Exorcismo (1975)

England, as seen through the eyes of Spanish horror filmmakers and fans in the mid-1970s. Ever since upper-class daughter Leila’s (Mercedes Molina aka Grace Mills) boyfriend has returned from Africa (sigh) and started to go with her to proper Satanic orgies, she hasn’t been the same. Her family is flustered by her newly acquired cynicism and grumpiness, her recreational drug use as well as her tendency to be quite uppity. Though, seeing that the family seems to exclusively consist of what you find when you look in the dictionary under “hypocritical bourgeoisie”, her rebellion wouldn’t actually need Satan as a reason.

However, Leila’s behaviour becomes increasingly unhinged, including things that suggest something a little more unnatural than a young woman fed up with her family. Fortunately for that family, they have somehow acquired vicar Adrian Dunning (Paul Naschy) as a family friend, and call him in to take care of spiritual business. Dunning, being much more liberal towards youth culture and changing moral standards than you’d expect, does at first not believe there’s much of occult import going on with Leila at all. Only once a series of mysterious murders of her peers and family starts and the supernatural manifestations become rather more extreme does he start to invoke the powers of his Lord.

Yep, Paul Naschy is playing a – clearly fighting fit – good-natured and thoughtful vicar in Juan Bosch’s Exorcismo (and of course also co-wrote the script), not exactly the sort of thing he did very often. Even more surprising, he’s not playing a vicar who is also beloved by all women as the perfect specimen of manliness, Naschy the writer clearly this time around putting some of the things Naschy the star loved to the side to do the story he has in mind proper justice.

On paper, this is of course just another attempt at riding the coattails of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, but really, for a film called “Exorcism”, there’s very little exorcism action going on here, with the sort of scenes that actual can remind one of the American film having been exiled to the last ten minutes or so. The possession stuff before the actual exorcism is rather more subdued than in the American film. For most of its running time, the Exorcismo plays out more like a giallo crossed with a handful of elements of the Dennis Wheatley style occult thriller (minus Wheatley’s politics), following Dunning’s – every giallo needs an amateur detective – investigation into the murders, Leila’s strange behaviour, and all the dirty secrets of her family. And because they are a bourgeois family in a giallo-alike, they have quite a few of them, and they do indeed fit into the exorcism angle quite well in the end. If this doesn’t sound terribly much like The Exorcist at all to you, you’re absolutely right. It’s not just that these are structurally very different films, either. Tonally, there’s little connecting the two films either, Bosch’s movie lacking the extremely reactionary spirit of the Friedkin film and instead focussing on a rather left-leaning critique of exactly those values the American film holds so dear, and with little genuine interest in religious doctrine. That’s obviously quite a bit more in my boathouse.

Quite a few Spanish horror films of this era, involving Naschy or not, can have a bit of a slapdash feel to it, with dubious pacing and moments where the film tells instead of shows what should be hugely important scenes. To my pleasant surprise, this is not at all the case here, and the narrative – as befits a film with a large mystery element – is actually rather well constructed, with everything the audience should see and hear actually happening in front of it, and a pace that’s perfect 70s mid-tempo. Of course, you can still see some of the film’s budgetary constraints, so some of the sets are cramped, leading to not terribly ideal framing, and some scenes really could have used another take. On the other hand, Bosch does display moments of fine creativity, staging various murders and Dunning’s final confrontation with Satan atmospherically, nodding to German expressionism and using all the colours we want from our 70s horror. It’s often surprisingly effective, which is certainly helped by a fine cast of Spanish actors playing sleazebags, Naschy showing a bit more of his sensitive side, and Molina doing fine work in the writhing, nasty screaming and screeching and evil looks departments.

A special mention should finally go to the satanic orgy sequences that up the sleaze factor a bit, feature nothing authentically occult whatsoever but do recommend themselves by their sheer absurdity as well as the surprising number of guys dressed like Zorro without the hat in them.


If that’s not enough to interest you in Exorcismo, dear imaginary reader, I don’t know what is.

The Killer Wore Gloves (1974)

Original title: La muerte llama a las 10

Peggy Foster (Gillian Hills) hasn’t heard from her live-in boyfriend Michael for quite some time, which not only makes her rather nervous, what with him working as a war correspondent in Saigon, but also sees her money running out quickly. So she rents out the upper flat of the double flat she shares with Michael to one John Kirk Lawford (Bruno Corazzari, I think). Shortly after Lawford arrives, a phone call supposedly coming from Michael (though Peggy can’t seem to actually identify her own boyfriend from his voice, so make of this what you will) lures her to the outskirts of London.

There, a glove-wearing would-be killer attempts to shoot Peggy. Our heroine manages to flee, only to find somebody has jumped to his death from her terrace. She just assumes the corpse is Lawford, and then proceeds to pretend to the police she knows nobody and nothing, and where is this anyway? She also tells them nothing about the attempt on her life, because Peggy is obviously not going to do anything sensible during the course of the movie. While two very rude cops – who clearly and correctly believe that Peggy’s a lying liar who lies – are still trying to get any useful information out of her, another guy calling himself John Kirk Lawford arrives (this would be Ángel del Pozo, unless it’s the other way round) for his room. Things proceed in the same tone and style from here on out, with Peggy acting like an absolute idiot while bizarre characters like her crazy and sleazy neighbour Mr Lewis (Carlos Otero) say threatening and ambiguous stuff to her that barely makes sense, people are murdered, and a bag full of money appears.

Well, you really can’t accuse Juan Bosch’s Spanish-lead giallo The Killer Wore Gloves (which indeed the killer does) of making much sense at all, or most of the time of making any sense whatsoever, perfectly fitting into that part of the giallo genre that doesn’t even construct convoluted and hardly believable plots anymore but instead presents a random series of barely coherent scenes filmed with as much style and vigour as director and money can come up with.

The film makes so little sense – and obviously doesn’t care to - I found myself zoning out of its plot quite early on, instead admiring the cheap yet excellent 70s interior design, Marcello Giombini’s derivative yet great score, Peggy’s fashion-sense (though appreciating it with horror might be the better term here), and all the different ways Gillian Hills comes up with when it comes to looks of wide-eyed panic and confusion. The last reactions are of course perfectly appropriate for the film they are in, and reflect my feelings towards Peggy’s actions during the course of the movie so perfectly, I might be just ready to pretend the film is doing this on purpose, instead of being shoddily written.

I suppose, Peggy might be supposed to think she’s protecting Michael somehow from something or someone but since she has as little clue about the truths of matters around her as any of the film’s viewers, this makes as little sense as the eventual explanation of what’s going on. Not surprisingly, given the tone of the rest of this thing, said explanation doesn’t in fact explain much about the wherefore and why of the suspense scenes, the peculiar people, and the curious happening around our heroine. Like: who threw the cat at her? Well, the assistant director, one supposes, but that’s not exactly a great in-movie explanation. What, exactly were the bad guys thinking when they came up with their plan? Did they know everybody else would act idiotic or crazy or both? Was something in the water? Who actually murdered all these people? And so on, and so forth.

So, obviously, The Killer Wore Gloves isn’t exactly a film for anyone who wants their mysteries to make even the minor amount of sense one is used to in one’s giallos, but if you’re willing to just go with it, stare at the pretty people (okay, one or two pretty persons, really, because the rest of the cast isn’t always pretty to look at), bug your eyes at how little this hangs together as a story - in a thematic sense or however else - and enjoy some cheap yet often quite stylish (if less than original) moving pictures, you might have as fun of a time with this as I had.

Technorati-Markierungen: spanish movies,italian movies,reviews,giallo,juan bosch,gillian hills,ángel del pozo

Three Films Make A Post: Things happen that have never been seen by human beings. The blood flows like vintage wine.

And The Crows Will Dig Your Grave aka Los Buitres cavaran tu fosa (1972): Despite its being graced with an awesome title, routine Spanish Western director Juan Bosch's film is a wee bit too generic to warrant me writing anything long about it. It's the usual mess of people (Craig Hill, Angel Aranda and Fernando Sancho among them) of variable nastiness doing nasty things to each other for monetary reasons - not much vengeance going around here - with some light political allegory thrown in. While I've seen it all before, I can't really complain about Bosch's execution of the story: the cruelty is cruel, the action is tight, the dialogue scenes have a certain amount of bite. Add decent acting by people with excellent facial hair and a generic yet fine soundtrack by Bruno Nicolai, and you get a Spaghetti (Paella?) Western that might be totally forgettable, but is also pretty entertaining.

My Horse, My Gun, Your Widow (1972): Again directed by Bosch, again made in 1972 (and still not the last film the director shot in that year), again a Spaghetti Western, again featuring Craig Hill, a Bruno Nicolai soundtrack and an awesome title. Alas, I wasn't as happy with this one, for this is one of those dreaded "comedic" films that suffer from not being funny at all. There are of course some good Spaghetti Western comedies, but those films usually know if there in it for the jokes, want to be parodies of the genre their working in, or hide more complex things behind their humour. My Horse etc doesn't seem to have much of a plan at all, and ends up being one of those films that are just kind of there without ever amounting to much.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011): After the rather disappointing Thor, Joe Johnston (the guy responsible for the horrible Wolfman remake) of all people pulls the Marvel superhero films out of the druthers again with what is as fine a piece of blockbuster cinema as you're likely to encounter. The film not only gets the core of the character it is about right, but also realizes which elements of the original's serial/pulp origins will work under these particular circumstances and which won't, and then proceeds to dial up the useful elements to awesome. Add that the film has an actual heart, and find me a very happy man.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: spanish movies,italian movies,american movies,juan bosch,craig hill,joe johnston,chris evans,hayley atwell,stanley tucci,tommy lee jones,hugo weaving,spaghetti western,comedy,superheroes,in short