Pretty deranged

I just learned that Tobe Hooper has died at the age of 74. You might not know who that is, but I'm sure you have heard of his most famous movie: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

In a sense it's ironic because I intended to talk about a movie tied to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, due to the shared source of inspiration.

Movies like Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs and today's feature, are all inspired by or based on, the grave robbing, cannibalistic serial killer; Ed Gein.

Today's feature is Deranged (1974).

I have previously seen this movie, but thought I should re-watch it, and I'm glad I did. It's better than I remembered.

The story in a nutshell concerns Ezra, a man raised by his very old testament mother. When she dies, his mind breaks from loneliness and he starts robbing graves, ultimately graduating to murder.

It would be easy to dismiss this as yet another slasher flick with a killer who has mommy issues, but that would be wrong.

First off, the film actually does a good job of making Ezra more sad than vile. Yes, he is creepy and horrible, but you get to see why and that's important. You can't just dismiss him if you feel even a little bit sorry for him.

Secondly, the violence is toned down a great deal, so that it doesn't overwhelm the atmosphere. You see, the atmosphere is amazing here. The gloomy winter landscape, the dilapidated farm, and the music. The music deserves a mention, as it's ingeniously church music. Hymns without vocals adds the perfect feeling of the influence Ezra's mother still has on him from beyond the grave. Well, the house to be exact. He's a grave robber after all. The gore is muted but the creepy corpses scattered everywhere are all in your face. Keep this in mind if you intend to see this film.

Ultimately, Deranged is not an amazing movie, but it's creepy and realistic, at least more so than it's more famous cousin, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If you think Deranged has gone too far, read a little about what Ed Gein actually did, and you'll quickly realize that this movie has actually toned down a great deal of what happened.

This is an underrated horror movie and no mistake. It does what it does very well, and I'd even go so far as to say horror fans really should see it. Non horror fans should probably give it a miss though, unless watching badly preserved corpses having dinner is your thing.

Until next time, have a wonderful week!

What a weird Monday

So, an hour ago, a guy showed up at my door and filled my bathroom with smoke. Sounds weird, I know but there is a reason for it.
Our downstairs neighbours were apparently getting traces of cigarette smoke in their batkroom, which would indicate that the airvents in the house might have a minor problem. Thus they have to trace how the air moves, etc. etc.

The take away from my bizarre little tale is that I had to get up at an absolutely ungodly hour, just in case. You don't want to be stumbling out of bed at the same time some guy walks through your door, you know?

So as a result, my brain is absolutely hammered, an as you can probably guess, I'm going to cheat a little.

What I have for you today is Scottish stand up comedy:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRIQL4lvIqU

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7BMabEPwVU

Enjoy, and hopefully I can bring you a proper entry next time. Until then, have a great week!

Making crime pay

Hi and welcome back to Eccentric Spheres.

Just a quick one today, as I have a lot to be getting on with.

I stumbled across a documentary about the making of one of my favourite films of all time, Goodfellas, and figured I'd share it with you guys.
But of course, one measly video isn't really enough so I found a couple of others as well, namely The Godfather trilogy and Casino.

Please enjoy, and we'll see wach other again next week!

Goodfellas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bbzUZuxEB8

Casino: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ58ukQ2Vcs

Godfather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuEnjDaiEXQ

Scary ships and spooky cities.

Today we're continuing on last weeks theme of exploring old horror films.

We did four films last time, which I think is a bit too much, so this week we're experimenting with two.

Our number one entry is Death Ship (1980). This small movie stars some pretty famous faces, most notably George Kennedy and Richard Crenna. What we have here, is a pretty typical haunted house story, except it is set on a rusty, creepy ship. I could explain the story, but it's too convoluted and odd. To be honest, the ship is the best part of the movie anyway. It's an underused setting, and it's genuinely spooky. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is weak. I won't say bad, but definitely weak. The horror parts of the script make no sense what so ever, and the characters are pretty bland. One of the characters, a young boy, seems to exists only to go to the bathroom. I'm not kidding people, in a 91 minute film, this kid needs the toilet three times. Was the scriptwriter drunk?

Overall, Death Ship is a middle of the road horror movie. There are many worse out there, but also many better. Worth watching for the theme, or for the sake of completionism. Oh, and don't confuse it with Ghost ship (2002), as that movie is abysmal.

The second entry is Nightmare City (1980), by Umberto Lenzi. In case you're not in the know, Lenzi is one of the big names in Italian horror cinema. So my interest was peaked when I found this. It didn't take very long for my interest to curl up and fall asleep. The biggest flaw in Nightmare City is that it's boring. I won't say it's bad, but if you say so, I won't argue too much.

The story revolves around these zombies, except they're not really zombies. They're people who have been exposed to some sort of radiation, that gives them superhuman strength and endurance. They also desperately need to drink fresh blood, so they're sort of radioactive-vampire-zombie-psychos? Oh, and their faces get all blackened and bloated so that you can tell who's a bad guy. Then, somehow, they infect others, who start killing to get blood, and so on.

This film has three interesting points. 1. It's considered the first movie with rage (or fast) zombies. 2. The rad-zombies use tools and weapons. 3. It's being remade by Tom Savini, the effect maestro. Maybe he can save this train-wreck of a film.

Overall, watch this film only from an academic film history point of view.

That's it for this time. With any luck I'll have some good movies for you soon. We're going to have to see, won't we? Until then, have a great week!

A Creepy Quartet

I have yet again dipped my toe in the vast sea of old school horror cinema.

The funny thing is, some of these old films can be quite good, even though they really are pretty bad. I know that makes little sense, but some of them have a certain quality to them that comes from a mixture of passion and ingenuity. I don't want to sound all hipstery and “everything used to be better”, but they couldn't rely on cheap digital effects and overly dark scenes, back then. Something many modern films have in abundance. And don't get me started on shaky-cam...

Anyway, first up is The Haunted Palace (1963), by Roger Corman, starring the inimitable Vincent Price. It's essentially The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, by H.P. Lovecraft, but toned down. The film was billed as one of Corman's Poe movies, but the only Poe in it is a poem. It's pretty standard fare for the time, that is gothic, overly dramatic and all shot in a studio.

I saw it back in the 80's and didn't care for it, but now, I found it has a wonderful old charm about it. If you're into 60's velvet and paint style horror, do give it a watch.

Next up is Psychomania a.k.a. The Death Wheelers (1973). Here we have a gang of bored young people, who get their kicks driving their bikes fast and harassing the townsfolk. Their leader Tom, finds a way to come back from the dead and when he actually succeeds, he urges his gang to follow suit. For some reason you are indestructible if you return from the grave like this. Then stuff happens.

What makes this film worth mentioning, is that they aren't zombies or vampires, or anything like that. The movie does it's own thing and I like that. All things considered, I can't recommend this. Sure, there are worse films out there, but also so many that are better.

Dr.Terror's House of Horrors (1965) looks and feels like a Hammer Production, but it is in fact not. It's produced by Amicus Productions, who made several anthology films like this. A group of men share a train carriage, and have their fortunes told, leading into their own segments. It felt like a prototype for better films of it's kind that came later. The stories vary in quality from lousy to passable, but what makes this movie stand out is the cast; Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Donald Sutherland are the most famous, but almost everyone is a famous face in British cinema. It's also the only film I can recall where Christopher Lee is terrified. All in all an okay movie, but not that good.

Finally, we get to Terror Train (1980). This is the best film on the list by far. A group of graduating college students partying on a train get killed off, one by one. The killers takes the costumes of his latest victims as he stalks them on the train. It's for the most part pretty standard fare, but a few things need mentioning. First of all, it stars David Copperfield in one of his only movie roles. Second, the mood and the setting is really good. Third, and we are heading into spoiler territory here, the film pretty much tells you who the killer is from the start. Yeah, they try to make you doubt it, but it's super obvious. Finally, again minor spoiler, the main star is none other than Jamie Lee Curtis. She had starred in and survived Halloween only two years earlier, and not once did I get the feeling that she was in real danger. I mean, come on, if Michael Myers couldn't kill her, how is this third rate slasher supposed to?

That's it for this time. If you don't want to watch any of the films mentioned above, there are plenty of others to choose from. So until next time, have a great week!

Documentaries and the Flu

Hello there,

In case the title confused you, I'm not talking about documentaries about the flu, but the fact that I have the flu and I've been watching documentaries.

As a consequence of sitting here, filled to the brim with phlegm, I have nothing else for you than to link a couple of really interesting documentaries I watched yesterday.
The first is about Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Lord of Propaganda, based on his diaries. I found it a pretty interesting look into his life.
The second is about Doctor Morell, Hitler's personal physician. it goes over all the insanely illegal (today) drugs he pumped into Hitler on a daily basis.

So, if you're in the mood for a bit of History, have at it. I'm going back to coughing a lot.

Until next time, have a great week!

Goebbels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bic0m3P3a6I
Morell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpStk3N1dSU

The Fifth Cord

Today we're diving back into the world of the Italian cinema of the 70's. A film recommended to me by a friend called The Fifth Cord (1971).

The Fifth Cord is a Giallo, which is Italian for yellow. The Giallo genre are thrillers, sometimes spilling into horror, and possibly with an erotic slant. The name is derived from post fascist era Italian paperback novels of this genre, which had yellow covers. The classic Giallo has a killer with black leather gloves, stalking and killing a bunch of pretty women. Lurid entertainment in other words.

The Fifth Cord is a murder mystery, pure and simple. Well, not that simple as the plot is actually really good. In hindsight, I should have figured out who the killer was, but I was nowhere close. As a Giallo, it's interesting as some but not all, victims are beautiful women. Some victims are men as well.

Plot wise we have the protagonist, Andrea Bild (Franco Nero), a reporter with a drinking problem who tries to figure out who the killer is. The police suspects that it could be him, but it's pretty obvious that it isn't. That's not a spoiler BTW, it's super obvious. The killer keeps on killing, and leaves a glove with fingers removed as a calling card. Every consecutive murder has one more finger removed than the last, leading the police to believe that there will be five murders in total. This is where the title comes from, by the way. I don't get the cord bit either, but the original title is Giornata nera per l'ariete, which translates to Black day for the ram. Go figure.

The cinematography is exceptional, it really is. I could go on gushing about the composition in certain scenes, but just take my word for it.

The music is by none less than Ennio Morricone himself, so that's another feather in the cap. Though it should be said that the intro music will make your ears bleed. It is absolutely ghastly. Once you get past that, it's a fine film.

Obviously, if you're not a fan of films like these, you wont' like it, but if your cinematic omnivore, or you want something a little bit different, go for it.

As an aside, I just learned that the father of the modern zombie movie, George A. Romero has passed on. There are countless films, shows, comics and games that wouldn't be what they are without his original work. Rest in Piece and all that.

Until we see each other next, have a great week!