The 2000 Fright Film Festival
A Macabre Cornucopia of Horror Treats 
for Halloween on DVD and VHS
Compiled by Eddie Cockrell, 6 October 2000

Film history is literally being rewritten with the advent of DVD, and nowhere is this more true than in the horror genre. After last year’s list, which one wag called "horror’s greatest hits," this year’s edition of the Fright Film Festival mixes a healthier dose of eclecticism into the roster. This is possible because of the restoration and refurbishment of numerous classic and cult titles.  While the majority of these films are available in the DVD format, many also exist in tape versions and some are even still available on laserdisc. All year of release notations refer to 2000 unless otherwise indicated.

The great Peter Cushing stars in this 1969 film produced by Tigon, which attempted to give Hammer Films a run for their money in the scarefilm genre back in the late Sixties-early Seventies. Cushing is in his stalwart defender of humanity mode, here, and the creature who is wantonly terrorizing the countryside this time is supposed to be some sort of giant moth. This is not really giving very much away, as the film exists in a giddy state which alternates between torpor and confusion. Robert Flemyng plays the mysterious research scientist, and Wanda Ventham his equally mysterious daughter. Previously appeared on video in a grainy version which looked like it had been tampered with by other hands. The DVD has no additional features.

Rushing to continue his research into human transplanting at a secret mountain retreat, driven and risk-taking surgeon Bill Cortner (Herb Evers) has a fiery road accident, in which fiancée Jan (Virginia Leith) is accidentally decapitated. Ever resourceful, he hooks up her noggin to some tubes and wires on a folding table in his basement laboratory. While the suave doc’s out trolling the local bars and beauty pageants for a new body (hubba, hubba!), Jan plays mind games with loquacious and tightly-wrapped assistant Kurt (Leslie Daniel), whose withered arm is testament to failed transplants thus far. Kurt’s deathly afraid of a monster in the closet across the room (a by-product of more experiments gone awry), and, sure enough, when Bill returns with a suitable victim, Jan coaxes the thing out and all hell breaks loose. Kudos to a Bloomington, Indiana-based outfit called Synapse Films for restoring The Brain That Wouldn’t Die to its full cheesy glory, restoring some of the black-and-white gore to this late night TV staple, which scared horror fans of a Certain Age witless back in the day but can now be appreciated for the talky yet creepy genre laff riot it is. Author Bryan Senn’s liner notes document the struggles of first-time writer-director Joseph Green, whose low-budget triumph ranks alongside Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985) as the best head-in-a-dish movie ever made.

Available for years via grainy, abridged film prints and tapes, the influential American independent horror film Carnival of Souls makes a triumphant debut on DVD via The Criterion Collection. After emerging from the Kansas River three hours after the car in which she was drag racing hurtled off a bridge, Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) returns to her job at a Lawrenceville organ manufacturer, only to be offered a position playing in a Salt Lake City church. On her way there by car, the icy and distant Mary is haunted by the image of "The Man" (director Harold "Herk" Harvey) a white-faced and wide-eyed apparition who acts threateningly towards her without actually attacking her. In Salt Lake City she spurns the advances of housemate John (Sidney Berger) and is drawn inexorably to a huge abandoned lakeside amusement park, where she is ultimately sucked into a netherworld of dancing ghouls. The film was shot on location in and around the spectacular Saltair pavilion (since destroyed by fire), and Harvey’s odd yet gentle eye combines with John Clifford’s elusive yet solid screenplay to create a mood that’s been compared to Wild Strawberries-era Ingmar Bergman and the dreamstates of Jean Cocteau. For the special 2-DVD edition of Carnival of Souls, Criterion’s outdone themselves, creating a set not so much to be looked at as lived with. Disc one features a pristine transfer of the seventy-three-minute theatrical cut of the film; a positively surreal forty-five-minute block of outtakes and rushes (accompanied by Gene Moore’s haunting organ score); an illustrated history of Saltair; a locally-produced TV documentary on the 1989 reunion of the cast and crew (the film was reissued to some acclaim that year); and a 1999 tour of the Kansas locations. Disc two includes the director’s cut of the film (restoring five minutes of non-essential yet interesting footage); printed interviews with Harvey, Clifford and Hilligoss; and, as a crowning jewel, an hour of excerpts from films produced by Centron Corporation, the Kansas-based industrial and educational film company for which the director and writer worked for over three decades (and which are alone worth the price of admission).

In an immaculately creepy 1980s Toronto, twin brothers Elliot and Beverly Mantle (Jeremy Irons) let their gynecological practice slip away as they compete for the love of flaky actress Claire (Genevieve Bujold) and sink slowly into an abyss of pills and jealousy. David Cronenberg’s adaptation of the book "Twins" by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland (itself based on a true story) is at once cold and seductive, a fascinating game of cat and mouse between bipolar doppelgangers that is finally suffocated by its own fascination with technology and formalism. Irons’ performance(s?) as the aggressive Elliot and timid Beverly is/are spectacular, convincing the viewer within moments that two people occupy the same frame. Criterion’s DVD edition (which is apparently becoming somewhat of a rarity in the marketplace) is a pristine digital transfer, featuring the electronic press kit, demonstrations of the "twinning" effects, a still gallery of the bizarre instruments and commentary from Cronenberg, Irons, editor Ronald Sanders, production designer Carol Spiers and Suschitzky (whose extensive genre credits  include The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Empire Strikes Back, Krull, Naked Lunch, Crash and Mars Attacks!). Although not issued by Criterion, a new DVD edition of Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone (from the novel by Stephen King) was released September 19.

Variety called it "the strangest film ever offered for theatrical release," while Preston Sturges assessed it "a work of art," hastening to add that "it stirred my blood and purged my libido." Walter Winchell urged moviegoers to "take the kids! (the ones you want to get rid of)," while the normally staid French cinéaste journal Cahiers du Cinéma concluded "to what degree this film is a work of art, we are not certain but, in any case, it is strong stuff." "It" is the long-unseen 1953 psychoshocker Dementia, and if one can conceive of a world where avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren (Meshes of the Afternoon) had directed Touch of Evil then one would be in the right ballpark. A young woman, "The Gamin" (Adrienne Barrett, writer-producer-director John Parker’s secretary) wanders a mysterious urban netherworld—actually the same Venice, California main drag where Orson Welles would later shoot the aforementioned Touch of Evil -- tortured by an overweight man (Bruno Ve Sota, looking a lot like Welles) and her own bizarre thoughts. George Antheil’s music features the atmospheric wailings of Marni Nixon (then-wife of music director Ernest Gold), who later dubbed, among others, Audrey Hepburn’s singing voice in My Fair Lady. Rejected by censors no fewer than ten times, the Dementia was trimmed slightly and subsequently released with a ghoulish, meaningless voiceover narration by a young Ed McMahon; Kino Video’s new edition pairs the two versions with exhaustive background information in a remarkably stylish collection, considering this source material couldn’t have been stored very well to begin with. A bonafide curio in the history of the horror genre, the fifty-seven-minute Dementia is an ideal choice to have on a monitor in the background of that swingin’ Halloween party.

In Flesh for Frankenstein, the single-minded baron (Udo Kier) conducts experiments in his hangar-like basement laboratory while the frustrated baroness (Monique van Vooren) entertains a New Yawk-accented shepherd (Warhol mainstay Joe Dallesandro) in her parlor. Blood For Dracula finds Kier as the Count -- surrounded by much of the same cast -- wandering the countryside in search of virgin blood. Yes, those are directors Vittorio de Sica and Roman Polanski in the latter title as, respectively, an aristocrat and peasant. At once shallow and hypnotic, Paul Morrissey’s pair of Hollywood genre spoofs combine ineptly enthusiastic acting with often very funny tongue-in-cheek situations, larded over with lush production values and turgid, repetitive orchestral scores by Claudio Gizzi that are quite funny in and of themselves. The remarkably good special effects are by Carlo Rambaldi, who went on to create the alien being in Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession (see below) and the much cuter title traveler in E.T. Although billed initially as "Andy Warhol presents…," there have been theories floated over the years that both movies were directed not by Morrissey (a Warhol disciple) but by Antonio Margheriti, who under the name Anthony Dawson directed 1984’s Code Name: Wild Geese and others. Criterion’s editions are the complete letterboxed versions, each with commentaries by Morrissey and Kier. Both Flesh and Blood were first released in 3-D, which explains some otherwise odd blocking choices and camera placements.

A technically accomplished yet dramatically manipulative imitation of the already clichéd Steven Spielberg-helmed big lizard movies on which many of its key personnel toiled (and for which special effects-whiz-turned director Michael Lantieri won an Oscar), Komodo is a good example of the modern B picture, a good-looking yet cheaply produced and relatively humorless Jurassic Park knockoff for the undiscriminating video (or DVD) hound. Jill Hennessey stars as a psychologist who accompanies a traumatized young man (Kevin Zegers) back to the island where the title dragons ate his family, only to find a whole mess of ‘em ravenous from the lack of food due to a rapacious oil company. Shot in Australia, the film’s general level of concentration can be summed up by the lack of accuracy in the story: the DVD case says it takes place off the coast of Florida, a title card on the print says North Carolina, and one of the producers in the production featurette says South Carolina. No matter, for the real stars of the picture are the dragons themselves, a cross between Phil Tippett animatronic creations and computer imagery that slither and drool and are lightning-fast when the story calls for it and slow as molasses when a principal cast member is endangered. As glossy as the finished product is, at some point the astute viewer will wonder, "she left Law and Order for this?"

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival (though passed over for the next year’s Foreign Film Oscar in favor of Czechoslovkia’s The Shop on Main Street) , Kwaidan is a meticulous, gorgeous and spellbinding realization of four traditional Japanese ghost stories from the writings of Greek-Irish author Lafcadio Hearn, who became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 1895 and changed his name to Yakumo Koizumi. Its director, Masaki Kobayashi, told an interviewer at the time that he was after an "exploration of formal beauty… [my] main intention in the film was to explore the juxtaposition between man’s material nature and his spiritual nature, the realm of dream and aspiration… I also enjoyed conveying the sheer beauty of traditional Japan." Kobayashi’s first color film in a successful career begun in 1952, the ultra-stylized Kwaidan was filmed slowly and deliberately (sometimes only three finished shots a day) entirely on sets constructed in an abandoned airplane hangar and painted by the director himself. In "Black Hair," a fickle samurai receives a comeuppance, while "The Woman of the Snow" tells a cautionary tale of secrets and fate. Most critics agree the third segment is the keeper, a gory tale of singing and ghosts called "Hoichi the Earless." The film concludes with a story about stories,  "In a Cup of Tea." Again, The Criterion Collection has performed an invaluable service to the collector, presenting a widescreen digital transfer from original 35mm material with new English subtitles. Breathtaking packaging of a breathtaking film. On a related subject, the great Toru Takemitsu’s score for Kwaidan is available on CD, although actually locating a copy may take some effort.

The vampire legend gets a novel twist in Martin, which stands today as writer-director George A. Romero’s best movie without a zombie in it (and that includes the upcoming Bruiser). The title teenager, played by John Amplas, has the killing of pretty young women and the drinking of their blood down to a science, complete with a travel bag that includes lock picks and syringes. But when he moves to Pittsburgh to live with his uncle Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) and cousin Christina, his lifestyle is put to the test: is Martin a real vampire or just a very sick young man? Still a year away from his masterpiece to date, the incredible Dawn of the Dead, Romero exhibits much of the same eye for detail and rhythmic on which that classic relies. Anchor Bay’s full-frame DVD edition (it looks to have been shot that way) includes a trailer and commentary track featuring Romero, Amplas and Savini (working with the director for the first time and making his screen debut in a small role).

Far from what one critic describes as "the first snuff film we’d seen," Michael Powell’s bold and chilling Peeping Tom -- certainly the most pure work of cinematic art on this list -- destroyed the director’s illustrious career when first released three months prior to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho but stands today as among the most fearless and perceptive psychological horror rides ever filmed. Cameraman Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) stalks and kills women, filming them at the moment of their death. As sweetly naïve Anna Massey slowly uncovers his secret, she learns that his behavior was the result of treatment by his doctor father (played by Powell and real-life son Columba in Mark’s supposed home movie footage) on the nature and meaning of fear in children. Criterion’s excellent DVD issue, struck with some additional tweaking off their 1994 laserdisc restoration, includes an audio commentary by filmmaker and theorist Laura Mulvey (reprinted in the meticulous liner notes) and the original theatrical trailer. But the real value-added attraction is the inclusion of Christopher Rodley’s probing and respectfully whimsical 1997 British television documentary A Very British Psycho, narrated by Saskia Reeves, that profiles World War II coding whiz-turned-screenwriter Leo Marks and the gestation, making and aftermath of Peeping Tom in the British film industry. Highlights include Marks’ remembrance of the first press show ("critics saw the film mid-morning…some of them were sober") and an interview with the now-grown Columba, who can’t seem to face the camera and dismisses the furor by saying "it’s only a movie, isn’t it?"  Featuring appearances by Boehm and Massey cleverly juxtaposed into clips from the film, it’s among the better behind-the-scenes documentaries yet made. Peeping Tom is a must for any serious film collection.

In an early 1980s Cold War Berlin both spotless and seemingly deserted, married couple Anna (Isabelle Adjani) and Mark (Sam Neill), in the throes of a messy breakup, sink further into psychosexual madness when he discovers that her affair with tanned fop Heinrich (Heinz Bennent) is really a cover for regular liaisons in a deserted Kreuzberg flat with a blood-soaked alien. There’s nothing quite like Andrzej Zulawski’s gory, overheated and -- believe it or not -- faintly autobiographical cult item (just listen to his illuminating commentary), yet the Possession seen in America has always been a pale reflection of itself, more of a glimpse of a movie than a movie proper. Anchor Bay’s stunning DVD edition of this cult curio restores nearly forty-five minutes to the truncated and radically re-edited version released stateside, clearing up much of the narrative murkiness, fleshing out the astonishingly bold performances of the two leads and giving the image a clarity unseen at any point in its troubled, stormy life (Michael Feisher’s sleeve notes chart some of the before-and-after edits). Bennent, whose son David played the lead in Volker Schlondorff’s Oscar-winning The Tin Drum, comes across like a crazed Anthony Hopkins, while Margit Carstensen (a regular in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s stock company) plays a friend of Anna’s who meets an untimely end. While not for all tastes (fair warning about the electric knife and subway corridor scenes), Possession is strong and uncategorizable stuff.

The third in the series of three-tape box sets celebrating, uh, some sort of "Year of the Simpsons" promotion, this collection is not -- repeat, not -- a compendium of the much-anticipated annual "Treehouse of Horror" episodes aired each Halloween. Having said that, tape one has the Treehouse of Horror III episode from 1992 ("A Clown without Pity, "King Homer," and the great George Romero tribute "Dial ‘Z’ for Zombies") and ToH V from 1994, the one with that spoof of The Shining called "The Shinning" ("shhh, you want to get sued?" someone says). Tape two has "Black Widower" and "Cape Feare," both featuring the sinister antics of "Sideshow Bob" Terwilliger (voiced by Kelsey Grammer). Tape three includes "Bart Sells His Soul" (the one where he tricks the church organist into performing Iron Butterfly’s "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida") and "Lisa the Skeptic" (she finds the angel fossil). Dubious choices aside, other than the pinpoint social satire of each and every episode, much of the fun comes from being able to freeze-frame every minute or two to catch the visual pun or verbal aside. At the front of each tape is a two-minute compendium of the opening credit "couch gags" that manages to slip in another Stanley Kubrick gag. Second anniversary note to producers: why not put all the "Treehouse of Horror" episodes on one DVD -- and speaking of DVD’s, when can we expect each season on its own disc…? 

A crusading young reporter (Jennifer Salt) thinks she witnesses a murder in the apartment of beautiful model Danielle (Margot Kidder). One of the benefits of being out of circulation for many years is that a film (which, of course, doesn’t change) can have a new impact on critics and the public (who, of course, are constantly changing). Such is the case with Brian De Palma’s Sisters, his first high profile feature, which was jeered at the time as a slavish rip-off of Alfred Hitchcock but impresses today as a remarkably fresh and inventive stylistic exercise in its own right (the plot summary above is vague on purpose). Sure, the movie owes more than a passing nod to Psycho and Rear Window specifically (aided by Bernard Herrmann’s fine score), but De Palma’s exhilarating use of that split-screen technique as well as Margot Kidder’s creepy performance add up to a genuinely frightening experience. The new DVD edition from The Criterion Collection features a handsome digital transfer (the movie didn’t look this good a quarter century ago); the 1966 "Life" magazine article about Russian Siamese Twins that inspired the director; a huge gallery of production stills; De Palma’s period "Village Voice" essay on working with Herrmann; and an unfortunately pompous 1973 print interview with the filmmaker ("By and large it makes me angry to see a good, major director subordinate the content of an expository scene to style so that you can’t tell what’s going on and who’s doing what to whom," he says, thus predicting his recent misfire Mission to Mars). It’s good to have this pivotal early 1970s horror film back in circulation. 

"Please watch carefully," Winnipeg-born filmmaker Guy Maddin admonished potential viewers in the program note for The Heart of the World, the five-minute tribute to Russian silent film that for many attendees was the best single work at the recently-completed Toronto International Film Festival. Much the same can be said for Maddin’s first feature, the sinister and surreal 1988 Tales From the Gimli Hospital. While not a horror film per se, Tales so completely envelops the viewer in the turn-of-the-century title town, reeling from the effects of a smallpox epidemic ("a Gimli we no longer know," someone says), that the melodramatic competition between two patients becomes a life-and-death struggle comparable to the meditative and visually striking works of David Lynch, Luis Bunuel and F.W. Murnau. A blend of the new and old, complete with Icelandic traditions both accurate and invented, Tales From the Gimli Hospital is also available in a DVD edition that includes Maddin’s 1986 short The Dead Father and 1988 work Hospital Fragment. For those hooked on Maddin’s unique worldview, Kino Video’s day-and-date DVD release of his subsequent Careful (to be reviewed in the October video column) includes an hour-long documentary on the director and his career.

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