aka La Bete (Fr.), The Beast in Heat (GB), Death’s Ecstacy (GB); Argos, France, 102 min

While admittedly sexually explicit, quite why this rather elegant erotic re-telling of Beauty and the Beast made it on to the Director of Public Prosecution’s video nasties list remains a mystery. That said, Borowczyk never fails to cause the BBFC problems. His 1981 Docteur Jekyll et les Femmes for example had to be drastically cut before being passed for video release as the spuriously retitled Bloodbath of Doctor Jekyll. Yet both pictures are beautiful, poetic, and often visually striking films rather than the kind of hardcore sex-and-violence fodder their treatment suggests.
    Considered by many Borowczyk aficionados to be one of his most accomplished works, The Beast is essentially a period rape fantasy, a full-length adult fairy tale. Indeed, it was originally conceived for inclusion in Borowczyk’s erotic portmanteau Immoral Tales (1974).
    Not really the sort of film which would normally find its way into the the crypt, but recommended viewing nevertheless.

Dir. Walerian Borowczyk; Prod. Anatole Dauman; Scr. Walerian Borowczyk; With Roland Amontel, Pierre Benedetti, Dalio, Lisbeth Humel, Elisabeth Kaza, Sirpa Lane, Jean Martinelli, Pascale Rivault, Guy Trejan

UK Vid. VTC, QRT 102 min (unrated), Beta & VHS; JVI, QRT 102 min (unrated),
Beta & VHS; Viz, QRT 93 min (BBFC:18), Beta & VHS
 
 
 
 

THE BEAST IN HEAT

Yet another Nazi death camp movie from the thankfully short-lived cycle that followed Sergio Garrone's SS Experiment Camp (1976).
    An Ilsa-style Nazi scientist creates a Neanderthal man-monster whom she feeds female prisoners (played by Boris Lugosi — no relation — who played an almost identical Neanderthal,'Ook', in Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, 1973). Meanwhile, she engages in the usual catalogue of il sadiconazista cruelties: nails pulled out with pliers, castration, feeding prisoners to rats etc. Eventually a partisan uprising forces the errant Frankentein-ette into the cage with her "beast-in-heat", but before it gets a chance to, ahem, express its appreciation, the partisans kill them both.
    The director wisely hides behind a pseudonym.
 
Dir. Ivan Katansky (Paolo Solvay); Prod. Ziro Papas; Scr. Luigi Batzella; Star. Brad Harris, Brigette Skay; With Boris Lugosi

UK Vid. JVI Video, (unrated), Beta & VHS
 
 
 
 

THE BEYOND

The third of his zombie epics (the exciting Zombie Flesheaters (1979) and the stately City of the Living Dead (1980) preceeded it), The Beyond is Fulci's meisterwerk.
    A relentlessly gruesome tale, the film begins with a sepia-toned prologue set in '20s Louisiana featuring the grisly crucifixion of an alleged satanist in the basement of a hotel inherited half a century later by City of the Living Dead's Catriona MacColl. The hotel, we learn, stands on one of the seven entrances to Hell through which, it is written, the dead will shuffle to take over the earth. In the gripping closing moments of the film McColl and companion David Warbeck battle the living dead only to end up in Hell in a vista foreshadowed in a painting by the hotel's original manager -- the hapless victim of the opening crucifixion.
    The film is often remarkably beautiful to look at, helped in no small part by Sergio Salvati's cinemascope photography, and the score by Fulci regular Fabio Frizzi must surely rank among his best work. The astonishing fx of Gino de Rossi are also up to his usual, ahem, eye-popping standard.
    The bastardized American version Seven Doors of Death is a further-cut version of the British theatrical print, with much of the Fabio Frizzi score missing and Americanized credits. While this print was the only one available stateside the film was known among genre cognoscenti in the US as "The Greatest Zombie Film You've Never Seen". Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of Sage Stallone and Grindhouse a fully-restored print is (at the time of writing) about to appear in American cinemas.

Dir. Lucio Fulci; Prod. Fabrizio de Angelis; Scr. Giorgio Mariuzzo & Dardano Sachetti; Star Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck; With Al Cliver (Pier Luigi Conti), Anthony Flees, Antoine Saint John, Sarah Keller, Veronica Lazar, Michele Mirabella, Giovanni de Nava

UK Vid. Videomedia, QRT 89 min (unrated) Beta & VHS; Elephant QRT 89 min (BBFC:18) VHS only
 
 

THE BIG RED ONE

Twentieth Century Fox, USA, 1980; 113 min

Only mentioned here to clear up continuing confusion about its status, The Big Red One is another erroneous entry that occasioanlly appears on the DPP’s video nasties list. In fact, Sam Fuller’s gritty account of the movements of a WW2 infantry division was eventually classified 15 by the BBFC for video release without cuts.
    It seems rather unlikely that Fuller’s controversial (and highly intelligent) White Dog (1981) — which suffered ludicrous accusations of racism upon its release  — caused a case of guilt by association. More likely at fault is that ambiguous title. Ironically, it refers not to scenes of graphic gore, but to a celebrated US infantry badge.

Dir. Samuel Fuller; Star. Mark Hamill, Lee Marvin; With Robert Carradine, Bobby DiCicco, Kelly Ward

UK Vid. CBS, QRT 111 min (unrated), Beta, VHS, V2000 & Laserdisc; Parkfield, QRT 111 min (BBFC:15), VHS
 
 
 

BLOOD BATH

Cannon, USA, 1975; 82 min

Given its total obscurity, lurid video cover art and an equally lurid title can be the only reasons this highly entertaining (if cheaper-than-cheap) portmanteau shocker received any attention during its minimal video release in the UK. Unless of course savvy audiences noted the directorial credit:  Joel M. Reed was responsible for the celebrated nasty The Incredible Torture Show, also known as Bloodsucking Freaks (1976).
    Harve Presnell is amusing in one episode as a horror-movie director, and Halloween’s PJ Soles makes her first appearance on celluloid.

Dir. Joel M. Reed; With Norman Bush, William CC Chen, Curt Dawson, Jerry Lacy, Deborah Loomis, Richard Niles, Harve Presnell, Doris Roberts, Sharon Shayne, Stefan Schnable, PJ Soles, Jack Somack, Tom Yammi

UK Vid. Rank, QRT 82 min (unrated), Beta & VHS
 
 
 

BLOODBATH

aka Marta (Sp.); Avco Embassy-TV, Spain/Italy, 1971; 80 min

In this rarely seen hispanic horror a sister looking for her missing twin stumbles upon a madman with a Spanish Inquisition-style torture chamber which he uses in the usual way with the usual gory repercussions for all concerned.
    A minor entry.

Dir. Jose Antonio Nieves Conde; Scr. Jose Antonio Nieves Conde, JJA Millan, Lopez Aranda; With Stephen Boyd, Marisa Mell, Isa Miranda, Jesus Puente, Melida Quiroga, Jorge Rigaud, Howard Ross

UK Vid. Hokushin, QRT 80 min (unrated), Beta & VHS
 
 
 
 

BLOOD FEAST  David F. Friedman/Herschell G. Lewis Productions, USA, 1963;  75 min

 
Describing his taboo-trashing Blood Feast, the oft-quoted Herschell Gordon Lewis asserted that “Like a Walt Whitman poem it’s no good — but it’s the first of its type and therefore deserves a certain position”. The flimsy plot — a doting mother hires a mysterious Egyptian caterer to organise a special party feast for her daughter’s twenty-first birthday, which he does using body parts from girls he has graphically murdered — is just a device for the carnage detailed in this, the world’s first splatter movie. Legs are amputated, brains and internal organs are scooped out, and in the film’s most famous scene one poor girl’s tongue is removed. All in gruesome technicolor. If the effects and the acting were anywhere near convincing, the film would be almost unbearable.
    Shot in little over a week on a budget of less than $70,000 Blood Feast was mawled mercilessly by state censors and critics alike (one described it as “like amateur night at the butcher’s shop”). Nevertheless the film was Lewis’s first big hit (he had been directing limited release skin-flicks for years) and it went on to develop a huge following in the USA on the drive-in circuit, and in later years on home video.
Bolstered by the success of his formula, and in a spirit of “top that!”, Lewis went on to make more and gorier entries like Two Thousand Maniacs (1964), The Wizard of Gore (1968) and The Gore-Gore Girls (1971).
    Lewis stopped making movies in the early seventies, though rumours have persisted for over a decade now about him returning for a project variously entitled Blood Feast 2 and Gore Feast. When recently told that he had been chosen by them as “a subject for further research” by the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema he replied in characteristic style, “That’s what they say about cancer”.
    It seems incredible that anyone could take his outrageously over-the-top gore scenes seriously, yet the usual self-appointed defenders of public decency in the UK seem to have done so. As a result, like most of Lewis’s films, Blood Feast remains banned on video.

Dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis; Prod. Herschell Gordon Lewis, David F. Friedman & Stanford S. Kohlberg; Scr. Allison Louise Downe; Star. Connie Mason; With Mal Arnold, Lyn Bolton, Toni Calvert, Gene Courtier, Scott H. Hall, Thomas Wood.

UK Vid. Astra Video, QRT 71 min (unrated), Beta & VHS
 
 
 

BLOOD RITES

aka The Ghastly Ones (USA); JER Pictures, USA, 1969; 81 min

Staten Island’s most famous director Andy Milligan has a well-earned reputation for the kind of enthusiastically cheesy schlock that makes Herschell Gordon Lewis look like Federico Fellini. With his 1969 Blood Rites he manages to make Lewis’s Blood Feast look like La Dolce Vita. Nevertheless, this remains an interesting entry in his oeuvre, being the first to be filmed as a Victorian period piece. This is not, as might be thought, the influence of Hammer, but rather an unsuccessful attempt by the ever-alert Milligan to extend the potential longevity of his film.
    The plot details a series of gory killings which ensue when a family convenes to hear the reading of a will. Highlights include disembowellings, hangings and a charming character who eats live rabbits.
    Undeniably one of his most gruesome offerings, Milligan remade the picture in 1972 as Legacy of Blood.

Dir. Andy Milligan; Prod. Any Milligan; Scr. Andy Milligan & Hal Sherwood; With Veronica Radburn, Maggie Rogers, Don Williams
 
 
 

BLOODY MOON

aka Die Saege des Todes (Ger); Lisa Film/Rapid Film/Metro Film, W.Germany, 85 min

Spain’s most prolific horror director, Jesus (Jess) Franco began his career in the fifties directing low budget movies of every genre before finally finding his niche with a uniquely latin combination of sex and horror in the early sixties. In 1962 he came to the attention of international horror aficionados with the warmly received The Awful Dr Orloff (Gritos en la Noche), which spawned a number of sequels. Since then he has crossed national boundaries with a multi-lingual plethora of bandwagon outings in all the recent horror cycles including Frankenstein (Les Experiences Erotiques de Frankenstein (La Malection de Frankenstein) (1972)), Dracula (Count Dracula (El Conde Dracula) (1970)), Frankenstein & Dracula (Dracula vs Frankenstein (Dracula contra Frankenstein) (1972), Fu Manchu (The Castle of Fu Manchu (El Castillo de Fu Manchu) (1968)), the slasher (Jack the Ripper (Der Dirnenmoerderer von London) (1976)), the occult (The Trial of the Witches (El Procesco de las Brujas)(1969)) and demonic possession (Les Possedees du Diable (Lorna l’Exorciste) (1974)).
    Franco’s trademark is his inability to film horror without sex - the most blatant examples being the 1967 films Rote Lippen (Red Lips) and Getraeumte Stunden (Succubus). This preoccupation inevitably led to Franco’s prolonged interest in the otherwise brief il sadiconazista cycle of the mid-seventies, typified by films like Sergio Garrone’s sickening Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur (SS Experiment Camp (1976)). Indeed, drawing on expertise gained with Caged Women (1969) and several features in a similar vein based upon the writings of the Marquis de Sade, Franco took it upon himself to continue Don Edmond’s infamous Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS series with Ilsa — Wicked Warden (1978).
    It is widely thought that it was during the years 1962 to 1974 during which he churned out over 200 titles, that Franco directed his most interesting features, however a cursory look at his filmography shows he merely turned in his own catch-penny interpretation of whatever was en vogue at the time. The quality of his output during this period was variable to say the least and in the late seventies and early eighties his films became increasingly routine. Bloody Moon is a good example. A disfigured lech provides a useful diversion while his sister and her lover burn an elderly aunt in her wheelchair and terrorise nubile young women at a language school. Corpses mount at an alarming rate, but Franco’s main concern is contriving as many opportunities as possible to show one character baring her breasts to the moon.
    Franco’s career in horror continued its decline after this picture: his next film was yet another sequel to The Awful Dr Orloff, The Sinister Dr Orloff (El Siniestro Dr Orloff ) (1980). After that he began work on a predictable entry in the brief Nazi zombie cycle, Zombies’ Lake (Le Lac des Morts Vivants) (1981), before abdicating responsibility for the project to France’s Jean Rollin.  Later in the same year he helped Daniel Lesoeur to remake it as the equally unmemorable Oasis of the Zombies (L’Abime des Morts Vivants) (1981).

Dir. Jesus Franco; Prod. Wolf C. Hartwig; Scr. Rayo Casablanca; Star. Nadja Gerganoff, Christoph Moosbrugger, Olivia Pascal, Alexander Waechter; With Ann-Beate Engelke, Antonia Garcia, Corinna Gillwald, Maria Rubio

UK Vid. Interlite, QRT 95 min (unrated), Beta & VHS
 
 
 

THE BLUE EYES OF THE BROKEN DOLL

aka Los Ojos Azules de la Muneca Rota (Sp.), House of Psychotic Women (US), House of Doom (US); Profilmes, Spain, 1973; 91min

Featuring the ex-weightlifter stalwart of the Spanish horror scene Jacinto Molina (better known as Paul Naschy) in one of his few non-monster roles, The Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll is an ultra-low budget women-in-peril potboiler.
   Molina plays an ex-convict given a job at an old dark house populated by three mad sisters. One is a tireless nymphomaniac, one has an artificial hand and the other appears to be wheelchair-bound (which in the tradition of films like William Castle’s Homicidal (1961) and Freddie Francis’s Psychopath (1965) means she must be a homicidal psychopath). Before long heads are being severed, eyes are being gouged out, and the place is knee-deep in the corpses of several nubile young blondes (and a pig).
    Don’t bother.

Dir. Carlos Aured; Prod. Jose Antonio Perez Giner; Scr. Jack (Jacinto) Molina; Star. Paul Naschy (Jacinto Molina), Maria Perschy; With Eduardo Calvo, Luis Ciges, Eva Leon, Diana Lorys, Ines Morales, Antonia Pica

UK Vid. Cannon Video, QRT 85 min (unrated), Beta, VHS & V2000; VPD, QRT 85 min (unrated), Beta, VHS & V2000
 
 
 
 

THE BOGEY MAN

A Halloween re-tread with a supernatural twist, The Bogey Man is directed with undeniable gusto by one-time Fassbinder collaborator Ulli Lommel.
    A woman traumatised in childhood by the murder of her mother's lover at the hands of her now-mute brother (co-author Suzanna Love) returns to the scene of the crime to try and clear her mind of harrowing memories. She happens to see the image of the dead lover in a mirror, which she smashes in panic. A fragment of the mirror appears to harbour evil powers (having "witnessed" the murder) and before long the bodies are mounting up in the customary fashion.
    A lacklustre sequel consisting mainly of flashback sequences using extensive footage from the first movie followed in 1983.

Dir. Ulli Lommel; Prod. Ulli Lommel; Scr. Ulli Lommel, Suzanna Love, David Herschel; Star. Suzanna Love; With John Carradine, Ron James, Nicholas Love

UK Vid. VIPCO, QRT 91 min (unrated), Beta & VHS
 
 
 
 

THE BURNING

Despite a score by Rick Wakeman and fx by Tom Savini, The Burning never manages to transcend its origins as a drearily formulaic Friday the 13th clone.
    When a prank goes awry, a camp counsellor is horribly burned. After years of unsuccessful skin grafts he remains hideously disfigured and decides to have his revenge on a new generation of happy campers.
    All the usual clichés are present and correct (even, disappointingly, in the Wakeman score) and apart from the novelty of seeing Seinfeld's George Costanza (Jason Alexander -- with hair!) in an early role, the film has nothing to recommend it.

Dir. Anthony Maylam; Prod. Harvey Weinsten; Scr. Anthony Maylam, Harvey Weinsten, Bob Weinsten, Peter Lawrence, Brad Grey; Star. Leah Ayres, Brian Matthews; With Jason Alexander, Brian Backer, Lou David, Ned Eisenberg, Garrick Glenn, Carolyn Houlihan, Larry Joshua, Fisher Stevens

UK Vid. Thorn-EMI, QRT 90 min (unrated), Beta & VHS; VIPCO, QRT 90min (cut, BBFC:18), VHS only