Seek the forbidden

Keith Allison, the dark overlord of Teleport City, has a new bastion in his ongoing quest to fill the internet to absolute bursting with "cinema, sin, and swinging style." It's called Mezzanotte, and Keith is kicking it off in an appropriately stylish manner with a series of reviews of Italian Giallo films. My first contribution is a piece on Luciano Ercoli's The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, a movie whose combination of sexy business, threatening atmosphere, and outlandish mid-century design makes it as Giallo as all get out. Check it out, won't you?

The Savage Hunt of King Stakh (USSR, 1979)

The Wild Hunt is a component of Western folklore that dates back as far as ancient times and spans most of the European continent. While its details change from region to region, its broad outline remains the same: A horrific procession of ghostly, mounted huntsmen -- a collection of restless spirits lead, in most cases, by a fearsome figure from either local legend or history -- that charges across a stormy night’s sky as a harbinger of coming catastrophe. Its influence can even be seen stateside in tales such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the song “Ghost Riders in the Sky”. Just how far it penetrated into Eastern Europe I can’t say, but it was clearly enough to influence Belarusian author Vladzimir Karatkievich’s popular 1964 novel King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, which Karatkievich and director Valeri Rubinchik would later adapt into the film The Savage Hunt of King Stakh.

King Stakh begins just as any gothic thriller wanting to put its best foot forward should: with a stranger seeking shelter from the storm at a gloomy estate whose inhabitants all seem to have a chronic case of the heebie jeebies. Said stranger is Bielarecki (Boris Plotnikov), a young academic who has come to the remote northwestern region of Belarus to study its local legends, and said estate, we learn, is called Marsh Firs. The mistress of the estate is Nadzieja Janowska, who, were this an Antonio Margheritti joint, would be played by Barbara Steele, but who instead is played by the lovely Elena Dimitrova. Much to the consternation of the estate’s manager, Gacievic (Albert Filozov, I think?), Nadzieja tells Bielarecki that, if it’s bogeys he’s looking for, he’s hit the jackpot with Marsh Firs, where, according to her, “there are more ghosts than live people”.

And just as she says, it turns out the estate is troubled by a host of spectral entities, including a ghostly lady in blue and something they call “The Little Man”. But by far the worst of these is King Stakh’s hunt. Stakh, we’re told, was a despot who ruled over the region during the 17th century who was assassinated by an ancestor of the Janowski’s while out on a hunt. That ancestor then strapped the corpses of Stakh and his hunting party to their horses and sent them galloping off into the marsh. Stakh, however, still had enough life left in him to proclaim a curse on the man and all of his descendants. As a result, the ensuing years have seen the Janowskis visited by calamity after calamity, all heralded by the sight of the King’s macabre posse. Such has been the toll that today the only remaining heirs to Marsh Firs are Nadzieja, her uncle Dubotowk, his ward Vardna (lauded Russian stage and screen star Boris Khmelnitsky), and Nadzieja’s widowed aunt, Mrs. Kulsa (a laudably creepy Valentina Shendrikova), who has been driven mad with fear by the ordeal. It also explains the presence in the mansion of an old crone who, when we first see her, appears to be attempting some kind of an exorcism on Nadzieja.

Bielarecki, of course, is a man of science, and initially scoffs at the notion of such apparitions in “the age of steam and electricity”. Yet, once the inhabitants of the mansion start to turn up murdered -- and the local constabulary prove all too eager to write it off to mundane causes -- he becomes obsessed with figuring out just what exactly it is that the Janowskis are really seeing. He becomes even more deeply fixated once he himself starts to experience otherworldly phenomena, speaking of wanting to “feel ghosts with his hands”, and finally, upon personally being chased through the bog by the King and his coterie of mounted phantoms, becomes just as freaked out as everyone else.

As directed by Rubinchik and lensed by Tatyana Loginova, The Savage Hunt of King Stakh luxuriates in gothic atmosphere, putting it in good company with the aforementioned Italian thrillers of Margheritti et al, the AIP Poe films, and Hammer’s horror friendly take on The Hound of the Baskervilles. In contrast to those, however, it also boasts elements of stark modernism. A good example of this can be found in Yevgeni Glebov’s musical score, which alternates between lush romantic themes and an almost industrial minimalism -- while some of the film’s most frightening scenes conspicuously forego any accompaniment at all. The film also shows an affinity with traditional Russian fantasy cinema by embracing a kind of gauzy surrealism, lending the events a dreamy, oft times eroticized quality that’s well suited to the fog enshrouded marshland setting.

All of the above makes King Stakh a film that is, if not especially terrifying, nonetheless unsettling and darkly compelling. The cast, most of whom are charged with presenting varying levels of perturbation, do as fine a job as you’d expect from such a typically staunch ensemble of theater-trained Soviet thespians, taking things just enough over the top to add spark without plunging us over the precipice into camp. If you are a fan of haunted looks -- either giving of receiving them -- this is definitely one worth settling your troubled gaze upon.

Night of the Skull (Spain, 1976)

[This review is part of the M.O.S.S. inaugural Round Table, Skeletons in the Closet.]

There are two unfortunate givens for those like myself who work the unforgiving cult cinema beat on the internet. One is that you will eventually have to review Zombie Lake. The other is that you will eventually have to review a film by Jess Franco. While the first of those trials I have happily put long behind me, the other still looms ominously on the horizon. You see, because Franco only wrote the screenplay for Zombie Lake -- and because acceptance of that fact requires that you also sign off on the idea that Zombie Lake had a screenplay at all -- you can’t count fulfillment of the first given as a twofer.

Of course, this also means that, as it is with Zombie Lake, an awful lot of people have written about Jess Franco films on the internet. And because the internet is known to conduct snark at a rate and volume twice that of praise, a loud plurality of that writing is pretty negative. This makes the prospect of addressing one of his films all the more a subject of dread for those of us yet to cross the threshold. Yet, for me, I sensed the time had come when my contribution to the inaugural M.O.S.S. Roundtable -- an examination of the lofty cinematic tradition of grown adults running around in skull masks and skeleton suits -- came due. With my usual investigatory rigor, I ran searches of the terms “skull” and “skeleton” on Netflix and voila!: Franco’s 1976 thriller Night of the Skull (aka La Noche de los Asesinos) leapt out at me like… well, like a scary Halloween skeleton, of the type, perhaps, that you might buy at Walgreens.

Of course, it has to be said that Franco has his share of fans along with his detractors. And for them I think part of his appeal is the same juvenile impulsiveness that makes his films so hit or miss. As a director, Franco follows his muse wherever it takes him, no matter how well that serves the goal of making a film that is coherent or even watchable. And when the inspiration isn’t there, he has no problem with handling things in the most perfunctory and slapdash manner possible. (Also, as Keith has pointed out, Franco is a notorious lone wolf, which removes from the equation any equal collaborators who might rein in his more imprudent tendencies.) These indications of a personal artistic vision make it difficult to dismiss Franco as a hack, even if the term “auteur” rolls no more easily off the tongue where he’s concerned. And it can’t be denied that his approach often bears some interesting results, albeit ones that frequently have to be sifted from a surrounding preponderance of narrative flotsam.

As for Night of the Skull, it’s a mystery, which on first consideration would not seem like the best fit for Franco’s elliptical style. But when one considers the flaky internal logic and dreamlike atmosphere of the typical Italian giallo, there’s room for optimism that things might work out okay for those of us obligated to watch it. However, Night of the Skull, while boasting some gialli-like elements, is in fact more of a gothic mystery in the “old dark house” vein, which renders thing a little dicier. For starters, the Victorian setting largely prohibits those jazzy flourishes that are so often the saving grace of a Franco film, such as his signature psychedelic nightclub sequences.

What Night of the Skull does have, though -- and which makes it ideal for my purposes –- is a guy running around in a skull mask who is both heavily featured and central to the film’s plot. This gentleman is our killer, who is offing his victims in accordance with a passage, detailing the punitive nature of the four elements, which is found in a made up tome called “The Book of the Apocalypse”. These thematic murders require quite a stretch in some cases, one that Franco doesn’t really seem bothered to make. For instance, one victim, tied up on a rock by the seaside, writhes around for a bit before expiring unconvincingly. Later she is said to have been “killed by the force of the wind”, even though it didn’t appear to be all that windy at the time and, barring being strapped to a jet engine or the wind bearing large chunks of architecture as in a tornado, that can’t actually happen.

All of the aforementioned murders are filmed in dim lighting and are virtually bloodless, which is one of Night of the Skull's primary disappointments. On top of that, the sex and nudity is near non-existent, even though the ever-willing Lina Romay, Franco’s partner and muse, is on hand in a central role. Instead, the director languorously rolls out a “greedy heirs get theirs” drama that is, despite some unexpected turns, pretty pedestrian. We start out with the murder of Marian family patriarch Lord Archibald (Angel Menendez), which is followed by the inevitable gathering of the deceased’s assorted scheming and ungrateful siblings, spouses and offspring for the reading of the will.

Among this group we have most of the usual suspects, including a couple of twitchy servants (Luis Barboo and Yelena Samarina), a dissolute black sheep cousin (William Berger) and the alcoholic second wife (Maribel Hidalgo) who is hated by all and sundry. In a more unusual turn, there are also among the bereaved a his-and-hers set of adult illegitimate children (Lina Romay and Antonio Mayans), who, previously unknown to each other, begin an affair that is only by a later plot twist (spoiler!) revealed to be not incestuous, even though that comes too late to prevent the “ick” factor from setting in. Once the blood begins to tastefully and moderately spill, we also have the arrival on the scene of Major Oliver Brooks (Alberto Dalbes), a renowned Scotland Yard inspector whose jurisdictional authority is a bit suspect given that the film is putatively set in Louisiana -- and more obviously shot in Spain.

Night of the Skull’s credits claim as its inspiration John Willard’s The Cat and the Canary, while in turn mistakenly crediting that famous stage play to Edgar Allan Poe (other sources suggest that Franco was inspired by a book by Edgar Wallace, which sounds a little closer to the mark). Whatever its patrimony, the story manages to be both complex and internally consistent -- with a resolution that, if not too surprising, at least makes sense – and if that’s all you ask from your mysteries, you’ll be happy. As for its direction, looking on the plus side, Franco does a professional job of laying out all of the various plot mechanics in a coherent and linear fashion. On the negative side, a coherent and linear Jess Franco, in my experience, is a Jess Franco who’s not all that invested, and hence the film lacks the unpredictable digressions and directorial quirks that might have otherwise made it less sleepy viewing.

I’ll admit that it’s a little disappointing that, having resigned myself to riding the wave of Franco’s insanity, I came upon him in such a restrained mood with this film. Yet it’s just such unpredictable dips and lapses, set alongside the manic peaks and detours, that have earned him his reputation as the frustrating and maddening director that he is. Consistency is one thing, but it perhaps speaks more highly of Franco that, whenever one dips blindly into his massive 180 film filmography, one truly doesn’t know what they’re going to come up with. In the case of Night of the Skull, what one comes up with is a fairly boring and conventional film, but the fact that that in itself is somehow shocking speaks volumes.

Lake of the Dead (Norway, 1958)

Norway has recently made itself a flashing beacon on the cult cinema map with films like Troll Hunter and Norwegian Ninja, which have both been very favorably reviewed by, among others, my colleague Keith over at Teleport City. Never one to be above bandwagon jumping, I thought I’d pipe in with a review of an example of Norwegian genre cinema from the past, undeterred by the fact that I know little about the country beyond that it is where some of Aqua are from. Fear not, however, that I will be padding out this review with Aqua-related trivia –- though I will say that Lene’s solo album was criminally underappreciated, especially that song about how it’s your duty to shake that booty, be it small, fat, or round and juicy.

Lake of the Dead, aka De Dødes Tjern, is actually a quite well known and highly regarded film -- in Norway, that is, where, in 2001, it was judged to be one of the five best Norwegian films of all time by a panel of 101 critics. This puts Norway well ahead of its neighbor Denmark, where a panel twice as large judged the film Reptilicus to be that country’s greatest cultural export. (Note: totally not true.) The film is based on a popular book by poet and novelist André Bjerke. Bjerke, in fact, appears in the film. But, in a very forward looking bit of serpentine meta-ness, he portrays the character of Mørk, a literary critic, while another actor, Henki Kolstad, portrays a novelist by the name of Bernhard Borge, a pseudonym used by Bjerke to write his mystery novels, who, in the film, writes a book based on the film’s events. (Wes Craven, eat your heart out.)

This aside, the character who is truly central to Lake of the Dead, as played by the actor Erling Lindahl, is Kai Bugge, the sleuthing psychologist whom Bjerke made a recurring protagonist in his stories. Bugge is basically the personification of Bjerke’s abiding interest and faith in the power of Freudian psychoanalysis, which, in 1942, when the novel was conceived, would have been a lot more radical a stance than it would be today, when it would likely come off as somewhat reactionary. Being the voice of rational science, Bugge sits back and observes while the other characters jump to rash conclusions about the events happening around them, though he is always happy to step forward and patiently cast doubt upon their less enlightened opinions.

Happily, Lake of the Dead is much more of a real mystery than a whodunit, and while Bugge does eventually -- through using tools of his trade like dream analysis, hypnosis, and seeing everything as being vaguely dirty -- put forward a prosaic solution to the central puzzle, other, more unsettling questions are left tantalizingly unresolved.

The film starts, like so many scary tales both good and bad, with a group of friends heading off to a remote cabin in the woods for some much needed R&R. These friends, however, might be a little more long in the tooth than what you’re accustomed to, consisting of the middle-aged Bugge, the author Borge and his wife Sonja (Bjørg Engh), the critic Mørk, and the lawyer Gran (Georg Richter) and his wife Liljan (played by André Bjerke’s real life wife, the actress Henny Moan). It is Liljan whose brother, Bjørn, owns the cabin, and, as the group makes their way by train to the location, she frets over the fact that she has been unable to reach him.

Sure enough, upon arriving at the cabin, the group finds that Bjørn is nowhere to be seen, and soon discover evidence pointing to the likelihood that he walked into the nearby lake and drowned himself. This conclusion is bolstered by some eerie folklore surrounding the place, involving a murder and subsequent haunting at the cabin, and a mysterious undertow that has caused a number of people to be presumably drawn to their deaths beneath the lake’s surface. All of the guests divide up into separate camps of opinion on the matter, with Liljan accepting the verdict of suicide, Mørk leaning toward a supernatural explanation, and Gran suspecting foul play. Bugge, of course, sagely withholds judgment, but is not above making cryptic statements that shift the mystery from what happened to Bjørn to whatever it is Bugge thinks happened to Bjorn. Meanwhile, the troubled Liljan begins to show signs of herself being irresistibly drawn toward the lake.

While Lake of the Dead has all of the traditional means of creating spooky atmosphere at it’s disposal -- Gunnar Sønstevold’s ominous orchestral score, Ragnar Sørensen’s moody, black & white cinematography -- cinematographer turned director Kåre Bergstrøm achieves the most through his use of stillness and silence, emphasizing the otherworldly calm and isolation of his characters’ surroundings. In fact, as the movie progresses, and we become more and more convinced of the lake’s malevolent pull, nothing unnerves quite so much as the frequent, twilit shots of it’s unmoving, leaf strewn surface. At the same time, the director is deft at conjuring up images of creeping, insidious power, like that of Henny Moan, in her flowing white nightgown, mutely sleepwalking her way through the brush as she makes her way toward the beckoning lake -- or, for that matter, the stop motion animated crow that, at one point, taunts the cast from its perch atop the cabin’s chimney.

All in all, Lake of the Dead is a hugely enjoyable film. It combines all the fun of a well constructed potboiler with a haunting lyricism that points toward far more murky depths beneath its polished surface. Viewed in the wee hours, and in an appropriately receptive state, it could definitely give you a deliciously good scare. As such, it’s easy to see why it holds such a hallowed place in the cinematic history of its country of origin. All the more impressive is how, in a manner sadly atypical of its genre, it manages to accomplish its humble aims with such subtlety and nuance.

Very much unlike this: