one of the best plots. The central mystery that starts with a letter from a dead man is really cool. The following investigation is a lot of fun, and the horror deepens at a good pace. I don't know if they were unable or unwilling to go further, but I think this movie could have been a real horror classic if only they had done and shown a bit more. The ending falls a bit flat due to this lack of content.

So, do I recommend this movie? To horror fans yes, to others maybe not. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time with Terror Creatures from the Grave, but more omnivorous film fans are probably not going to have that good of a time. Still, I don't want to tell anyone to not watch it. If Terror Creatures from the Grave sounds fun, have a it.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Nightmare Castle

This week I watched:

Nightmare Castle (1965).

There are minor spoilers in the synopsis, but nothing serious.

Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Muller) discovers his wealthy wife Muriel (Barbara Steele) in the arms of the gardener, David (Rik Battaglia). He captures them, tortures them and kills them, but not before Muriel gleefully informs him that she has made her half sister (stepsister?) her sole heir. Stephen extracts their hearts and uses their blood to rejuvenate his housekeeper and lab assistant Solange (Helga Liné), turning her from an old crone to a beautiful young woman.

That done, Stephen marries Jenny (also Barbara Steele), the half sister of Muriel, in order to get the castle and the money. Jenny has spent a lot of time in a clinic for her sanity's sake, and Stephen and Solange plans to drive her insane. But, in order to have a plausible alibi, they invite Jenny's doctor from the clinic, Dr. Derek Joyce (Marino Masé) to stay. This is when things take a very sinister turn.

Okay, spoilers done, not that anything I said isn't either mentioned in the official synopsis or obvious to anyone with half a brain.

Nightmare Castle is a strange movie. Most of it is actually more of a conventional thriller than a Gothic horror movie, but when it does go Gothic, it goes hard.

Everything that is there is pretty good. The music, the acting, the cinematography, its all fine and solid. Some critics at the time called it uninspired, but I think that is more a question of genre fatigue than the fault of Nightmare Castle. This did get me thinking though. The Girl Who Knew Too Much was released in 1963 and Blood and Black Lace in '64. In other words, Mario Bava had given birth to the Giallo genre and it was grabbing all the attention. The same things happened to Hammer Horror although they pushed on until 1979. Dracula isn't that scary once you've seen The Exorcist, and I think the same thing was happening in Italy but a bit earlier. How can a slow burn, black and white Gothic horror movie that is honestly fairly tame compete with full color blood, sex and murder?

But back to Nightmare Castle. The director Mario Caiano who also co-wrote the script made the movie just to be able to work with Barbara Steele and I think he did a good job. When you compare Nightmare Castle to the earlier Steele Gothic's I've talked about, you can tell his passion for his star, but also a, perhaps subconscious, desire to kick it up a notch. We do get a lot of the classic tropes, but the addition of the torture scene, tame as it is, shows in my opinion a shift in both tone and content. Nightmare Castle is a bit nastier than its predecessors, but don't expect anything too dramatic.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, I do. I think Nightmare Castle could appeal to a wider audience than many of its contemporaries. The thriller elements and the horror elements are more main stream than genre pure, which could be more to the taste of the average horror viewer. Nightmare Castle does what it does, and it does it well.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Castle of Blood

I've kept on exploring Italian Gothic Horror with:

Castle of Blood (1964).

Here we meet a young journalist, Alan Foster (Georges Riviere) who takes a bet from Lord Thomas Blackwood (Umberto Raho) that he can't last one night in the Blackwood castle. It is November 2^nd and apparently this is when the dead can walk the earth. Foster is a cynic and completely unafraid so happily accepts a ride to the castle gates. He begins to explore the castle and its grounds, all dusty and ruined. Suddenly he meets a lovely young woman, Elisabeth Blackwood (Barbara Steele) who is very friendly. He meets more people who appear and disappear suddenly, including a scientist, Dr. Carmus (Arturo Dominici) who explains to Foster the horrible danger he is in. Little by little Foster's nerve is worn down until he is struggling for life and sanity against the grim inhabitants of the castle.

Castle of Blood was supposed to be directed by Sergio Corbucci, but he had to bow out after just one week due to scheduling problems. Veteran director Antonio Margheriti took over instead.

Visually Castle of Blood is a treat by using the black and white format to its advantage. The part where Foster arrives at the castle is extremely heavy with darkness pressing in from all sides, creating a suffocating, almost claustrophobic effect. The fact that he is completely unfazed reinforces his cynicism without really trying, which then contrasts nicely with his descent into horror.

The actors are all solid as usual. Steele is a bit underused, but her role is crucial for the plot, and I get why they kept her a bit on the back burner. I enjoyed seeing Arturo Dominici as he played the undead henchman in Black Sunday which set Steele on her Gothic career.

We do need to talk about the music. In most of the other Gothic's the music has been fine, doing its job in the background. Here it varies between a good blend of music and soundscapes that elevate the mood to tunes that are pretty inappropriate for this kind of movie. We don't need jaunty tunes in a castle of terror (alternative title for this movie). A mixed bag in other words.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes if you're a fan of Gothic horror. I enjoyed it a lot, but I get it if Castle of Blood is a bit too dense for casual viewers. Overall there was only one flaw in this movie, and that is the incredibly denseness of our hero. Over and over again the inhabitants of the castle tell him exactly what they want from him, and yet Foster keeps yelling “what do you want from me?”. Maybe an engraved plaque would help him get the message. This was genuinely frustrating, but it was the only real negative in a movie that deserves to stand amongst the giants of the genre.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!