Seven Doors Hotel

MICROBLOG #2 - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: "Murrain" by Nigel Kneale

2011-12-10T16:22:00.000-08:00

A Derbyshire vet visits a remote farming village where an unexplained livestock disease, a mysteriously interrupted water supply and sundry local aggravations are being blamed on a lonely old woman living in a tumbledown farm, whom the villagers suspect is a witch. When the vet, who's appalled by the irrational prejudice he encounters, pays a visit to the old woman, both his compassion and his rationality are put to the test...

“Murrain” (an archaic term for plague or blight) is a challenging, intelligent, atmospheric made-for-TV drama by Nigel Kneale, about the inexorable spread of irrational fear in a small rural community. It has a few minor problems - some stiff acting in its first fifteen minutes, and the same tendency to shoutiness that also marred Kneale's The Stone Tape - but these are minor problems. Written with an open mind, and a willingness to confront both the dangers of superstition and the arrogance of modernity, it's a gripping example of the kind of thought-provoking drama that used to turn up, virtually unheralded, on British television in the 1970s. It was commissioned by ATV (Associated Television, a Midlands-based company with studios in Birmingham and Elstree), and played various ITV regions in 1975 as one of a handful of dramas under the umbrella title “Against the Crowd” (other episodes were written by Fay Weldon, Kingsley Amis, and one of the best scriptwriters for The Avengers, Roger Marshall).

Among the cast, Bernard Lee (a far cry from his signature role as ‘M’ in the early Bond films) is imposing and aggressive as one of the witch-hunting ringleaders, but the real revelation is Una Brandon-Jones as Mrs. Clempson, the old lady whose deeply unhappy personal life has brought her nothing but rejection and hostility from the villagers. Ms. Brandon-Jones pops up in a number of better known films and TV shows (a small part as a farmer's wife in Withnail & I; a supervisor in Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments; a role in the wonderful Hammer House of Horror episode “The House That Bled to Death”) but it's a shame “Murrain” is so little known because this is her chance to really shine. She makes Mrs. Clempson simultaneously pathetic, tragic, mysterious and frightening - it really is a stand-out performance. Doctor Who fans will also enjoy spotting David Simeon as the vet - fresh from playing Alistair Fergus, unctuous TV host of ‘The Passing Parade’ in the classic Pertwee-era story “The Daemons”.

“Murrain” is available as a DVD ‘extra’ with the Nigel Kneale TV series “Beasts” from Network, and is now very cheap to buy at Amazon (under £10). Definitely a good one for spooking friends or relatives with during the forthcoming holiday season...

MICROBLOG #1 - I Have Just Enjoyed "Exhibit A"

2011-12-01T18:24:00.000-08:00

My name is Stephen Thrower, I'm 47, I update my blog once a month at best, and that's just not friendly. My solution is this: to tell you what I saw last week and to recommend or blast it. Nice and quick. Smash and grab. Blog and run.

This week: Recommend: Exhibit A
(Yorkshire, 2007, dir: Dom Rotheroe)

I had this in my house for a fortnight before watching it, mainly because of its boring and unhelpful title which manages to conceal a minor masterpiece. Exhibit A is a post-Blair Witch movie that pisses all over such 'reality-cam' junk as Paranormal Activity (in which the word 'activity' is a flagrant breach of the Trades Descriptions Act). Instead of waiting sixty-five minutes for a family camcorder to observe a ghost shutting a cupboard door - whooooh! - how about we watch in gradually mounting despair as that perennial figure of fun the 'naff dad' goes off the rails and does something really really bad...?

Part-financed by Warp Films, this is a terrific and often terrifying film that's the flipside of the comedy of embarrassment. In (brilliant) TV shows like The Office we meet idiots like David Brent, who suffers indignity after indignity for our amusement. Exhibit A depicts the same sort of character, but the aim is not to make us smirk at his social faux pas: instead we cringe as the poor slob comes unglued and commits the most awful crimes.

PS: Don't watch the trailer; it's misleading rubbish that lards music over the images in a dumb and insulting way.

David Cronenberg's "Secret Weapons" available free to view online

2011-11-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, I think around 1984, I attended a short season of Canadian films screened at Canada House in Trafalgar Square - rather an imposing, formal space in which to see a distinctly anti-authoritarian double bill; David Cronenberg's Scanners and his incredibly rare 1972 short film Secret Weapons. That evening I took with me a new friend, the filmmaker Derek Jarman; Derek had never heard of Cronenberg but after chuckling appreciatively through Scanners he left the screening singing the Canadian's praises, and especially Secret Weapons.

Twenty-seven years later. I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing this bizarre curio again, until tonight, when I found it available to watch online absolutely free. What strikes me watching it a second time is just how strange a mixture it is; part-underground movie, with a sort of techno-Beatnik feel, part straight-faced satire featuring another of Cronenberg's sinister, derailed institutions, mutating from pure science into anarchic absurdity. The blend is due to the fact that Secret Weapons was written by Norman Snider, whose authorial voice provides a fascinating counterpoint to Cronenberg's (the two would work together again on the screenplay for Dead Ringers in 1988). The acting is rough, amateurish even, but the conceptual intelligence and stylized filming are perfectly in sync' with early works like Stereo (1969) and Crimes of the Future (1970). However, where those two films were minimalist, withdrawn to the point of inertia, Secret Weapons has dynamism; perhaps it would have wilted if spread out over an hour like Crimes of the Future, but at just over twenty minutes, and boasting sync sound for the first time, Secret Weapons is a bridge between the undiluted avant-garde of Cronenberg's early films and the accessibility of Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977).

Last but not least, a truly unexpected pleasure is the music by an outfit called Syrinx, a mixture of pulsing electronics, organ, and saxophone that sounds like it escaped from an all-night recording session with Cluster or early Kraftwerk, with Conny Plank at the controls.

Watch David Cronenberg's "Secret Weapons" here.

Ossian Brown's HAUNTED AIR covered by Time Magazine and Boing Boing

2011-10-31T03:27:00.000-07:00

For a glimpse into the past, and some truly macabre Hallowe'en costumes, check out the excellent seasonal coverage of my partner Ossian Brown's book of old Hallowe'en photography, Haunted Air - the Time Magazine website has a selection of eighteen pictures, and the alternative culture website Boing Boing has a further ten...

LAUSANNE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL - Stephen Thrower's Carte Blanche

2011-10-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

It's my great pleasure to inform you that I'll be curating the Carte Blanche film strand at the Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival later this month. I will be screening and introducing the following five films:

A Virgin Among the Living Dead

Jess Franco, 1971

(35mm print: “Une vierge chez les morts-vivants” - French language)

18 October 14:30

20 October 20:30
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Duffer

Joseph Despins & William Dumaresq, 1971

(16mm print - English language)

19 October 14:30

22 October 18:15

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A Lizard in a Woman's Skin

Lucio Fulci, 1971

(35mm print: “La venin de la peur” - French language)

19 October 18:15

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Shining Sex

Jess Franco, 1975

(35mm print: “Shining Sex - la fille au sexe brillant” - French language)

21 October 22:30

22 October 14:30

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Death Bed - The Bed That Eats

George Barry, 1977

(screened from Digi-Beta Master - English language)

20 October 14:30

23 October 18:30

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The Festival begins on the 15th October with a concert by the always stunning Diamanda Galas. I'll be in attendance from the 18th until the 23rd to introduce the screenings.

I'm particularly excited to say that four out of the five films are being screened from film prints. Although digital projection has come on amazingly in the last three years, I'm old enough and sentimental enough to find celluloid that little bit more romantic!

Among the guests is Daniel Lesoeur, the man behind French independent film company Eurociné. Together with his father Marius, Daniel Lesoeur has financed many of the films of Jess Franco, including some of his most astonishing and outrageous work. It's my great pleasure to screen two Eurociné titles at the festival.

In addition I'm honoured to be taking part as one of the judges for the Festival's competition strand, along with French filmmaker and producer Fabrice Lambot and Japanese Curator & programmer Koyo Yamashita. I'll be posting a Festival Report on my return, so look out for that.

The Festival website has lots more information, and also features essays written by me on each of the films I'll be screening: Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Duffer, Virgin Among the Living Dead, Shining Sex, Death Bed. Please note that the essays have been translated into French on the Festival website; I will he posting the English-language versions here after the Festival.

Horror Film Soundtracks - Guardian feature online

2011-08-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

As a teaser for the forthcoming Sound of Fear event at London's South Bank Centre on 3 September, The Guardian are running a piece I've written about the art of the horror movie soundtrack. You can read it here.

I'll also be providing intermission music for the two-day event, with selections drawn from my personal favourites. If you've ever fancied hearing Fabio Frizzi's score for City of the Living Dead or I Libra's prog-rock theme for Mario Bava's Shock wafting around the corridors of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, now's your chance!

Sound of Fear: The Musical Universe of Horror - Queen Elizabeth Hall, September 3rd

2011-08-06T03:26:00.000-07:00

This September the 3rd I will be joining the writer Kim Newman, and composer of the score for Friday the 13th, Harry Manfredini, on stage at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, for a panel discussion on the art of horror film soundtracks. I hope to see some of you there, it promises to be an entertaining discussion. Tickets are £12.50 (see website for concessions).
More details can be found here:

http://www.soundandmusic.org/projects/sound-fear-musical-universe-horror/artists

To give you an idea of a few of my personal favourites, here's a gallery of LP artwork (and yes, lots of them do come from the Seventies, don't they!):

The Phantom of Style: Dario Argento

2011-04-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

This piece was originally published as a 'Guide to Dario Argento' in Pure Magazine 1998, before the release of Argento's Phantom of the Opera...

   Dario Argento is a man obsessed. His new film, an idiosyncratic version of the much-filmed Gaston Leroux classic Phantom of the Opera, is his thirteenth in a career devoted almost exclusively to the macabre. It stars Brit actor Julian Sands and the director's own daughter Asia, whose career is about to go stellar with roles for Abel Ferrara (New Rose Hotel) and Michael Radford (B Monkey).
In Italy, Argento is as famous as Alfred Hitchcock, a familiar face even to those who don't watch his films. His high profile can be traced back to 1972, when he supervised and presented a series of four short telefilms for Italian TV under the compendium title La porta sul buio (‘The Door to Darkness’); he directed two himself and appeared onscreen to introduce all four. It secured him a national reputation for stylish, off-centre thrillers, and cemented his association with the thriller genre much as the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents had done for Hitch.
   Here in the UK, Argento has been for many years the horror genre's best kept secret, thanks to interfering censors, short-sighted distributors and blinkered critics. The situation has improved recently, as Argento's passionately motivated fan-base has grown more vocal and sophisticated. I can recall a time when the mention of Dario Argento elicited either blank looks or puritanical disdain; now his work is the subject of both cult adoration and fierce intellectual debate. Film students address his work in their dissertations, as was the case with American writer Maitland McDonagh, whose excellent book on Argento, “Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds”, is expanded from her master's thesis. This is precisely as it should be: Argento's films demonstrate a formally inclined, highly sophisticated intelligence, that positively demands the most exacting scrutiny...

Begin with what we don't know:
featuring: The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970); Cat O-Nine Tails (1971); Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)

   The titles of Dario Argento's first three thrillers, made in the early seventies, immediately alert the enquiring mind to the promise of something different. The names are eccentric, baroque, bearing only the most tenuous of connections to their plots. They're intriguing, poetic, yet somehow ominous – perfectly in character with Argento's style. All three are murder mysteries, but they hinge on a heightened sense of seeking for the truth, searching beyond appearances, taking the viewer out of the usual mundane round of police investigations and into something more personal and frightening. Fragile normality is torn aside by seemingly random violence, exposing a harsher, more terrifying world of utter malice. The protagonists of these films are severely shaken by their experiences, and as the stories progress an air of lunacy seeps in. Argento's thrillers, though resolutely commercial, are riddled by numerous bizarre elements that lift his films above the crowd; abnormal psychology, weird pseudo-science, shocking brutality, plot twists that hinge upon insanely tenuous clues, and set-piece murder scenes that owe as much to the kinetic joy of cinema itself as they do to the rigours of the traditional detective story.
   The Bird With The Crystal Plumage sets the scene for much of what's to follow; Sam Dalmas, an American writer living in Rome, glances through an art gallery window one night and sees an attempted murder taking place. Trying to intervene, he is trapped in the space between a double set of glass doors, watching helplessly as a gloved, black-coated figure escapes. Meanwhile, a woman crawls across the gallery floor, blood oozing from a stab wound, her hand reaching out to the trapped witness. When the police arrive, the incident is revealed to be the most recent in a spate of attacks, but Dalmas finds he's unable to shake the feeling he's missed something; some valuable grain of information that he's overlooked. Thus begins Argento's recurrent theme of obsessive searching, as Dalmas tries to figure out the truth for himself.
   Bird With The Crystal Plumage was a huge hit in Italy and a reasonable success abroad: Argento's career was off to a strong start. By the mid-seventies, though, he was moving beyond the thriller mechanisms he'd mastered so well. Cat O-Nine Tails convoluted its narrative while flattening out some of the more eccentric stylings of its predecessor, and may well be Argento's weakest early film, despite several breathtaking individual scenes. Four Flies On Grey Velvet saw him digressing into eye-popping technical exaggeration (a car crash filmed at 40,000 frames a second which happens in mesmerizing ultra-slow motion) and black comedy (Italian comedy actor Bud Spencer as 'God', a cynical bear-like vagrant).

Transition:
featuring Deep Red (1975)

   By now, Argento was ready to take a trip onto another plane, a process initiated by his first full-on masterpiece, Deep Red (1976). An exotic, deliberately jarring assault on the senses, Deep Red concerns the misfortunes of Marc Daley (David Hemmings, cast as one of a number of allusions to Antonioni's Blow-Up), a pianist whose neighbour, a noted psychic, is murdered in her apartment. When Marc rushes to investigate he finds the woman brutally hacked to death, with no sign of the killer. Leaving the apartment to summon the police, he's haunted on his return by a feeling that something he'd seen there a moment ago is now missing. The press publicize him as a witness, and soon the killer is stalking him too. A nagging sense of having perceived something vital draws Marc deeper into a mystery that leads back to a traumatized childhood and a strange house of secrets. With each new twist and leap of perception he leaves the familiar rational world further and further behind.
   Where the previous films had remained thrillers, despite leaning strongly towards the horror genre, this time Argento pushed the levels up on all fronts. Violent sequences are extended dramatically into a bone-crushing theatre of cruelty, art design is lavish and all-enveloping, Ennio Morricone's scores are replaced by supercharged progressive rock from the Italian band Goblin, and the plot shows reason threatened on all sides by parapsychology, synchronicity, madness, cognitive delirium and the first whisperings of the supernatural.

A leap into the dark:
featuring Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980)

   Whilst working on Deep Red, Argento fell in love with lead actress Daria Nicolodi, who was to become his muse, collaborator and lover for the next eight years. Their association blossomed in 1977, after Nicolodi's stories of her grandmother's experiences at a finishing school with occult connections inspired the couple to write a screenplay together. The result was Suspiria. It was a totally new experience, and even the mainstream critics had to admit it: “a deliberately overblown bit of Gothic ghoulishness that makes other tales of terror look anaemic” opined the Evening Standard's Alexander Walker. Thunderous in volume, grotesquely excessive in violence, and soaked in outrageous washes of pure primary colour, it's an unforgettable ninety minute cinematic high. Telling a story of the supernatural, of witches and malefic influence, it shows Argento shaking free from the threads of logic and reason altogether, and unconditionally embracing the mystical beliefs of Daria Nicolodi, herself a practitioner of witchcraft. Casting the young Jessica Harper, fresh from roles for Brian De Palma (Phantom of the Paradise) and Woody Allen (Love and Death), Argento fashioned a tale of deceptive, fairy-tale simplicity: Suzy Bannion, a pretty young dance student, enrols at a sinister Bavarian Dance Academy and discovers a coven of witches secretly running the school.
   Suspiria became the first Argento film to make a commercial impression in Great Britain, and was a sizeable international hit. But if Suspiria had some critics backing off warily with their hands over their ears, its 1980 follow-up - a semi-sequel called Inferno - bamboozled them altogether. Taking the daring colour extravagance and shrieking rock music of Suspiria down just a few notches, and selecting a cast from areas as diverse as TV soap opera Dallas (Leigh McCloskey) and art-house classic Last Year in Marienbad (Sacha Pitoeff), Argento plunged deep into his most avant-garde cinematic labyrinth. The story, though watchable separately to Suspiria, is linked to its sister film by references to the opium-derived writings of 19th Century decadent Thomas De Quincey. One piece in particular, from the collection of essays “Suspiria de Profundis”, provided the Italian director with a few tantalizing fragments on which to base his occult mysteries. “Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow” told of the dominion of three female spirits, Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum and Mater Tenebrarum. Argento eagerly adopted these manifestations; Inferno begins with a voice-over that relishes their names like a litany of evil. The Three Mothers, of Tears, Sighs, and Darkness, were to have a film each devoted to their malign influence. (At least that was the intention: The Mother of Sighs was encountered in Suspiria, The Mother of Darkness takes centre stage in Inferno, but we're still waiting for the third part of the trilogy, 'The Mother of Tears').
   Inferno is, on first viewing, complicated to the point of incomprehensibility, yet teasingly abstract and virtually gossamer-thin, dissolving as the mind tries to figure it out. The process of searching for clues is itself the theme of the film, so that the quests conducted by the protagonist and the viewer become enmeshed.
   “What's that, a riddle? I'm not good at riddles,” snaps one of Inferno's gallery of grotesques. Argento, who suffered heavily with viral hepatitis during the shoot, took his fevered fascination with the occult to far greater lengths here than Suspiria. The dominant theme this time is alchemy, not witchcraft, but nevertheless, both films share the mystic's mistrust of language. (“Wherever we have spoken openly we have (actually) said nothing. But where we have written something in code and in pictures we have concealed the truth,” attests the alchemical grimoire “Rosarium philosophorum”, published in 1550.) Whenever the protagonists of Suspiria and Inferno try to solve the mysteries they've stumbled into, they find language inadequate and obstructive, whereas the genuine breakthroughs are invariably conducted in silence. In Suspiria, Suzy tries to elicit explanations from girls at the dance school but finds they prefer to indulge in bizarre word-play instead: “Suzy... Sarah... I once heard that names that begin with the letter 'S'... are the names of ssssnakes...ssssss!!!” Her one fragment of a clue revolves around a barely audible phrase, heard in a howling storm, shrieked by an hysterical girl soon to be murdered: the cryptic words relate to an image of a flower. The only girl to speak openly about her suspicions, Sarah, tries to explain her insights to Suzy, but the heroine has been drugged and can't take in the words. When Suzy finally remembers the night's whispered conversation her memory is jogged not by words but numbers, the act of counting footsteps heard echoing through the halls of the Academy at night.
   Inferno’s Mark Elliot, who is trying to solve the mystery of his sister's disappearance in a rambling old New York apartment block, discovers little of value by quizzing the other occupants, and finds simple verbal exchanges fraught with frustratingly opaque significance. Language in Inferno is subject to a barrage of distortion. People mishear each other in bizarre ways (sharing a lift with a seemingly ordinary nurse, Mark tries to make small-talk about his study of musicology, only to have the chit-chat go askew when she persists in hearing the word as 'toxicology'). Another inhabitant communicates from room to room by means of a network of air vents permeating the building - her voice, which at first seems to come from nowhere, drifts in and out of audibility, wafted down the pipes by capricious air currents. Telephone calls are broken up by static, a mute character struggles to pass on a secret message by scratching with his fingernail, and an attempted seduction is pointillized by a loud classical record, switching on and off, fitfully in synch' with a flickering power failure. Even the clearly heard lines sound like aliens trying to fake the English language: “He says it's his heart. We must give him some heart medicine,” announces one gargoyle-faced old woman when Mark suffers a mysterious attack.
   The mystic believes that truth can be heard “more freely, distinctly or clearly [...] with a silent speech or without speech in the illustrations of the mysteries, both in the riddles presented with figures and in words” (C. Horlacher, “Kern und Stern der vornehmsten Chymisch-Philosophischen Schrifften”, 1707). Suzy and Mark both advance along the route to knowledge in silence (although Suzy has her every move accompanied by a raging score from Goblin). Mark in particular, in a film filled with music, makes a breakthrough discovery by looking in silence at a drawing of the front of the building where his sister disappeared, and by quietly observing an ant disappearing into a tiny hole between the floorboards of her old room. Compelled by sudden insight to excavate the floor at this point, he discovers a secret complex of tunnels striated between the ceilings and floors, which lead to impossible spaces between rooms. These fantasias of colour and shadow lead to the building's dark heart, and the film's fiery conclusion.

The other side of darkness:
featuring Tenebrae (1982), Phenomena (1985) and Opera (1987)

   The word ‘hermetic’ (as used in reference to the occult) comes from the same Latin source as the practice of hermeneutics, or textual interpretation. Hermes was identified by the Greeks as the messenger of the gods, and became linked, through Greek colonists studying in Egypt, with the Egyptian Thoth, god of writing and magic; both were worshipped as the 'psychopompos', the soul's guide through the Underworld. This symbolic aggregate of magic and writing provided the thread that led Argento out of the supernatural labyrinth (Hermes being one of the few Greek deities able to enter and leave the Underworld at will). With his next film Argento would take the subject of writing, and the interpretation of writing (hermeneutics) as the basis for a very different nightmare, his stunning 1982 thriller Tenebrae.
   Tenebrae is a tour-de-force, a ferociously gripping psycho-thriller which teasingly invites very close textual scrutiny. It concerns a writer of murder thrillers, Peter Neal, who arrives in Rome to promote his new novel - “Tenebrae” - only to be informed by police that a woman has been found slashed to death, her mouth stuffed with pages from his book. A goading letter sent to Neal reveals that the killing was a tribute to him. As more murders occur, Neal tries to solve the case himself, and discovers clues that point to an obsessively admiring critic – but a series of ever-more byzantine turns twist the initial certainties. Filmed in a hyper-real style, with bright sunlight, glaring interiors and clean, razor-sharp surfaces, the film demonstrates that horror needs no mystical shadow in which to flourish. The darkness (‘tenebre’) of the film is all the more disturbing for being enacted in locations that positively vibrate with clarity (even the night-time exteriors seem floodlit, with wide, depopulated Italian streets and the modernist gardens of the rich turned into virtual film sets). It's not that nothing is hidden; Tenebrae may be concerned with exposure, with the process of ratiocination, but like Antonioni's Blow Up (an old favourite of Argento's) it's also about something that rationality can never truly provide: a total picture of events. Flashbacks that may or may not be dreams or fantasies, rumours that may or may not be true, crimes that may or may not have been committed; Tenebrae confounds as it ‘explains’, leaving the audience delirious and the only surviving lead character hopelessly insane.
   After such a hyperactive period of creativity, it seems that the Italian maestro was experiencing a few psychological difficulties of his own. Exhausted, and reputedly on the tail end of a heavy coke habit, he checked in for a restorative sojourn at a Swiss health resort. In the fresh, quiet air of the Alps, Argento found personal respite from his recent crash-and-burn exploits, returning apparently refreshed - and with a new source of visual inspiration demanding to be explored. The result was Phenomena (1985), set in the beautiful Swiss locales he'd observed during his rest-cure, and featuring some of his most extreme imagery - extremely nasty (a young woman is thrown into a filthy pit of liquified human remains teeming with thousands of maggots), extremely unlikely (the heroine enjoys psychic communication with insects) and a combination of both (a woman has her face slashed by a razor-wielding chimpanzee). Phenomena was not the best advert for healthy living, with Argento's cinematic instincts often tumbling into chaos or silliness, only fitfully rescued by brilliant camerawork and photographic beauty. The film marked the end of his personal relationship with long-time muse Daria Nicolodi, and her role is the focus of a starkly childish cruelty from the director. However, while it's certainly the daftest of Argento, it still contains enough that is marvellous to make the many failed ideas worth overlooking.
   In Phenomena Argento's previously flawless musical judgement went AWOL, thanks to a soundtrack bedecked with clumsy, literal-minded heavy metal songs. Inferno had featured - along with an excellent Keith Emerson score - music from Verdi's “Nabucco”, and it was Argento's failed attempt to mount a production of Verdi's “Rigoletto” at the Sferisterio Theatre in Macerata that inspired his next film, Opera (1987). Devotees breathed a sigh of relief, because after the distinctly shaky Phenomena here was a stronger, more impressive work altogether. It's the story of Betty (Cristina Marsillach), an opera-singer's understudy who is unexpectedly hoisted into the lead role in an avant-garde production of Verdi's “Macbeth”, only to have her triumph turn to terror thanks to a deranged fan. The killer's obsessive need to ‘pay tribute’ to Betty provides the film with its brilliant central image; once seen never forgotten. He forces the unwilling young diva to watch as he kills her lover, her friend, anyone she cares about, tying her up and taping a row of needles to her eyelids - she can't even blink as she watches the sickening violence. Argento's inspiration for such a nasty idea is perfect - he was enraged by cinema audiences shielding their eyes to escape his lovingly crafted horrors...
   In Opera, Argento plays reflexive games with his own reputation (the director of the souped-up “Macbeth” is a film-maker best known for horror movies, characterized as a sadist who ‘jerks off before shooting a scene’) and consistently devises ways of making the act of seeing part of what is actually shown (Betty uses eye-drops to soothe her scraped corneas after one of the killer's assaults, and we share her point of view as the camera ‘eye’ is swirled with fluid, obscuring the identity of a person ominously entering her field of vision). Most baroque of all, he offers a recurring shot of the killer's throbbing brain that could stand for all of his driven, troubled, obsessive villains. The film was a wonderful return to form.

Overshoot:
Two Evil Eyes (1990)
Trauma (1993)
The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)

   At this point, Argento felt compelled to leave Italy and shoot for the first time in the United States. The occasion was a project called Two Evil Eyes (1990), based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. It was conceived initially as a four-hander (Four Evil Eyes?), with contributions from John Carpenter, Wes Craven, George Romero and Argento himself, but this proved unfeasible; the film ended up a diptych, with one section each by Argento and Romero. Romero's piece, based on “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”, is a forgettable piece of TV-movie fluff, but Argento's section is something more intriguing. Instead of adapting just one Poe tale, he chose to use “ The Black Cat” as a skeleton, which he then fleshed out with ideas from many other Poe tales. The result is unlike any previous Argento film in that his trademark visual and technical excess is almost entirely absent. The use of Poe's stories is clever and intricate at times, but there's something neurotically hurried and detached about the feel of the finished work (despite a good if slightly bewildered lead performance by Harvey Keitel). In interviews Argento stressed the affinity he felt with Poe as a man, claiming,“I understand his pain”.
   The story of “The Black Cat” tells of a man possessed by the spirit of perversity, driven whilst under the malign influence of alcohol to vex his own soul by killing a much-loved pet. It seems likewise perverse for Argento to have taken Poe's work and then suppressed his own formidable artistic talents. There's enough in the film to suggest that the director's claim to empathy with Poe is not just promotional hooey, but it's the first film of his career to feel depleted, tired, as if the inspiration that lifted even the lesser films was now on a meter, and the levels were dropping alarmingly. His next film, Trauma (1993), stiltedly reprised motifs from Deep Red and stuck them in unattractive Minneapolis locations populated by a mostly bland American cast. It found even fewer admirers than Phenomena, being the first Dario Argento film to feel, disconcertingly, as if it could have been directed someone else.
   Trauma did at least feature Argento's first collaboration with his beautiful and aggressively talented daughter Asia, who played the lead role. Now a successful actress in her own right, she continues to be involved with her father's work. After Trauma she starred in The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), a murder thriller that re-united Argento with composer Ennio Morricone. The plot, an uneasy, schizophrenic affair that seems to wed two distinct stories, gave those who view Argento with suspicion plenty to gawp at. Stendhal may be his most viscerally disturbing film, featuring scenes of rape and torture not usually associated with the director's icy aesthetic. Asia plays Anna Manni, a precocious police inspector forced into a confrontation with Argento's least sympathetic murderer yet, a woman-hating sadist who plays a vicious cat-and-mouse game. Asia's role is the central concern of the narrative, and she successfully creates a variety of shadings, shifting from amnesiac confusion through terror to aggressive post-traumatic defiance. The title refers to a condition whereby sufferers faint at the sight of great works of art (and no it's not another of Argento's loony inventions, this actually does occur - especially in Rome!). Anna is afflicted with Stendhal's Syndrome; her scenes in the first twenty minutes, including a delirious 'fall' into a giant Brueghel painting, achieve a level of visual audacity the film has trouble repeating later.    Anna is forced by the killer to witness the rape-murder of another woman, a motif explored in the earlier Opera, and Argento's increasingly pronounced habit of weaving such connections from film to film continues with the forthcoming adaptation of Gaston Leroux's “Phantom of the Opera”. This time the inter-relations are doubly complicated because Opera already referenced Leroux's story. So why does he feel so drawn to this project? It's been said that the mark of a true auteur is that they return time and again to the same general themes, worked through a series of increasingly elaborate variations. Time will tell whether Dario Argento's adaptation of the classic Phantom is a concentration of his obsessive creativity, a totally new direction; or just a commercial stop-gap on the way to a more daring, original project.

Despins, Dumaresq & Duffer

2011-03-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

..............................................

   Last month, the BFI released a Blu-Ray/DVD double bill to die for: Duffer (1971) and The Moon Over the Alley (1975), by Joseph Despins & William Dumaresq. Both films are oustanding, imaginative, immaculately nuanced personal visions, so it's a joy to see them available at last for viewing in the home. Sadly, William Dumaresq died in 1998, a time when both films had fallen into complete obscurity. Having seen Duffer via a battered 16mm print transferred to videotape by my friend Peter Christopherson, I eventually reviewed it in my book The Eyeball Compendium in 2003 (although the review depended upon memories nearly fifteen years old, the tape having been lost for that stretch of time!) I was therefore thrilled when the tape showed up again. I was able to interest the BFI in releasing Duffer, and immensely happy to write the sleeve notes for their lavish DVD/Blu-Ray release. However, I ended up with a lot more material than I could use in the booklet. Here then is that excised material, providing a more detailed backstory to the making of Duffer, and the two men behind it, drawing on extensive interviews I conducted with Joseph "Chuck" Despins, and Dumaresq's close friend (and publisher of his novels) Howard Gerwing.

A meeting of minds and the making of Duffer

   Duffer was created by William Dumaresq and Joseph Despins, two Canadians who relocated to London in 1962 and 1963 respectively. Despins was, broadly speaking, the technical brains of the team; the extreme subject matter was Dumaresq’s (a division of labour that has some similarities to Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell's co-directing of Performance).
   Dumaresq brought to his storytelling a combination of psychological honesty, graphic physical loathing, and a whimsical, irreverent quality that revels in the absurd, the weird and the bizarre. He was raised a Roman Catholic by his staunchly religious mother, as Howard Gerwing, Dumaresq's friend and the publisher of his novels, recalls: “Bill was a Roman Catholic and his mother was very influential in that, she was always after him. He used to pretend to go to church but we'd be down the coffee shop instead, and after it was over he'd go tell his mother he'd been to Mass.” Gerwing met Dumaresq when the two were employed at the same Vancouver cinema. He recalls, “Bill was working at the Varsity Cinema up on Tenth Avenue, on the door, but actually he ran the whole place because the manager was a hopeless drunk. Bill did everything for him. That's how I met him. I was the poster boy at the cinema, I would put up posters and change the marquee.” Dumaresq was in Vancouver studying English at the University, and formed a lifelong love of poetry through the influence of an English professor there who turned him on to John Milton. His other great loves were the theatre, and cinema. Gerwing remembers that Dumaresq had a particular affection for the Hollywood Musical: “We'd be sweeping out the Varsity and he'd be up on stage singing and dancing while I was doing the sweeping! I'd be clapping and he'd bow and then go off into another Fred Astaire routine. He knew all the song and dance routines from the Musicals. He would sing all the parts to you for Kiss Me Kate! His memory was superb.”
   In the late 1950s Dumaresq married, and with his wife Mary moved to Saskatoon, to study at the University of Saskatchewan. From there he obtained a University scholarship enabling him to move with Mary to England, furthering his studies at University College London.
   However, the marriage was not built to last, as Gerwing recounts: “When he got married to Mary, I knew it was impossible. I tried to talk both of them out of it. I said, just because you've slept together doesn't mean you have to get married, that's old fashioned. But she insisted on it, and Bill was fond of her, but I knew he didn't want to get married. I was his best man in the Roman Catholic Church on Tenth Avenue, and it was sad, because she was so happy, and he was so doleful.”
   Arriving in London in 1962, Dumaresq completed a Ph.D. on Milton, and although by now making a living as a teacher, decided to turn away from academe in search of the creative life. “He wanted to write,” Gerwing explains, “The academic world was just a way for him to get into the creative world. But he was a very good scholar, he could easily have been an academic.” As one would expect for a young man who has written his doctorate thesis on John Milton's ‘Paradise Lost’, religious concepts remained powerfully influential, but University life broadened his vision. Gerwing explains, “He was a Roman Catholic, but because of his learning and his reading he was a ‘bad Catholic’, you know! He had constant doubts. The priest used to get mad at him, saying 'You're just a smart-ass!' He didn't like many priests, and he hated all that Catholic League of Decency stuff. He regarded sex as original sin, but you wouldn't say he was against sex, since both women and men liked him.”
   It would not be unusual for a young man of artistic sensitivity, a lover of Hollywood Musicals and an aficionado of poetry, to identify as gay. Certainly, as Gerwing says regarding Dumaresq's intellectual/artistic influence, “My family and my friends said he completely altered me and turned me into a homo! To which I said fuck you!” Although the question of his true sexual orientation remains off the record, what's clear is that Dumaresq's marriage did not survive relocation to London for very long: the couple split soon after arriving. The situation was exacerbated by the presence of a poet friend, whom Gerwing believes was romantically obsessed with Dumaresq: “This guy called Louis really loved Bill. Maybe it was Louis that drove Mary out of the house. He was obsessed with Bill. They met at UVC, Louis kept following him - he followed him to Saskatchewan and he followed him to London. They would talk about poetry together, all the greats, Milton, T.S. Eliot - Louis was a T.S. Eliot scholar.”
   Later in the 1960s, Dumaresq met Galt MacDermot and embarked on a writing collaboration that would dominate his output for years to come. Gerwing recalls, “At a Canadian party after the success of Hair, Galt complained that he didn't have a decent lyricist. Bill, as a joke, started reciting his nonsense verse, and Galt was delighted. Galt said ‘we should do a musical together.” Dumaresq teamed up with MacDermot, writing the libretto for MacDermot's music in the stage musical Isabel's a Jezebel, which opened at the Duchess Theatre, London in 1970, and The Human Comedy (based on an unused William Saroyan screenplay), which opened off-Broadway in 1983. But from the point of view of cinema history the most significant development in Dumaresq's career had taken place earlier, in 1963, through a chance meeting with another fellow Canadian...
   Joseph ‘Chuck’ Despins was born in 1933 and his career choices brought him and his wife Diane to Great Britain in January 1963. It was a bitterly cold winter, with freezing fog and water pipes frozen all over London. Despins remembers his first impression: “We arrived in the cold and the fog, and we were in this little hotel in Russell Square huddled around a tiny electric fire that you had to keep putting two shilling pieces in, and I thought, what have we done!” Two or three days after arriving in London Despins took a flat off the Bayswater Road and hooked up with Dumaresq, who was living in South Kensington at the time. The two men began scouring London's cinemas, sometimes going to see as many as three films in a day.
   Despins describes the period with fondness: “We started going to the cinema. I loved the French New Wave, I loved the way they were shot so spontaneously, or at least gave the impression of spontaneity.” This being the 1960s, the European Art Movie was at its height, with new films from Fellini, Bergman, Antonioni, Truffaut, Godard, Resnais and many others regularly filling theatres. Despins recalls that there were two opposing camps at the time: “There were two schools – Antonioni and Fellini – and I was always very much on the Fellini side! I felt, rightly or wrongly, that Antonioni was more cerebral, more measured, whereas I just liked Fellini's joie-de-vivre. That wonderful scene in 8½, the woman Saraghina, when she comes out and dances, you know - Life!” British cinema was going through its ‘kitchen sink drama’ phase, towards which Despins felt ambivalent: “I enjoyed Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson. I would go the cinema a lot but I wasn't so enamoured or obsessive about the films that were more political. We were kind of living in our little cocoon, and it didn't involve class, so the whole class obsession that we felt there was in Britain didn't touch us. But we were sympathetic to them - we understood. I come from quite a poor background in Canada, so I feel that my position politically is always going to be for the have-nots rather than the haves. Neither Bill nor I felt we were really part of the 'swinging' London scene, we just missed out at our age, but I thought it was fantastic. When we first arrived I used to see the suits that were being sold in the shops and they were just so fuddy-duddy. There was a sense of something static, and suddenly there was an eruption. There was without doubt going to be progress, and things were never going to be the same again.”
   While soaking up the golden age of art cinema, Despins and Dumaresq started talking about their own artistic ambitions. Despins credits his friend with giving him the necessary encouragement: “I was teaching mathematics at the time. I quit that job, the school was a terrible place, and started working in the evenings. Bill was the one who suggested I should go take a film course. I went for an interview with the London Film School, and got on that course. I don't know if I would have done that had Bill not said, why don't you do a film course? So I was working nights, teaching somewhere, and did this film course that took about eight months to a year. I was still at there in 1964 when Bill and I started work on something he had written called ‘The Slain Girl’. By that time I was living in a flat in Paddington, and had a child. We took over my sitting room for a long time preparing this film. I lit the scenes, the whole thing was going to be done in that room. We didn't finish it, but that was the first thing we did together. I remember putting it on at the London Film School and the person teaching camera said the lighting looked alright. It was based on a poem of Bill's. I would do the lighting, set up the shot, then show it to Bill and see if it was alright with him.”
   Despins completed his course at London Film School in 1965, but not before becoming fleetingly involved in an intriguing project that was ultimately never completed. Had it been made, it would have brought together a fascinating group of individuals, including the fantasy author Terry Pratchett and UK science fiction's leading maverick Michael Moorcock. A group of SF enthusiasts headed by Ivor Mayne, they called themselves Group ’65, and planned to make a movie called ‘Nightworld’. However after six months the project fell apart, apparently due to Mayne suffering an accidental injury and another member of the team leaving London.
   Despins was asked to stay on and teach at London Film School after completing his course, which he did for a year, after which he took a job working as an editor for the BBC. He would remain at the BBC for many years, and was there when work on Duffer commenced in 1971.
The seeds of the film took root in conversations between Despins and Dumaresq, in which the latter would extol the virtues of a macabre but comical imaginary narrative he was working on. Despins remembers, “Bill told me that he'd written a story called ‘Duffer’. He'd jokingly say, ‘Oh I've got Duffer tied up to a chair and I play him four hours of Wagner!’ That's the sort of thing, and when he'd talk about it, it would be a hoot.”
   Despins was itching to follow the example of the Nouvelle Vague filmmakers, who seemed unimpeded by the usual cast and crew conventions: “My feeling was, why can't we just go and make it, you know, just turn over and start shooting and never mind all the other stuff, the unions. No theory, just get a good story and do it.” Drawing on the additional talents of cameraman Jorge Guerra, a friend from the London Film School, Despins and Dumaresq found themselves making a movie in a most idiosyncratic and untraditional way, for British production at least - namely, without a script. Despins laughs: “Oh no, there was no script. Literally! I never saw anything in writing. We had a crew of three people - me, Bill and Jorge, and then the performers, and they were never more than one or two. Unbelievably spontaneous. Let me give you an example. There was a laundromat right on Notting Hill Gate High Street, and we could only find the time to shoot on weekends. The laudromat scene was done on a Saturday or a Sunday morning. Bill said, there's a scene with Duffer and he's gonna come past and then come into the laundromat and see Your Gracie. We went into the laundromat, and people around us were wondering what the hell was going on. Jorge was probably handholding the camera. We rehearsed the scene a couple of times and then just shot it. Irna was married to a hifalutin' London University academic, but she had been an actress. She's flouncing around, and a lot of that was totally spontaneous. We would talk about it the weekend before perhaps, but only because we needed to know who was going to be needed.” Spontaneity was further fostered by the structure of the narrative: “There aren't any sustained scenes in Duffer, they're all short scenes, a cluster of shots or single shots even, so if we wanted to move to another location to pick up another shot that was fine. The shots could go anywhere into the film. Even when I was cutting it I was adding new shots in if they were needed. A lot of us lived around the same area, Notting Hill, which made it easy to get people together and knock off shots.”

Kit Gleave, seen here in 1973, two years after playing Duffer

   During shooting, Despins concentrated on the camera and lighting, very much in collaboration with the third member of the team, cameraman Jorge Guerra, while Dumaresq, playing Louis-Jack, took greater responsibility for nurturing the performances of the other actors, in particular Kit Gleave, who played Duffer. Despins describes the approach: “Bill often was the one who would talk to Kit. It was a good thing, simply because Kit had to be assured about Bill, given what was going on. I was looking at a scene where Bill's doing something awful to Kit, and I was admiring Kit for just being there, right? Bill would have been reassuring Kit, and as the scene was, in a sense, in Bill's head, that relationship was very important.”
   With its frank perversity, poetic monologues, black-comedy undertow and exploration of forbidden quasi-incestuous fantasy, Duffer was defiantly out on a limb. With the Wolfenden Report and the decriminalisation of homosexual activity in 1969, social attitudes were changing, and Duffer was one of the first films made in Britain to feature overt, if obliquely filmed, scenes of male-on-male sex. The sadomasochistic nature of many scenes between Dumaresq and Gleave required sensitive handling, although Despins remembers the teenage actor was extremely relaxed about the whole thing: “Kit was a very silent kid, and I can't remember where we found him. He was on the set, he said very very little, he was very amenable, so he was never ever a problem. We must have behaved in such a way - Bill, Jorge and myself - that minimised the danger of that situation for him in some way. In the sodomy scene, I quickly got out of the wider shot and just went in to a close up of Duffer's face. And that could have been shot with Bill hardly even being there if we'd wanted.”
   As a cost-cutting measure, Duffer was filmed silent, with dialogue added later during post-production. Despins, who was familiar with this approach having read about the Italian cinema's customary practise of dubbing all sound later, embraced the challenge. The dubbed dialogue was improvised from the cast's memory of the scene being shot, without even a guide recording or written notes: “There was nothing written down. If Bill and Kit were together in a shot, then you knew basically the philosophy of what they were saying; they'd be talking about what they were doing: ‘Duffer, I'm going to give you some apricots to eat,’ or whatever. So when it came to me laying down the sound they would say something just a bit like that.”
   Perhaps the most surprising element in the Duffer story is the involvement of Grammy and Tony award-winning composer Galt MacDermot (Hair), whose piano-based score played up the film's melancholia and black comedy, giving it a rueful, quirky air. Dumaresq and MacDermot were by now close friends and collaborators. Despins remembers their association: “Galt came over to London a number of times. I think he came over for Duffer. Some of the songs were sung by Bill and Galt. They would sometimes make demos at a little demo studio, Galt on piano and both of them singing together. Bill would bring me the demos and I would just transfer them to 16mm.”
   It was only while constructing the titles that Despins decided upon the co-directing and co-producing credit. As he explains, “Initially, the idea was that Bill was responsible for writing the story and I was supposed to be making the film, but it just naturally fell that we were both jointly making the film. We would both be talking to the actors and the cameraman. So when we finished shooting and I'd put the film together it just seemed natural that there should be a co-directing and co-producing credit. Bill wasn't expecting it, he was very surprised.” While the film was being edited, Despins happened to meet representatives from noted London repertory outlet The Other Cinema, and showed them Duffer in its rough state on the Steenbeck. They snapped it up then and there.
   Sadly, this was to be the film's only exposure in the UK, although it did play at film festivals in Europe. For Despins, the act of finishing the film, and getting such a deeply idiosyncratic labour lof love onto an actual cinema screen, was a surreal and exciting experience: “I remember driving down to the Electric Cinema with Bill, and we sat outside in the car and said to each other, 'Can you imagine there are people inside there sitting in there watching Duffer?' And we thought it was a bit of a hoot! They're actually sitting there, and not only that, they paid to get in! That was quite a moment!”
   What was once remarkable as much for its unexpected frankness as for its style and subject is now perhaps more easily assimilated by modern audiences. While Duffer is not straightforwardly a ‘gay film’, the existence of a prominently homosexual orientation to some of the key scenes means that it will inevitably be perceived as such by some. Yet, the dark and troubled aspects of the sexuality expressed in Duffer seem equally at odds with the prevailing preference in gay cinema for affirmative images. Dumaresq's unaligned, psychologically complex and often bleak portrait of male-on-male dependency and sexual subservience is far from a sunny affirmation. It's a matter that Despins has brooded on before: “I've often wondered given the change in the politics of the homosexual scene, how are people going to feel about this film. I've been thinking about that in terms of Bill, and the film is almost an autobiography of Bill's situation in his life. It's metaphorical – Bill would never ever speak about his sexuality. I was talking to my ex-wife about this. She knew Bill earlier than I'd done and she was closer to Bill than I was, she'd met him back in Vancouver before he met me. I said, did Bill ever talk to you about his homosexuality? And she said no, he never talked to me about it. She said, if you asked him if he was a homosexual he'd say no. But when thinking about the film, the religious imagery, what you have on one side with Bill is a person whom was raised Roman Catholic, and wasn't churchgoing, but he was a very religious person. I think Duffer is about this battle in Bill. When you think of the language Louis-Jack uses, and his portrayal of females, it's like the medieval world where they described the female body as just a pit of obscenity, of filth, whatever. There is something of that in Bill, in the language he uses, the way he has Louis-Jack saying "Womanimal, womanimal". I think Bill was battling that image of woman.”

(I'm indebted to Joseph Despins and Howard Gerwing for their kindness and generosity in the preparation of this piece.)

BUY THESE DVDs!

2011-02-05T18:44:00.000-08:00

SINNER aka DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC
aka LE JOURNAL INTIME D'UNE NYMPHOMANE
and
LORNA... THE EXORCIST aka LES POSSEDEES DU DIABLE
aka SEXY DIABOLIC STORY

Never mind that yours truly can be found waffling away amid the extras for both releases, here are two of the very best Jess Franco films, and you simply have to see them. And, need I add, buy them!

Without wishing to be apocalyptic, I think it's fair to say that releases like these are the last gasp for independent DVD. The siren call of free downloading means that companies like Mondo Macabro are undoubtedly among the last official purveyors of low budget/high-quality cult artifacts like LORNA and SINNER. Five years from now, no-one will release these films: the profit margin will have shrunk to zero.

I was paid a modest fee for taking part in the extras, so don't imagine I'm feathering my own nest. I simply want to communicate my admiration for the sheer bloody-minded persistence of Pete Tombs, who went through hell to bring these titles to our collections. I'm sure we all agree that such extraordinary effort deserves a few quid!

The dust blows forward 'n the dust blows back...

2010-12-17T17:16:00.001-08:00

There's ole Gray with 'er dove-winged hat

There's ole Green with her sewing machine

Where's the bobbin at?

Tote'n old grain in uh printed sack

The dust blows forward 'n the dust blows back

And the wind blows black thru the sky

And the smokestack blows up in the sun's eye

What am I gonna die?

Uh white flake riverboat just flew by

Bubbles popped big

'n uh lipstick Kleenex hung on uh pointed forked twig

Reminds me of the bobby girls

Never was my hobby girls

Hand full uh worms and uh pole fishin'

Cork bobbin' like uh hot red bulb

'n uh blue jay squeaks

His beak open an inch above uh creek

Gone fishin' for a week

Well I put down my bush

'n I took off my pants 'n felt free

The breeze blowin' up me 'n up the canyon

Far as I could see

It's night now and the moon looks like uh dandelion

It's black now 'n the blackbird's feedin' on rice

'n his red wings look like diamonds 'n lice

I can hear the mice toes scamperin'

Gophers rumblin' in pile crater rock hole

One red bean stuck in the bottom of uh tin bowl

Hot coffee from uh krimpt up can

Me 'n my girl named Bimbo

Limbo

Spam

Don Van Vliet

PETER CHRISTOPHERSON RIP 1955-2010

2010-11-25T02:55:00.000-08:00

I wake this morning to the shock news that Peter, or 'Sleazy' to his many friends, has died in his sleep, at his home in Bangkok. I'm stunned. He visited us just a few weeks ago. Ossian and I can hardly believe it. At 55, Sleazy's appetite for life was immense, and brooked no argument! I suppose it makes sense there was to be no gradual slide to a halt. A sudden end, an extraordinarily full life.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Sleazy's work in Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, SoiSong, Threshold HouseBoys Choir, and most of all in Coil, will continue to change lives, passing on the great gifts of lucidity, imagination and awareness that he offered to us all.

Seeing into darkness is clarity.
Knowing how to yield is strength.
Use your own light
And return to the source of light.
This is called practicing eternity.

Lao-Tzu

CYCLOBE - WOUNDED GALAXIES excerpts on YouTube

2010-11-17T13:05:00.000-08:00

I've just posted on YouTube a five minute montage of material from my new album with Cyclobe, Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window. The selection features roughly a minute from each of the five tracks, and hopefully gives you some idea of the scope and style of the album. We will be releasing Wounded Galaxies as a download in December, with a deluxe CD release following in Jan/Feb 2011. The CD will come with bonus tracks. The vinyl edition of the album is currently available from our website.

The image above is from the vinyl edition record label, drawn by Val Denham from a design by Paul Bonet.

HAUNTED AIR by Ossian Brown

2010-10-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

Today's edition of the Financial Times FT Weekend Magazine features a four page interview and photo-feature with my partner (and fellow Cyclobe member) Ossian Brown, about his new book Haunted Air (published by Jonathan Cape, £25). It's a fantastic collection of found photographs depicting Halloween celebrations from 1875-1950, and I can't recommend it enough. Ossian's collection has taken 10 years to amass, and it's a treasure-trove of weird, macabre and surreal images, full of bizarrely masked children and bewilderingly ominous groups of adults, many from the poorer regions of the Southern States. The introduction is by David Lynch, and there's an excellent afterword by Geoff Cox-Dorée (who also provided text and calligraphy for our new LP Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window). The book is available online through Jonathan Cape and the usual book retailers. The Financial Times website also features the article along with eighteen photographs. There's also an excellent review of the book here.

ROOM 5 - NEW CYCLOBE LP OUT NOW

2010-10-26T02:41:00.000-07:00

“Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window”, the third album by my group Cyclobe, is available now from our website. It's been five years in the making, and Ossian and I are very proud of it indeed. The initial release is vinyl-only, with a CD to follow before Chrixxxmas. It can be obtained for £16.00 from us, in white vinyl, and for a limited time only includes a third insert featuring a prose accompaniment to the music by Geoff Cox-Dorée. Two more inserts, available with all copies of the record, feature photographic works by Alex Rose and a photo portrait of Cyclobe by Ruth Bayer. An excellent and highly positive review of the album has been posted by Anthony D'Amico at the long-established music and alternative arts website Brainwashed.

The cover image, as seen above, is an artwork by one of our all-time favourite artists, Fred Tomaselli, who very kindly gave his permission for this picture to be used on the Wounded Galaxies cover. He currently has an exhibition taking place at New York's Brooklyn Museum, which features many of his stunning, hallucinatory and brilliantly original multi-media creations.

We've been privileged to work with several of our close friends and favourite musicians on this record. Thighpaulsandra, whose inventiveness and compositional prowess in Coil is frequently underestimated, plays piano on the track ‘Sleeper’ - Michael J. York contributes gorgeous keening textures on traditional woodwind instrument the duduk, while Cliff Stapleton's mesmeric and beautiful hurdy-gurdy is a prominent feature on several tracks. We're also thrilled to work with our friend John Contreras, who plays cello (not always recognisably!) on the longest composition, ‘The Woods Are Alive With the Smell of His Coming’.

ROOM 6 - Stephen Thrower interviews Roxy Music's Graham Simpson

2010-08-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

Some of you may already have heard that Roxy Music's original bass player, Graham Simpson, has turned up alive and well after a thirty-eight year absence from the spotlight. He is the subject of a short film called Nothing But the Magnificent, to be screened on 20th August at the Portobello Film Festival, and a few weeks ago he granted me his first ever press interview, which you can read in the current issue of The Wire magazine (Issue 319 - September). I found him to be a lucid, charming man with an occasionally roguish wit; someone passionate about music and the state of humankind, whose formidable memory is undimmed by the extremes of experience he's been through.

Graham Simpson appears on two Roxy recordings: the group's first John Peel session from January 1972, and their all-important debut album, Roxy Music. By the time Roxy returned to the studio in July to record their debut single “Virginia Plain”, Simpson had gone. Never interviewed, never photographed with the group, he seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth, leaving only his enigmatic solo portrait on the inner cover of Roxy Music. Snippets about his tenure in Roxy have emerged over the years, thanks to a number of well-researched books throwing light on the group’s early days, but the story has never been told by the man himself. Until now!

A longer version of my interview with Graham Simpson will appear online at The Wire's website next Thursday 18th September. To order the magazine, or to check out the online version, go to http://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/current/

For information about the the film screening, go to www.portobellofilmfestival.com
and http://www.portobellopopup.com/ I will be attending the screening myself so I hope to see a few of you there.

ROOM 5 - UnicaZürn Live in London, 17th September

2010-07-28T03:46:00.000-07:00

UnicaZürn (David Knight and I) will be performing at our favourite London venue The Horse Hospital on Friday 17th September. It's the same venue where we launched our album Temporal Bends last year, and where The Amal Gamal Ensemble, of which Dave and I are members, played their first improvisation gigs. Over the years it has has hosted many other events by friends and fellow travellers, including David Tibet and Steve Stapleton, and continues to be the best venue for avant-garde arts in London.

Entry is £5 on the door. A Limited Edition CDR will be available on the night, featuring new material and work-in-progress. This will not be available anywhere else.

In further news, Jean-Hervé Peron of Faust has invited UnicaZürn to next year's Schiphorst Avant-Garde Festival in Germany after our intended appearance this year was thwarted by a last minute plane cancellation.

ROOM 5 - UnicaZürn show cancelled

2010-07-04T04:34:00.000-07:00

Due to last-minute flight cancellation, and the inability of the airline to provide an alternative flight, Dave Knight and I were unable to play the Schiphorst Avant-Garde Festival. Our apologies to anyone who was there and expecting us to perform. We are very very disappointed to have missed the festival.

ROOM 5 - UnicaZürn Live in Germany, 3rd July

2010-06-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

Dave Knight and I will be showcasing our new band UnicaZürn next month, Saturday 3rd July, at the Avant-Garde Festival, Schiphorst, Germany. It's a wonderful occasion, organised by Jean-Hervé Peron of German rock legends Faust, located in a picturesque rural setting, and run by great people. Please do try to attend if it's remotely possible, I'm sure you'll find the whole event magnificent. The fantastic No-Wave genius Lydia Lunch and the legendary Gallon Drunk will also be playing - further details at www.avantgardefestival.de

Dave and I played the festival three years ago with our improvisation group The Amal Gamal Ensemble, and we can't recommend it enough - it's a chance to hang out and chat with friendly and interesting people in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere, and if you do make it, will probably go down in your memory as a genuine vacation rather than a gig! Hope to see a few of you there...

ROOM 2: Jean Daniel Cadinot Remembered

2010-05-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

In Issue #3 of Eyeball back in 1992, I ran a review by Chris Barber of a gay sex film called Les Minets Sauvages by Jean Daniel Cadinot. Cadinot's films are distinguished by a consistent artistic signature, and his creativity remained undimmed throughout his life. Here then is a commemorative career article on Cadinot which I wrote for the UK magazine Gay Times last year, exactly a year after his death by heart-attack on April 23rd 2008.

Among gay men, the word ‘Cadinot’ is almost certain to create a tingle of recognition and pleasure. Whether scribbled on old video spines in faded felt pen, or neatly printed on deluxe DVDs, it’s a name one could no doubt find inscribed in half the gay households in Britain.

Jean Daniel Cadinot, who died on the 23rd April 2008 at the age of 64, directed more than seventy hardcore gay films between 1978 and 2008. Unusually for a ‘pornographer’, his work is renowned not only for its extraordinary sexiness, but for its style and wit and intelligence. Looking back through his thirty-year career is like peering down a fantastical kaleidoscope of youth, beauty, and virility. Throughout, Cadinot favoured models in their late teens and early twenties: dazzling pretty-boys, furrow-browed rough diamonds, sleek glamourpusses and macho street-lads. Whether cute, rugged or cussedly arrogant, his boys are unstoppable. Watching Cadinot’s young tearaways feverishly jabbing and thrusting at each other, you just know that if the camera broke down the sex would continue, and to hell with the audience!

Cadinot was born in Paris in 1944. He studied photography in evening classes at the École Nationale de la Photographie and went on to work freelance, creating nude portraits of gay novelist Yves Navarre and future disco star Patrick Juvet. Throughout the 1970s he published a series of erotic photo-collections called ‘Masculin’, achieving total sales of over 170,000 copies.

He made the transition to filmmaking in 1978, with Tendres Adolescents. "The still photo became too limiting,” he told Steve Gardiner in 2001, “I quickly reached the boundaries and I had a desire for action and movement. I wanted to go further, create situations, tell stories, our collective stories as gay men.” Cadinot went on to shoot thirty-three movies on 16mm film, the default industry format until the advent of affordable high quality video equipment. Some fans regard the shot-on-film titles as his best, and they certainly have a unique ‘feel’. Celluloid being expensive, Cadinot picked his shots carefully; it simply wasn’t feasible to let sex scenes play out for half-an-hour, as modern producers do. Consequently, the early films sweep you breathlessly along through an ever-changing sexual landscape. If one occasionally wishes that a scene would last longer, it’s not without admiring the director’s dynamism, vigour and skill.

Everyone has their own favourite Cadinot film, but few who’ve seen it would deny that one of the most powerful is Les minets sauvages (1984), a dark, brooding tale which follows the misfortunes of a new boy sent to an isolated borstal facility. It depicts rough, aggressive sex, frequently in groups or threesomes, and unflinchingly explores fantasies of bullying and rape which, although channelled quite clearly through a responsible narrative point of view, are shown without compromise. Like an eroticized version of the classic British film Scum, but with a redemptive ending that sees the bully-boys defeated by a genuine loving couple, it remains, twenty-five years later, a scorching title in the Cadinot catalogue.

"It's true that I have an artistic vision of my work." – Cadinot, to Steven Gardiner

Some people mock the notion of artistry in pornography, but they’re simply not paying attention. In Cadinot the camera is always well-placed, the characters are either plausible and vivid or quirky and ironical, and the composition emphasises whole bodies, not simply their organs and orifices. Cadinot’s ability to film sex without simply staring for minutes on end at a squelching sphincter means that his films never sink into that faintly depressing mode, so common in bad porno, where what you’re seeing resembles abdominal surgery. His camera seeks out performers’ faces for reactions and interactions, and he frequently cuts back to a ‘tableau’ shot in which you can see the performers grasping, holding or kissing each other – instilling an intensely voyeuristic but human-centred eroticism.

As the Eighties progressed, the bacchanalian joys of gay life were threatened by AIDS and Cadinot began to insist on condoms. Francois Orenn, aka ‘Myriam Zadeck’, Cadinot’s long-time music composer and business associate, recalls that, “In the early days of HIV/AIDS, he asked every actor to undertake an HIV test before filming. This turned into a disaster, of course, because many of the boys had never had tests before and some were suddenly confronted with the truth of being HIV positive at the moment of filming. It was this witnessing of young men's despair at discovering their HIV status that led him to make the decision never to shoot without condoms.”

The shift to condoms roughly coincided with the transition from 16mm to video. This was not a disappointment to Cadinot. As Orenn explains, “He very much enjoyed filming on video as he was able to see the results of a shoot instantly without waiting for the film to be developed or having to worry about unforeseen technical problems. It also removed an element of stress as scenes could be re-shot before the actors returned to their homes, which in many cases were in other countries.”

Cadinot’s films are well-known for their racial inclusivity, culminating in his popular Nomades series (2005-2007), featuring numerous black and Arab performers. In 1984, Cadinot went to Morocco to shoot the classic Harem (under the pseudonym ‘Tony Dark’), followed in 1987 by the similarly essential Chaleurs. They feature pretty white French boys pressed into sexual submission by a succession of intensely horny and handsome North African youths. Theorists Maxime Cervulle and Nick Rees-Roberts have criticized these films, accusing Cadinot of "neo-colonial sex and class tourism". However, the Moroccan and Tunisian performers are far too vigorous, lustful and domineering to care whether or not the scenario is a white middle-class fantasy of ‘foreign rough’ – and they certainly don’t need any slumming intellectuals to defend them!

In 1992 Cadinot commenced restoration of a 19th century farmhouse in the Haute Picardie countryside, north of Paris. This would be his custom-made studio for the next sixteen years. It gave him the freedom to shoot whenever he wanted, and provided a place where his young performers, often as many as twelve at a time, could vacation and get to know one another. Cadinot’s working method remained consistent: he would script a scenario, then throw it open to the performers, adapting his ideas to take account of their personal tastes, and allowing them to control the actual sex scenes. In this way he could fuse his own interests, his predilection for certain settings and ambiences, with a level of freedom and participation for the actors. This explains the vibrancy and enthusiasm of the casts – they are doing what they want to do, while playing within an ‘authored’ structure suggested by the director. Francois Orenn elaborates: “He would explain in detail how he wanted people to act in the non-sex scenes. For the sex scenes, he would describe himself as a wildlife photographer, giving cues and goals to his subjects but essentially letting them play out their own fantasies. He would then find the right mix of lighting and camera-work to catch these extraordinary moments.”

Cadinot’s films have only recently become legally available in Great Britain. So if the films were previously hard to obtain, how come so many British gay men recognise his name? Well - nature always finds a way! Cadinot’s films were copied and bootlegged during the video boom of the 1980s, and as European travel became more common, gay men frequently returned from the continent with a few prized Cadinot goodies smuggled among their speedos and tanning lotions. These were then copied among friends, and the copies exchanged in the grey-market stores of Soho, until it seemed that nearly everyone had a murky fourth-generation copy of Service Actif or Sacré Collège stashed away somewhere. Prohibition simply added to the thrill of the forbidden – something Cadinot would surely have understood!

Cadinot’s film legacy continues to enthrall and excite his fans. And, as irreverent, anti-authoritarian, vivid and honest as they are, they’re sure to become beacons of pleasure for future gay viewers too. As writer Chris Barber put it, “Cadinot’s work has an inherently liberating cadence”. A life-long critic of the Christian Church, he remained defiant to the end, and in his final letter to fans, posted on his website just before he died, he signed off with a statement that’s the only possible last word here:

“An erect phallus is a symbol of freedom; the cross is a symbol of death.”

(Many thanks to Francois Orenn and James Coates for discussing Cadinot with me, and for access to their photo archives. Cadinot's work can be bought on DVD from the official website at http://www.cadinot.fr/)

David Durston - Gallery #2

2010-05-18T03:10:00.001-07:00

David Durston - Gallery #1

2010-05-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

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David Durston, the director of I Drink Your Blood, became a regular correspondent with me during the long process of writing Nightmare USA. Such was the generosity of the man that, when the book was being designed, I found I had far more material than I could use. Here then are a few of the pictures that didn't make it into the finished work. David told me to keep all the pics and clippings he sent me, but I always regretted not having more room to use them in print. I think it's a good time to share them now; I'm much more comfortable celebrating a life than mourning a death, and David's incredibly energetic attitude to everything he did suggests that it's his life he'd have liked us to focus on. We already have I Drink Your Blood, and other great films like Blue Sextet and Stigma, to revel in; so here are a few glimpses of the man himself. The comments are taken from the notes which David attached to each picture.
x

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DD: "My handsome old man with me, aged two and a half. Well you said send a picture. So here I am barefooted, sucking my thumb. This is one of my favourite shots. Dig that classic car in the background - well it would be today, wouldn't it."
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DD: "My darling Mama, not as beautiful in this shot as she really was... and how do you like that baby-face? Already three years in the Air Force. I was 22 here."
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DD: "I guess this was the peak of my career. Associate Producer of Your Hit Parade, living at Sutton House, married to a New Orleans debutante. A happy period professionally; an unhappy time personally."
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DD: "Hedy [Lamarr], Jack [Damon, Durston's nephew] and I spent weekends at Fire Island, in a shack on the beach. Hedy never wore any make-up."
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DD: [text on picture reads] "For Steve - wishing you the very best success, but beware: Vengeance can be mine! This poor devil was only late! Fondly, David E. Durston"
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DD: "More respect please. That's me on one of those small Brazilian champion race horses - see all the chain medals around his neck for every race he won. And please note I am riding him without a saddle, only a blanket. A moment after this was taken, he took off like the Road-Runner. I stayed on - it's all in a Missouri upbringing."
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DD: "right to left: Joe Mangine (dp, I Drink Your Blood; Blue Sextet), me, Robert Murawski (editor of the Spiderman films, and head of Grindhouse Releasing)"

David Durston: 10th September 1921 - 6th May 2010

2010-05-12T09:57:00.001-07:00

I've only just heard the news about David's death. He was a vital spirit, full of impish wit, and made me laugh so much during our correspondence and telephone conversations for Nightmare USA. I feel very sad that he's passed away, but the sadness is tempered with the knowledge that here was a man who really grabbed life with both hands and lived the hell out of it!

Along the way he gave us I DRINK YOUR BLOOD, one of the most exuberant, thrilling and infectiously enjoyable horror films of all time. "As brash and energetic as a vintage Alice Cooper record, and easily as ghoulish," I wrote in Nightmare USA. "Infused with the liberating vitality of the truly tasteless, yet driven by real intelligence, I DRINK YOUR BLOOD is David Durston’s blood-drenched gift to horror fans." I love that movie, and I'm sure that thirty, forty, fifty years from now it'll be a blast for future audiences too.

Goodbye then, to a brilliant and charming and wonderful man.

===============

For those interested in the many twists and turns of David's career, here's a list of credits I compiled back in 2006:

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR:

1964 FELICIA (also writer)
1966 THE LOVE STATUE aka THE LOVE DRUG (also writer)
1970 BLUE SEXTET aka LEAP INTO HELL (also writer)
1971 I DRINK YOUR BLOOD aka PHOBIA (also writer)
1972 STIGMA (also writer)
1975 BOYNAPPED

TV PROJECTS:

1947/8 Foxhead 400 Houseparty (live magazine show for ABC, Chicago)
1947/8 Top of the Weather (made for ABC, Chicago)
1947/8 Chicago Splash Party (made for ABC, Chicago)
1948/9 A Hit Is Made (music show made for ABC, Chicago)
1948/9 Street Singer (music show made for ABC, Chicago)
Between 1952-55 Kraft Theater (writer) (made in New York City – episode title unknown)
Between 1952-55 Studio One (writer) (made in New York City – episode title unknown)
Between 1952-55 Rheingold Playhouse (writer) (made in New York City – episode title unknown)
Between 1952-55 Danger (writer) (made in New York City – episode title unknown)
Between 1952-55 Playhouse 90 (writer) (made in New York City – episode title unknown)

1952-53 Tales of Tomorrow (writer) Episodes: "The Glacier Giant" (5 December 1952): "Mr. Fish" aka "The Discovered Heart": (16 January 1953): “Two Faced” (30 January 1953): "The Evil Within" (1 May 1953 - brief appearance by James Dean)
1953 + ‘54 + ‘55 The Tournament of Roses Parade (line producer for live broadcast of three successive New Year’s Day Parades in Pasadena.)
1956-59 Your Hit Parade (associate producer)
1958 Navy Log (writer) Episode: “The Big White Albatross” (26 December 1958). Two more scripts: titles unknown.

OTHER CREDITS:

1971 DRY SUMMER aka SUSUZ YAZ aka I HAD MY BROTHER’S WIFE (dir: Metin Erksan) (directed inserts for US version retitled REFLECTIONS)
1971 THE SEDUCTION OF INGA (dir: Joe Sarno) (re-edited and dubbed US version)
1994 HARD DRIVE (editorial supervisor)

RADIO:

1952-54 Mr. Jolly's Hotel for Pets aka Hotel For Pets (writer of NBC children’s radio show starring Frank McHugh)
1954-55 The Woolworth Hour (music show: creator and producer)

ROOM 2 - DUFFER SCREENING IN LONDON W11

2010-05-06T11:26:00.001-07:00

T

This Sunday (the 9th of May) I'll be introducing a screening of DUFFER (UK, 1971), directed by Joseph Despins and William Dumaresq, at Cinephilia West, 171 Westbourne Grove, London W11. Some of you may recall that I wrote about DUFFER in the Eyeball Compendium back in 2003; the first time the film had been covered in some thirty years. Since its release in 1971 DUFFER had sunk into undeserved obscurity; I myself only saw it because a friend owned a 16mm print, which had fallen into his hands during a clear-out of unwanted materials at the ICA, way back in the late 1970s! The version I saw was taken from this battered 16mm print, projected on a sitting room wall and then recorded to tape via an early 1980s video camera! The results were, to say the least, primitive... All the more reason why I'm thrilled to reveal that DUFFER has now been taken under the wing of the British Film Institute, with a beautiful new transfer from the original elements lined up for DVD/Blu-Ray release later this year!

Sunday's screening at Cinephilia West will be the first time DUFFER has been shown in public for over thirty-five years. It will astonish anyone who loves the the bizarre and the esoteric, and it provides a fascinating glimpse into a forgotten corner of British cinema. Experimental but accessible, disturbing yet oddly comic, it's an extraordinary one-of-a-kind movie, concerning the troubled sex life of a teenage boy as he swings between the ample pleasures of 'Your Gracie', a middle-aged prostitute, and the cruel games of Louis-Jack, a sadistic older man. Duffer tries to keep the increasingly deranged Louis-Jack happy by acquiescing to his twisted sexual demands; however the situation veers out of control when Louis-Jack decides that he and Duffer should have a baby...

I look forward to seeing anyone who can make it along. Doors open at 7pm.

Website: http://www.cinephilia.co.uk/west/
Email: info@cinephilia.co.uk
Telephone: 0207 792 4433

ROOM 4 - WITH JESS FRANCO & LINA ROMAY

2010-03-28T03:56:00.000-07:00

I'm very pleased to report that I've just returned from a trip to Spain to meet Jess Franco and Lina Romay. As you can imagine, when writing a book about a single filmmaker an awful lot rides on how well you get on with your subject, so I approached the trip with excitement, and some trepidation. I needn't have worried - I found both Jess and Lina incredibly hospitable and generous. Despite Franco's poor health in recent months, his mind is sharp and his recall formidable (I began describing my favourite scene from the 1973 PLAISIR A TROIS, in which a murderous couple spying from an upstairs window dress rapidly in order to dash outside and intercept their next victim, only for Franco to complete not only the scene description but to nail its underlying tone, laughing, "Yes, just like Abbott and Costello!".

I interviewed Jess and Lina at their apartment, over two afternoons. I was also privileged to sit and watch the latest Jess Franco film PAULA PAULA with the man himself. (It's an extraordinary experiment which has closer ties to video installation art than cinema; yet another surprise in a film career packed with surprises). We also spent time listening to music, mostly jazz. (By the way, for those who don't already know, PAULA PAULA features marvellous music by Friedrick Gulda, who wrote the jazz score to Franco's 1967 classic, NECRONOMICON). After chatting for several hours, I played Jess a CDR I'd burned, featuring a selection of music from his films (all tracks were taken from video sources, sadly, as many are unavailable on record or CD). This proved to be an excellent aid to discussion. I was able to confirm that the haunting music for ABERRACIONES SEXUALES DE UNA MUJER CASADA, one of my favourite 'obscure' Franco titles, was indeed recorded entirely by Franco himself at the electric piano and synthesizer. Even more fascinating, for those who adore the music to CHRISTINA, PRINCESS OF EROTICISM, Franco himself plays keyboards on the score, having hired a Rome studio to record with Bruno Nicolai!

Franco is a genial and charming host, although sharper edges are there too! While attempting to describe the actor Alfred Baillou, who appears in PLAISIR A TROIS and LES CHATTOUILLEUSES, I repeatedly used a gesture to indicate his diminutive height, referring to him as 'quite small', until Franco, tiring of my (out-of-date) political correctness, turned to my translator in exasperation and exploded, "He's a fucking dwarf!" Point taken... (My good friend Gavin Mitchell accompanied me on the trip and I can't thank him enough. His wit and fluency in Spanish were absolutely invaluable).

I'll be expanding on my impressions of the man himself in my book, of course, but it just remains for me to say here that Franco's awareness of his work's occasional shortcomings, an awareness which inspires him to make guarded statements like, 'All my films are shit, it's just a question of which are less shit than others', should not be mistaken for a true and final statement of his feelings. He may tend to avoid saying it, but he knows that he's made some extraordinary films, and when pressed will admit that movies such as EUGENIE, CHRISTINA PRINCESS OF EROTICISM, LORNA THE EXORCIST, DAS BILDNIS DER DORIANA GRAY, and SADIST OF NOTRE DAME are genuine achievements. Having met him, it's now very clear to me that Jess Franco takes a real pleasure and pride in his work, from all the different periods of his career. He can also take justified pride in his commitment to creating cinema for his own satisfaction, tailored to his own tastes and impulses, rather than following the whims of the mass market. It's Franco's elevated and defiant commitment to the personal that ensures his work is so fascinating to others.

Viva Jess Franco!

ROOM 4 - Plaisir à GLC

2010-02-01T04:47:00.000-08:00

I've been doing some research recently into the British theatrical exhibition of Jess Franco's films, and came across this telling glimpse into life in 1970s Britain.

Franco's 1973 erotic horror film Plaisir à trois was one of the highlights of his sojourn with French porno producer Robert De Nesle, whose company Comptoir Français du Film Production bankrolled over twenty of his movies in the 1970s. When the film was submitted to the British Board of Film Censors on 8th May 1974, however, it was rejected outright.

Attempting to release the film were Cinecenta, a theatre chain specializing in the newly emergent sex films from America and the Continent. Many of their acquisitions suffered terribly at the hands of the censor, either banned outright or subjected to massive cuts before being grudgingly allowed an 'X' certificate (running times of 'X' prints often dipped below sixty minutes).

While the sexual revolution of the 1960s had swept through youth culture, parts of the intelligentsia and various exotic social groupings, it was yet to loosen the Establishment's grip on popular entertainment. Sex films, as seen in British cinemas, were splicy, frustrating affairs, with the 'meat' of the matter forever nipped in the bud. However, Cinecenta and companies like them were unwilling to admit defeat. One further legal avenue was open: if a film had been banned by the BBFC it was still possible to ask for a 'local X' from individual councils. Thus, in 1975 Plaisir à trois was submitted to London's then governing body, the Greater London Council (GLC) for consideration.

The 'Compton's' cinema chain had already succeeded in this endeavour with another Jess Franco film The Demons, which was rejected by the BBFC outright on the 23rd of March 1972, but which entered selective distribution to the country's sex cinemas in 1973, following successful applications for local licences in cities such as London and Birmingham. Plaisir à trois, now retitled How To Seduce a Virgin, was thus granted a number of local certificates and entered distribution in the summer of 1975...

Below is an article I discovered in the long-defunct British film trade magazine Cinema & TV Today, dated the 26th of April 1975, which outlines the controversy stirred up by Franco's film - a controversy that has not been remarked upon, to my knowledge, since the mid-seventies:

GLC ignores anti-porn protestors
by Quentin Falk

The GLC refused to be seduced this week by the members of the Festival of Light and the Salvation Army.

For despite the extra-mural influence of some 100 anti-porn campaigners, including Lord Longford, who went down on their knees as the council met, the GLC endorsed its viewing board's decision to give a certificate to "How To Seduce a Virgin."

The French sex film, which has been variously described as a "tale of murder and sex in a mental hospital" and telling "how a husband procures a woman for his lesbian wife to seduce and murder" was refused a certificate by the British Board of Film Censors.

The film was eventually passed by 44 votes to 36, much to the chagrin of the praying campaigners.

Cinecenta, who are handling the film, originally sought a GLC certificate in January and then withdrew the film when the big censorship debate came up in council at the end of that month.

After the GLC voted to retain censorship for adults, Cinecenta then offered the film again for consideration.

Commented viewing board chairman, Phil Bassett: "It's a rather sordid, seedy film."

Some context here:

Lord Longford was a Labour peer and campaigner on moral issues, best known, and deeply infamous, for his Christian forgiveness of 'Moors Murderer' Myra Hindley and his subsequent campaigning for her release. He earned himself the sobriquet 'Lord Porn' after he toured European sex cinemas on a 'fact-finding' mission to support his abhorrence of the sex industry. He was also a bitter opponent of gay rights and backed Margaret Thatcher's anti-gay 'Section 28' legislation to the end.

The Festival of Light was a conservative movement formed in the late 1960s by British Christians opposed to the so-called permissive society. Its most tenacious media campaigners were Mary Whitehouse and Malcolm Muggeridge, both of whom regularly appeared on television (Muggeridge famously calling for Monty Python's Life of Brian to be banned).

How to Seduce a Virgin did not set the box office alight, nor, as far as I can tell, did it spend a huge amount of time on the circuit. What's interesting today is to see the furore surrounding such a relatively obscure Franco title, with Christians picketing and praying their way into the news. Sadly, no British company picked up the film for distribution in the heyday of the 'video-nasty' so we have no way of knowing how it would have fared in that feverish moral climate. It seems unlikely that it would have been so controversial again, when films such as Cannibal Holocaust and I Spit On Your Grave were in circulation, but you never know - Jess Franco's name was infamous within the BBFC, and by the time the video revolution occurred a great many of his films between 1970 and 1980 had been banned outright.

Hopefully, Pete Tombs' company Mondo Macabro will consider this movie for release if and when they can secure the rights for a DVD release. Because, behind the controversy, and despite the obscurity, there's a terrific Sadean horror film just waiting to pounce!

ROOM 6 - THE TOPOGRAPHIC SUITE

2010-01-08T12:21:00.000-08:00

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Yesiphanies
This is a slightly longer version of a piece I wrote for the November edition of
The Wire magazine.

Mention Yes casually, and a confession often follows. ‘I used to be really into them’, or ‘I must admit, I saw them in 1974 and they were fantastic.’ You’d be surprised how many avant-garde musicians and writers of a certain age spent their teenage years twiddling their fingers along to Steve Howe’s guitar runs, or pouring over the byzantine lyrics of Jon Anderson.

I owe my first exposure to Yes to a chance encounter after school. Aged 16, I bumped into a Sixth-Former, Andrew ‘Tiny’ Wood (later the singer in Ultrasound). I was carrying Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, nicked from Virgin in Leeds; he was carrying Yessongs. We became friends, bonded through music, and he joined my first band Possession. Tiny was thirsty for new ideas, and he got into ‘my’ music straight away; it took me another twenty years to get into Yes…

The exception was Heart of the Sunrise (the Yessongs version), its opening salvo at least. Three minutes of soaringly exciting rock, densely constructed yet immediately accessible, rising and meshing until: oh dear. Enter Jon Anderson, in full flower: “Love comes to you, and you follow”…

I switched off. No way was I ‘following’ Jon Anderson. He was the antithesis of my taste in vocalists: I was into caustic observers like Mark E. Smith, emotional contortionists like Pere Ubu’s David Thomas. The winsome, choirboyish Anderson, conveying peace and mystical religiosity, was an abomination to my ears. And so my mind snapped closed.

One of the unexpected pleasures of rebuilding my friendship with Jhonn Balance, five years after my exit from Coil in 1993, was meeting Thighpaulsandra, by then ensconsed as Coil’s keyboard wizard. It led to my partner Ossian and I housesitting for him one summer fortnight in 1999, at his country cottage in the hills outside Pontypridd, South Wales. His record collection boasted a formidable prog’ section, and from some quiet place in the back of my mind came a thought – ‘I should listen to the Yes albums.’ The notion was supported by the presence of several books about Yes on Thighpaulsandra’s shelves, including Bill Martin’s Music of Yes: Structure and Vision in Progressive Rock, a fantastically elaborate thesis paying special attention to Anderson’s lyrics. The sun was out. The hillside views were captivating. All the auxiliaries of pleasure were aligned. The albums suddenly, profoundly, clicked.

I know, I know. Bucolic setting inspires cynical musician into adoration of pastoral rock. Post-industrial sound-squelcher in hedgerow conversion! Transfiguration by tractor! But it worked. Away from London, windows opened literally and metaphorically. Sunlight and sweet dirty countryside. Grass and blossom and manure. Listening under enormous skies, stars astonishingly vivid, the Milky Way glistening over twilit fields, I fell for Yes harder than for any band in what felt like an age.

I wanted to hear it all, see it all, read it all, so I mainlined the entire Yes catalogue. I soon came to agree with Bill Martin, who topped-and-tailed their oeuvre to a ‘main sequence’ stretching from The Yes Album in 1971, through Fragile, Close to the Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans, and Relayer, to Going For The One in 1977 (with the triple-live Yessongs for an encore).

The jagged opening guitar chords, propulsive uncoiling bass and clotted Leslie-speaker organ of Yours is No Disgrace from The Yes Album dispelled any lingering expectations of wetness and whimsy. As the albums effloresced, criticisms fell away like dew. Show-off virtuosity? Rubbish – Yes music was ensemble-driven to a tee, folding even the most prodigious solos into a three-dimensional whole. Grandiosity? Guilty as charged, and all the better for it. Approached with a sense of humour, the grandness of Yes transforms into something exhilarating and massively endearing. The impossibly grandiloquent climax of And You And I made me ache with that special kind of joy that can only escape in tears. Likewise Steve Howe’s solos: his playing on the run-out of Siberian Khatru is incredibly moving, for reasons I can’t begin to define. How blinkered I’d been: Yes songs such as Roundabout and South Side of the Sky were confidently muscular and physical, rewriting my whole attitude to the group. Squire’s bass playing is vital in this respect, unbelievably gutsy yet supremely flexible and nuanced.

And then the biggest stumbling block: Anderson.

In the fresh evening air I turned my antennae in a new direction. A singer with no irony. No aggression or mannerism. Optimistic instead of dystopian, with the bravery to try and communicate something bigger than himself. A complete exclusion of nihilism (the cock-rock of philosophy). It’s possible to love Anderson without ‘getting’ his lyrics, which for a singer is vital. I find the poetry hit and miss, but he has a phenomenal talent for phrasing. His lyrics are an attempt to unify the disparate strands of world religion: new and old, Christian and Pagan, East and West. He seeks worldly analogues for spiritual abstractions, and the spiritual essence in the everyday. These are goals that one can accept or reject, but the ambition, sincerity and unbowed optimism of Anderson still inspire me even when his gnosis does not.

A common misconception is that Anderson wrote nothing but woolly metaphysical abstraction. One need only listen to the terrifying Gates of Delirium to realise that this is not the case. A study of the way high principles turn to vengeance in wartime (“Kill them, give them as they give us/Slay them, burn their children’s laughter on to Hell” ), it’s hard and truthful and informed by Tolstoy more than Tolkien.

Nowadays it's common for critics to dismiss progressive rock in accordance with a diktat set in stone by post-punk orthodoxy, a default position of scorn which has become as fossilized as the 'rock dinosaurs' punk set out to destroy. Exceptions are sometimes made for King Crimson, or Van Der Graaf Generator (great bands both) because they're 'dark' and therefore cooler. But Yes are derided so often it's become rather irksome. A BBC4 documentary supposedly celebrating prog-rock wasted precious screen time indulging the usual suspects and their predictable pot-shots. It's as if the music can never be enjoyed in mainstream discourse without the cynical priests of post-punk scowling from the sidelines.

Anderson’s total lack of cynicism is the ultimate in exotic pleasures if you’ve drunk maybe too long at the well of disillusionment. His generous spirit and faith in the worth of humanity is unforced, unbowed and immune to even the meanest criticism – and let’s be clear, Yes attracted mountains of it, especially after punk. There’s a line in Going For The One where Anderson pokes fun at himself, and it’s both comic and slightly terrifying (has he begun to see himself as the haters see him?): “Now the verses I’ve sang don’t add much weight to the story in my head/So I’m thinking I should go and write a punchline/But they’re so hard to find/In my cosmic mind/So I think I’ll take a look out of the window”. No need to worry – it’s just the humour of Yes, another of their unsung qualities.

Jon Anderson and Yes opened a window for me in 1999. For a change it wasn’t the sort I’d contemplate jumping out of, nor throwing someone else through. It refreshed me. Through the window, some of my bitter old blackness left.

R.I.P. PAUL NASCHY (1934 - 2009)

2009-12-02T02:04:00.000-08:00

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Paul Naschy, one of the greatest Icons of the Horror genre, has died aged 75.

A wrestler before he entered the film industry, Naschy (born Jacinto Molina Alvarez) remained a fighter to the end: he battled cancer for over a year yet he was determined to continue working. The excellent Mark of Naschy website announced in October that he'd recently completed filming a vampire picture, Empusa, described as "a supernatural story of seamen, fishermen, ships, and a seagull who happens to be a vampire/witch woman". Naschy took over the directing of Empusa when frequent collaborator Carlos Aured pulled out, and was working on the post-production sound right up to his death. He said, "I sincerely believe that this is the best script I have written in my career."

The name 'Paul Naschy' will forever be synonymous with a brand of delirious monster-driven horror cinema, and he leaves behind him an enormous legacy, characterized more than anything else by the sheer pleasure of the horror genre. Even at their grisliest, his movies are fun all the way. The name of the game for Naschy was entertainment; his films are lunatic, wayward, sometimes daft as can be, but they always offer the viewer a terrific blast of thrills and amusement. I feel sure that future generations of horror fanatics will continue to regard his work with affection and admiration. It may be the end for Jacinto Molina on this Earth, but Paul Naschy, and his most famous screen creation Waldemar Daninsky, will always stalk the shadows of the silver screen.

ROOM 4 - Comptoir Français du Film Production Titles on DVD in 2010

2009-11-30T17:05:00.000-08:00

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Exciting developments in Francoland! DVD maestros Mondo Macabro have announced that they’re soon to release three ‘volumes’ of Jess Franco on DVD, drawn from the archives of Robert De Nesle’s Comptoir Français du Film Production. De Nesle died in 1978, but Mondo Macabro’s Pete Tombs has successfully negotiated with the current rights holders to bring us some of the key works in Franco’s filmography. No titles have been officially confirmed as yet, but the list of probable contenders (excluding those already officially available) includes:

Trois filles nues dans l'ile de Robinson
Les ébranlées
Le journal intime d'une nymphomane aka Sinner
Un capitaine de quinze ans
Plaisir à trois
La comtesse perverse
Maciste contre la reine des Amazones
Les exploits érotiques de Maciste dans l'Atlantide
Le miroir obscène aka Al otro lado del espejo
Célestine, bonne à tout faire
Les possédées du diable (Lorna l'exorciste)
L'homme le plus sexy du monde aka Le jouisseur
Les nonnes en folie aka Les chatouilleuses
Les grandes emmerdeuses
Elles font tout
Je brûle de partout
Cocktail spécial

While we're waiting for confirmation of the specific titles, here's a quick picture tour of the De Nesle era - I wonder if any of these movies will be included in the line-up?

UPDATE: Mondo Macabro have announced the first three titles!

Le journal intime d'une nymphomane

La comtesse perverse

Les possédées du diable (Lorna l'exorciste)

This is fantastic news. The imminent arrival on DVD of Franco's delirious Comtesse Perverse and his morbid masterpiece Les possédées du diable is hugely significant, while the choice of Le journal intime d'une nymphomane should establish beyond argument the quality and power of this complex, melancholy work. Apparently, if these three do well (expect the first around May 2010), other titles will follow. I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping that the tragic beauty of Al otro lado del espejo and the Sadean brilliance of Plaisir à trois put these two ahead of the pack. Of the others, I'm also especially fond of the delightful and effortlessly weird Les Grandes Emmerdeuses, and I harbour a strange love for the beautifully photographed but totally wacko 'muscleman epic' Les Gloutonnes, De Nesle's sexed-up version of Les exploits érotiques de Maciste dans l'Atlantide. Of the sex comedies, I suspect Trois filles nues dans l'ile de Robinson is the meatiest, and Les chatouilleuses the slightest, although fans of naughty nuns may disagree!

COMMENTS REOPENED

2009-11-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

My apologies. Back on the 31st Oct I accidentally switched the option for reader comments to 'members only'. This has now been corrected.

SEVEN DOORS NO.5 - 2nd POST: JUST SAY YES

2009-11-19T02:41:00.000-08:00

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If the words "Total Mass Retain" or " Moon gate, climber, Turn round, glider" ring any bells for you, it's possible you'll enjoy my 'Epiphanies' piece in UK-based music magazine The Wire this month. That's right, I'm spreading the love for British Progressive Rock giants Yes. The Wire is published monthly - the issue in question, #310, is out now dated December 2009, and features the artist known as Sensational on the cover.

SEVEN DOORS NO.5 - 1ST POST: Cyclobe music to premiere at The Tate, St. Ives, Saturday 21st November

2009-11-17T01:57:00.000-08:00

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A new composition by Cyclobe, The Woods are Alive with the Smell of His Coming, will be premiered at the Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, on the 21st of November as part of an exhibition entitled The Dark Monarch - Magic and Modernity in British Art. The exhibition comprises work by a wide variety of artists; Paul Nash, Barbara Hepworth, Austin Osman Spare, Ithell Colquhoun, David Noonan, Richard Dadd, Derek Jarman, Samuel Palmer and Damien Hirst to name but a few. Cyclobe's audio presentation is a twenty minute pre-recorded piece which is due to be released on our forthcoming album early in the new year. The event, a specially created symposium in conjunction with the exhibition, includes a variety of discussions and lectures from exhibition curators Martin Clark, Michael Bracewell and Alun Rowlands. Chris Stephens, Curator (Modern British Art) & Head of Displays at Tate Britain will also be present, as well as exhibiting artists Jeremy Millar, Mark Titchner and Clare Woods. There will be a screening of the Incredible String Band documentary Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending with director Peter Neal in attendance, and a short film by Angela Cockayne and Philip Hoare (author of England's Lost Eden). From his own collection, Ossian Brown has contributed the 1955 painting The Qliphoth by Austin Osman Spare, part of the 'Contexture of Being' series, for the exhibition's beautiful catalogue. Unfortunately, having only just confirmed our involvement we've not been able to share information about this sooner. We will be present at the event and look forward to seeing anyone who's able to attend. Tickets are limited so please check with the gallery for availability.

With our best wishes,
Ossian Brown and Stephen Thrower
15th November 2009

For ticket and schedule information please visit:
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/eventseducation/talksdiscussions/20550.htm

and Cyclobe's home site:
http://www.cyclobe.com

SEVEN DOORS No.4

2009-10-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

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I've been asked this week by, oh, literally no one, just what The Seven Doors Hotel actually looks like. Well, there are in fact seven: one in Great Britain, one in Portugal, one in Italy, one in Łódź, one in New Orleans, one in Paris, and another at a closely guarded secret location...

With Francomania coursing through my veins this week due to the announcement of my new book project (Sadomania! A Guide to the Films of Jess Franco), I thought you might like to see the Portuguese Seven Doors Hotel. If you're a Franco fan, it may look strangely familiar...

ROOM 4 - 1ST POST: Sadomania! A Guide to the films of Jess Franco

2009-10-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

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I've been reticent to speak of this too soon, but I can reveal that before the second volume of Nightmare USA hits the shelves, FAB Press and I will squeeze in a modest little project called Sadomania! A Guide to the Films of Jess Franco. Nothing too ambitious, nothing too epic, just a slim volume about THE MOST PROLIFIC DIRECTOR OF ALL TIME!!!

The name of the book may change (it's a 'holding title' really), but the project is well advanced and on schedule for next year. Wish me luck, as I cross the 100 film mark this week! I've come too far to turn back, so I'm glad I left a few of the highly regarded films for the final leg of the journey. Can you believe, for instance, that with almost a hundred Franco films viewed and reviewed, I've still not actually seen Vampyros Lesbos?!

The ever-increasing availability of Jess Franco's films on DVD and the substantial number now viewable in English make the prospect of writing a comprehensive guide far more attractive than it would've been even five years ago. There are, incredibly, around a hundred Franco films out there in English, either on DVD or dusty old VHS, with many more available in French or Spanish. Certainly now is the time to attempt what seemed impossible and review them all!

Currently, only five 'official' Franco films are stubbornly unavailable to me in any home viewing format - that's discounting unfinished and unreleased projects. But with so many individual films now sourced, one feels optimistic that the job can be done! Sadomania! will be as comprehensive a study as humanly possible, and I'll be giving a fair shake to all of the films, whether classy or sleazy, crude or delicate, cruel or sad, amateurish or artful. In the 21st century Franco's cinema is at last laid out before us, exposed to our hungry gaze like never before. Sadomania! will zoom shamelessly into every nook and cranny, and nothing will be hidden from your view!

Below is a list of the remaining Jess Franco films I am unable to source. I'd be extremely grateful for information or assistance that would enable me to see these and cover them in the book. If you can help, you will naturally receive full credit, plus a signed copy of the book and a sincere thank-you from me!

LABIOS ROJOS (1960)
SEX CHARADE (1970)
VOCES DE MUERTE (1984)
EL ABUELO, LA CONDESA Y ESCARLATA LA TRAVIESA (1985)
LAS CHUPONAS (1986)

Quite a few 'mystery' titles also remain out of reach, many of them unfinished projects which are unlikely to surface. Nevertheless, just in case - here they are!

EL MISTERIO DEL CASTILLO ROJO (1972 - unfinished)
RELAX BABY (1973 - unfinished)
LE MANOIR DU PENDU (1973 - unfinished)
MANDINGA (1975 - unfinished)
EL HUÉSPED DE LA NIEBLA (1982 - short documentary, unreleased?)
BARRIO CHINO (1983 - unfinished)
EL ASESINO LLEVABA MEDIAS NEGRAS (1984 - unfinished)
UNA DE CHINO (1985 - unfinished)
EL HOMBRE QUE MATÓ A MENGELE (1985 - unfinished)
EL RHINOCERONTE BLANCO (1986 - unfinished)
LAS TRIBULACIONES DE UN BUDA BIZCO (1986 - unreleased)
SIDA, LA PESTE DEL SIGLO XX (1986 - unreleased)
TELEPORNO (1986 - unfinished)

I'm also interested in the following titles. These are either composite films containing segments from Franco's official films, or else they're 'co-directing' credits of doubtful validity:

WEIßE HAUT UND SCHWARZE SCHENKEL (1976 - allegedly co-directed with Erwin Dietrich)
CONVOI DE FILLES (1978 - allegedly co-directed with Pierre Chevalier)
À LA POURSUITE DE BARBARA (1991 - allegedly co-directed with Jean Rollin).

2009-10-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

ROOM 3 - 1ST POST

One of the appendices included in my book Nightmare USA is the 'Exploitation Independent Checklist'. On it are all of the films covered in the book, plus those to be included in Volume 2 and any others I could think of which fitted the template - i.e. independently produced horror films made in the USA between 1970 and 1985. I think we all love a list, so I've decided to begin this blog by reprinting it here. There are 472 films on it, of which I've seen a woefully unhealthy 335. The sunlight hurts my eyes and I rarely go out. How many have you seen?

* indicates the movies I've seen
Movies in bold are reviewed or covered in depth in Nightmare USA Vol.1

*ABDUCTED - Don Jones (1973)
*ALABAMA'S GHOST - Fredric Hobbs (1973)
*ALCHEMIST, THE - Charles Band (1981)
*ALIEN DEAD, THE - Fred Olen Ray (1980)
*ALIEN FACTOR, THE - Don Dohler (1977)
*BEAUTIES AND THE BEAST - Ray Naneau (1973)
BEN – Phil Karlson (1972) Bing Crosby Productions
*BEYOND EVIL - Herb Freed (1980)
*BLACK DEVIL-DOLL FROM HELL - Chester T. Turner (1984)
*BLACK ROOM, THE - Norman Thaddeus Vane/Elly Kenner (1981)
BLACKENSTEIN - William A. Levey (1972)
*BLOOD - Andy Milligan (1974)
BLOOD BATH - Joel M. Reed (1975)
BLOOD BRIDE - Robert J. Avrech (1979)
BLOOD CULT – Christopher Lewis (1985) SHOT ON VIDEO
*BLOOD FREAK - Brad F. Grinter (1972)
*BLOOD MANIA - Robert Vincent O'Neil (1971)
*BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR - Al Adamson (1971)
*BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE DEVILS - Ted V. Mikels (1972)
*BLOOD RAGE - John Grissmer (1983)
*BLOOD SABBATH - Brianne Murphy (1972)
BLOOD SHACK - Ray Dennis Steckler (1971)
*BLOOD SONG - Alan J. Levi (1982)
*BLOOD STALKERS - Robert W. Morgan (1975)
*BLOODRAGE - Joseph Bigwood [Joseph Zito] (1979)
BLOODSUCKERS FROM OUTER SPACE – Glen Coburn (1984)
*BLOODSUCKING FREAKS - Joel M. Reed (1976)
*BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS, THE - Andy Milligan (1970)
*BLOODY BIRTHDAY - Ed Hunt (1980)
*BLOODY WEDNESDAY - Mark G Gilhuis (1985)
*BLUE SUNSHINE - Jeff Lieberman (1--977)
BLUE VOODOO - director unknown (1977)
*BOARDING HOUSE - John Wintergate (1982)
*THE BODY SHOP - J.G. 'Pat' Patterson (1972)
*BOG - Don Keeslar (1978)
*BOOGEY MAN, THE - Ulli Lommel (1980)
*BOOGEYMAN II – Ulli Lommel (1983)
*BOOGENS, THE - James L. Conway (1981)
BRAIN LEECHES, THE - Fred Olen Ray (1977)
*BRAIN OF BLOOD - Al Adamson (1971)
*BRIDES WORE BLOOD, THE - Bob Favorite (1972)
BUMMER! - William Allen Castleman (1973)
CAPTURE OF BIGFOOT, THE - Bill Rebane (1979)
CARNAGE – Andy Milligan (1983)
*CARNIVAL OF BLOOD - Leonard Kirtman (1970)
*CATACLYSM - Tom McGowan (1980)
*CENTERFOLD GIRLS - John Peyser (1974)
*CHILD, THE - Robert Voskanian (1976)
*CHILDREN, THE - Max Kalmanowicz (1980)
*CHILDREN OF THE CORN – Fritz Kiersch (1984)
*CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS - Bob Clark (1972)
*CHRISTMAS EVIL - Lewis Jackson (1980)
*CLAWS - Richard Bansbach/R.E. Pierson (1977)
COMING, THE - Bert I. Gordon (1980)
*COMMUNION - Alfred Sole (1976)
*CONFESSIONS OF A SERIAL KILLER - Mark Blair (1985)
*CORPSE GRINDERS, THE - Ted V. Mikels (1971)
COUNT EROTICO - VAMPIRE - Tony Teresi (1975)
*CRATER LAKE MONSTER, THE - William R. Stromberg (1977)
*CRAZED - Richard Cassidy (1977)
*CRAZIES, THE - George Romero (1973)
*CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE - Joy N. Houck Jr (1976)
*CREEPER, THE - Wes Olsen (1984)
*CRIMINALLY INSANE - Steve Millard (1975)
*CRYPT OF DARK SECRETS - Jack Weis (1976)
CRYPT OF THE LIVING DEAD - Ray Danton/Julio Salvador (1972)
CURSE OF BIGFOOT - Don Fields (1976)
*CURSE OF THE ALPHA STONE - Stewart Malleson (1972)
*CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN - Leonard Kirtman (1972)
CURSE OF THE MOON CHILD - director unknown (1972)
*CURSE OF THE SCREAMING DEAD - Tony Malanowski (1982)
*DARK, THE - John 'Bud' Cardos (1978)
DARK ANGEL, THE - director unknown (1983)
*DARK AUGUST - Martin Goldman (1975)
DARK DREAMS - Roger Guermontes (1971)
*DARK EYES - James Polakof (1980)
*DARK POWER, THE - Phil Smoot (1985)
*DARK RIDE, THE - Jeremy Hoenack (1977)
*DARK SANITY - Martin Green (1982)
DAUGHTER OF SATAN - director unknown (1970)
*DAWN OF THE DEAD - George Romero (1978)
DAY IT CAME TO EARTH, THE – Harry Thomason (1979)
*DAY OF JUDGEMENT, A - C.D.H. Reynolds (1979)
*DAY OF THE DEAD – George Romero (1985)
DAY OF THE REAPER - Tim Ritter (1984)
*DEAD AND BURIED – Gary Sherman (1981)
DEAD END – Emerson Bixby (1985) shot on video
*DEADLY GAMES - Scott Mansfield (1980)
DEADLY LOVE – Alexander Newman (1976)
*DEADLY SPAWN, THE - Douglas McKeown (1982)
DEAFULA - Peter Wolf (1974)
*DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS - George Barry (1977)
DEATH BY INVITATION - Ken Friedman (1971)
*DEATH GAME - Peter Traynor (1976)
*DEATH SCREAMS - David Nelson (1983)
*DEATH TRAP - Tobe Hooper (1976)
*DEATH WISH CLUB - John Carr (1983)
DEATHHEAD VIRGIN, THE - Norman Foster (1974)
*DEATHDREAM – Bob Clark (1972)
*DEFIANCE OF GOOD, THE - Armand Weston (1974)
*DEMENTED - Arthur Jeffreys/Alex Rebar (1980)
*DEMENTED DEATH FARM MASSACRE: THE MOVIE - Donn Davison/Fred Olen Ray (1972/1986)
*DEMONOID - Alfredo Zacharias (1979)
*DEMON LOVER, THE - Donald D. Jackson (1976)
*DEMONS OF LUDLOW, THE - Bill Rebane (1983)
DEVIL INSIDE HER, THE - Zebedy Colt (1976)?
*DEVIL TIMES FIVE - Sean McGregor (1973)
DEVIL’S DUE – Ernest Danna (1973)
DEVIL'S ECSTASY - Brandon G. Carter (1974)
DEVIL'S EXPRESS - Barry Rosen (1975)
DEVIL'S GIFT, THE - Kenneth J. Berton (1984)
DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND, THE - Rick Taziner (1977)
*THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR – Ulli Lommel (1983)
DIMENSION - Leon Armand (1984)
DISCONNECTED –Gorman Bechard (1983)
DOGS - Burt Brinckerhoff (1976)
*DOGS OF HELL - Worth Keeter III (1982)
*DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE! - Robert Hammer (1979)
*DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE - Joseph Ellison (1979)
*DON'T GO IN THE WOODS - James Bryan (1980)
*DON'T GO NEAR THE PARK - Lawrence Foldes (1979)
*DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT - S.F. Brownrigg (1973)
*DON'T OPEN THE DOOR - S.F. Brownrigg (1975)
DOUBLE GARDEN, THE - Kenneth G. Crane (1970)
DR BLACK, MR HYDE - William Crane (1975)
*DR. DEATH, SEEKER OF SOULS - Eddie Saeta (1973)
DRACULA SUCKS - Philip Marshak (1979)
*DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN - Al Adamson (1970)
*DRACULA'S DOG - Albert Band (1978)
DRAGULA - Jim Moss [with Andy Milligan] (1971)
*DREAM NO EVIL - John Hayes (1971)
*DRILLER KILLER, THE – Abel Ferrara (1979)
*DRIVE-IN MASSACRE - Stu Segall (1976)
ECSTASY IN BLUE – Bill Milling (1976)
EFFECTS - Dusty Nelson (1978)
*ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNKNOWN - Harry Thomason (1972)
*ENTER THE DEVIL - Frank Q. Dobbs (1972)
EVILS OF THE NIGHT - Mardi Rustam (1985)
*EQUINOX - Jack Woods (1968/71)
*ERASERHEAD - David Lynch (1976)
*EVIL, THE - Gus Trikonis (1977)
*EVIL COME, EVIL GO - Walt Davis (1972)
*EVIL DEAD, THE – Sam Raimi (1982)
*EVIL FORCE – Evan Lee (1975)
*EVILSPEAK - Eric Weston (1981)
EYES OF FIRE – Avery Crounse (1983)
*FADE TO BLACK - Vernon Zimmerman (1980)
FALL BREAK - Buddy Cooper (1985)
*FATAL GAMES – Michael Elliot (1983)
*FEAR NO EVIL - Frank La Loggia (1980)
*FIEND - Don Dohler (1980)
*FIFTH FLOOR, THE - Howard Avedis (1978)
*FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE - Robert Endelson (1977)
*FINAL EXAM - Jimmy Huston (1981)
*FINGER LICKIN' GOOD - Rik Taziner (1974)
FLESH FEAST - Brad Grinter (1970)
FORCE OF DARKNESS - Alan Hauge (1985)
*FORCED ENTRY - Helmuth Richler [Shaun Costello] (1972)
*FOREST, THE - Don Jones (1981)
*FOREST OF FEAR - Charles McCrann (1979)
*FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND - Jerry Warren (1981)
*FRIDAY THE 13TH - Sean Cunningham (1980)
*FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE ORPHAN – John Ballard (1977)
*FROZEN SCREAM - Frank Roach & Renee Harmon [uncredited] (1981)
GALAXY INVADER - Don Dohler (1985)
THE GAME – William Rebane (1984)
GANJA AND HESS - Bill Gunn/Fima Noveck (1974)
*GARDEN OF THE DEAD - John Hayes (1972)
*GATOR BAIT - Ferd & Beverly Sebastian (1973)
*GETTING EVEN - Harry Kerwin (1976)
GHOST DANCE, THE - Peter F. Buffa (1980)
*GHOSTS THAT STILL WALK - James T. Flocker (1978)
*GIANT SPIDER INVASION, THE - Bill Rebane (1975)
*GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS - Fredric Hobbs (1973)
*GOD'S BLOODY ACRE - Harry Kerwin (1974)
*GORE-GORE GIRLS, THE - Herschell Gordon Lewis (1972)
*GRADUATION DAY - Herb Freed (1981)
*GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE - John Hayes (1972)
*GREAT HOLLYWOOD RAPE SLAUGHTER, THE - Charles Edward (1971)
GRIM REAPER - Ron Ormond (1976)
GRIZZLY - William Girdler (1976)
*GURU THE MAD MONK - Andy Milligan (1970)
*HALLOWEEN – John Carpenter (1978)
HANGING HEART – Jimmy Lee (1983)
*HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, LOVE GEORGE - Darren McGavin (1972)
*HARDGORE - Michael Hugo (1974)
*HAUNTED - Michael DeGaetano (1976)
HAUNTED PUSSY, THE - Doris Wishman (1976)
*HAUNTS - Herb Freed (1975)
*HAVE A NICE WEEKEND - Michael Walters (1974)
*HEADLESS EYES, THE - Kent Bateman (1971)
*HEARSE, THE - George Bowers (1980)
*HELL NIGHT - Tom De Simone (1981)
*HILLS HAVE EYES, THE - Wes Craven (1977)
*HITCH HIKE TO HELL - Irv Berwick (1977)
HOLLYWOOD STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER, THE – Ray Dennis Steckler (1979)
*HOME SWEET HOME - Nettie Peña (1981)
*HOMEBODIES - Larry Yust (1973)
*HONEYMOON HORROR - Harry Preston (1982)
HORNY DEVILS, THE - director unknown (1973)
HORROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM – Titus Moody (1983)
*HORROR STAR, THE - Norman Thaddeus Vane (1981)
*HOT SUMMER IN THE CITY - Gail Palmer (1974)/76)?
HOUSE OF DE SADE - Joe Davian (1975)
*HOUSE OF SEVEN CORPSES, THE - Paul Harrison (1973)
HOUSE OF SIN – Carter Stevens (1982)
*HOUSE OF TERROR - Segei Goncharoff (1972)
*HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN, THE - Ron Honthaner (1974)
*HOUSE THAT CRIED MURDER, THE - Jean-Marie Pélissié (1974)
*HOUSE WHERE DEATH LIVES, THE - Alan Beattie (1980)
*HUMAN EXPERIMENTS - Gregory Goodell (1979)
*I DISMEMBER MAMA - Paul Leder (1972)
*I DRINK YOUR BLOOD - David Durston (1971)
*I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE - Meir Zarchi (1978)
IGOR AND THE LUNATICS – Billy Parolini (1985)
*IMPULSE - William Grefé (1973)
*INSANITY - Christine Hornisher (1973)
*INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS - Ed Adlum (1972)
ISLAND CLAWS - Hernan Cardenas (1981)
*JANIE - Jack Bravman (1970)
*JAR, THE - Bruce Toscano (1985)
*JEKYLL AND HYDE PORTFOLIO, THE - Eric Jeffrey Haims (1971)
*JUST BEFORE DAWN - Jeff Lieberman (1980)
*KEEP MY GRAVE OPEN - S.F. Brownrigg (1976)
*KIDNAPPED COED – Frederick Friedel (1975)
*KILLING KIND, THE - Curtis Harrington (1973)
*KISS OF THE TARANTULA - Chris Munger (1975)
KNEEL BEFORE ME – Phil Prince (1983)
*LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET - Roger Watkins (1977)
LAST HORROR FILM, THE – David Winters (1982)
*LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT - Wes Craven (1972)
*LAST RITES - Domonic Paris (1979)
*LAST VICTIM, THE - Jim Sotos (1975)
LEGACY OF BLOOD - Carl Monson (1971)
*LEGACY OF HORROR - Andy Milligan (1978)
LEGACY OF SATAN - Gerard Damiano (1973/76)?
*LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, THE - Charles B. Pierce (1972)
LEGEND OF HORROR, THE - Bill Davies/Enrique Carreras (1972)
*LEGEND OF MCCULLOUGH MOUNTAIN - Massey Cramer/Donn Davison (1965/1976)
*LEMORA: A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL - Richard Blackburn (1973)
*LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH - John Hancock (1971)
LOCH NESS HORROR, THE - Larry Buchanan (1981)
LONG ISLAND CANNIBAL MASSACRE - Nathan Schiff (1980)
*LORD SHANGO - Ray Marsh (1975)
*LOVE BUTCHER, THE - Mike Angel/Don Jones (1975)
LOVE ME DEADLY - Jacques Lacerte (1972)
LUCIFERS, THE - director unknown (1971)
*MADAME ZENOBIA - Eduardo Cemano (1973)
*MADMAN - Joe Giannone (1981)
*MAFU CAGE, THE - Karen Arthur (1977)
*MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH - William Grefé (1975)
*MALATESTA'S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD - Christopher Speeth (1973)
*MANIAC - William Lustig (1980)
*MANITOU, THE - William Girdler (1977)
*MANSION OF THE DOOMED - Michael Pataki (1975)
*MARDI GRAS MASSACRE - Jack Weis (1978)
*MARK OF THE WITCH - Tom Moore (1970)
*MARTIN - George Romero (1976)
*MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH - Rene Daalder (1976)
*MAUSOLEUM - Michael Dugan (1982)
*MESSIAH OF EVIL - Willard Huyck (1973)
*MICROWAVE MASSACRE - Wayne Berwick (1978 [released 1983])
*MIDNIGHT – John Russo (1982)
MILPITAS MONSTER, THE - Robert L. Burrill (1975)
MIRRORS - Noel Black (1974/78)?
*MONGREL - Robert Burns (1982)
*MONSTROID - Kenneth Hartford/Herbert R. Strock (1979)
*MOONCHILD - Alan Gadney (1972)
*MOTHER'S DAY - Charles Kaufman (1980)
*MOVIE HOUSE MASSACRE - Alice Raley (1984)
MURDERLUST – Donald M. Jones (1985)
MUTANT – John ‘Bud’ Cardos (1984)
*MY BROTHER HAS BAD DREAMS - Robert J. Emery (1972)
*MY FRIENDS NEED KILLING - Paul Leder (1976)
NAIL GUN MASSACRE, THE - Bill Leslie/Terry Lofton (1985)
*NAME FOR EVIL, A - Bernard Girard (1972)
*NATAS: THE REFLECTION - Jack Dunlap (1983)
NECROMANCY – Bert I. Gordon (1972)
*NESTING, THE - Armand Weston (1980)
NEW YEAR'S EVIL - Emmett Alston (1980) Cannon Films
*NIGHT OF HORROR - Tony Malanowski (1981)
*NIGHT OF THE COMET – Thom Eberhardt (1984)
*NIGHT OF THE DEMON - James C. Wasson (1980)
NIGHT OF THE WITCHES - Keith Larsen [Keith Erik Burt] (1970)
NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES - Joel M. Reed (1981)
*NIGHT TO DISMEMBER, A - Doris Wishman (1983)
*NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR - Various (1985)
*NIGHTBEAST - Don Dohler (1982)
NIGHTMARE IN BLOOD - John Stanley (1979)
*NOCTURNA - Harry Tampa (1978)
*NURSE SHERRI - Al Adamson (1977)
NUTRIAMAN: THE COPASAW CREATURE - Joe Catalanotto/Martin Folse (1985)
OCTAMAN - Harry Essex (1971)
*OLIVIA – Ulli Lommel (1981)
*ONE DARK NIGHT - Tom McLoughlin (1983)
ORACLE, THE - Roberta Findlay (1985)
*OUTING, THE - Byron W. Quisenberry (1981)
*PETS - Raphael Nussbaum (1973)
*PHANTASM - Don Coscarelli (1978)
PICK-UP – Bennie Hirschenson (1975)
*PIGS - Marc Lawrence (1972)
*PLEASE DON'T EAT MY MOTHER - Carl Monson (1972)
PLEASE DON'T EAT THE BABIES - Henri Charr (1983)
*POINT OF TERROR - Alex Nichol (1971)
POOR PRETTY EDDIE - Richard Robinson/David Worth (1973)
*POOR WHITE TRASH PART 2 - S.F. Brownrigg (1974)
POSSESSED - director unknown (1976)
*POSSESSED, THE - Charles Nizet (1974)
POWER, THE - Jeffrey Obrow/ Stephen Carpenter (1982)?
*PRANKS - Jeffrey Obrow/ Stephen Carpenter (1981)
PREMONITION - Alan Rudolph (1970)
*PREMONITION, THE - Robert Allan Schnitzer (1975)
*PREY, THE - Edwin Brown (1980)
*PSYCHED BY THE 4D WITCH - Victor Luminera (1972)
*PSYCHIC KILLER - Ray Danton (1975)
*PSYCHO FROM TEXAS - Jim Feazell (1971)
*PSYCHO LOVER, THE - Robert Vincent O'Neil (1970)
PSYCHO SISTERS - Reginald Le Borg (1974)
*PSYCHOPATH - Larry Brown (1972)
*PSYCHOTRONIC MAN, THE - Jack M. Sell (1979)
*RANA: THE CREATURE FROM SHADOW LAKE - Bill Rebane (1981)
RAVAGER, THE - Charles Nizet (1970)
*RATS ARE COMING, THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE – Andy Milligan (1971)
*RAW FORCE – Edward D. Murphy (1981)
*REDEEMER, THE - Constantine Gochis (1976)
RED HEAT - Ray Dennis Steckler (1975)
RETURN - Andrew Silver (1985)
*RETURN, THE – Greydon Clark (1980)
RETURN TO BOGGY CREEK - Tom Moore (1977)
*RETURNING, THE - Joel Bender (1983)
REVENGE OF BIGFOOT – Harry Thomason (1979)
THE RIPPER – Christopher Lewis (1985) § SHOT ON VIDEO
*RUBY - Curtis Harrington/Stephanie Rothman (1977)
SACRILEGE - Ray Dennis Steckler (1971)
SAN FRANCISCO BALL - Jack Genaro (1971)
SATAN WAR – Bart La Rue (1979)
*SATAN'S BLACK WEDDING - Steve Millard (1975)
SATAN'S BLADE - L. Scott Castillo Jr (1984)
*SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS - Greydon Clark (1977)
*SATAN'S CHILDREN - Joe Wiezycki (1974)
SATAN'S LUST - director unknown (1971)
SATAN'S TOUCH - John D. Goodell (1984)
*SAVAGE ABDUCTION - John Lawrence (1972)
SAVAGE WATER - Paul Kener (1978)
*SAVAGE WEEKEND - David Paulsen (1976)
*SCALPEL - John Grissmer (1974)
SCALPS – Fred Olen Ray (1982)
SCARED TO DEATH - William Malone (1980)
*SCAREMAKER, THE - Robert Deubel (1982)
SCHIZOID - David Paulsen (1980) Cannon Films
SCHOOL FOR DEAD GIRLS - director unknown (1972)
*SCREAM BLOODY MURDER - Marc B. Ray (1972)
SCREAM FOR VENGEANCE - Bob Blizz (1979)
*SCREAM IN THE STREETS, A - Carl Monson (1972)
*SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT - James Wilson (1979)
*SEASON OF THE WITCH - George Romero (1972)
*SEEDS OF EVIL - Jim Kay (1973)
SESSION, THE - Pasquale Arico (1971)
*SEVERED ARM, THE - Thomas Alderman (1972)
SEX DEMON - J.C. Crickett (1975)
SEX PSYCHO - Walt Davis (1970)
*SEX RITUALS OF THE OCCULT - Robert Caramico (1970)
*SEX WISH - Tim McCoy (1976)
SEXORCIST DEVIL - Ray Dennis Steckler (1974)
SEXUAL SATANIC AWARENESS - Ray Dennis Steckler (1972)
*THE SHADOW OF CHIKARA - Earl Barton (1978)
*SHADOWS OF THE MIND - Roger Watkins (1980)
*SHOCK WAVES - Ken Wiederhorn (1976)
*SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED - Michael Findlay (1974)
*SILENT MADNESS - Simon Nuchtern (1984)
*SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT - Theodore Gershuny (1972)
*SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT - Charles E. Sellier Jr (1984)
*SILENT SCREAM, THE - Denny Harris (1979)
*SIMON, KING OF THE WITCHES - Bruce Kessler (1971)
SINGLE GIRLS, THE - Ferd & Beverly Sebastian (1973)
*SISTERS OF DEATH - Joseph Mazzuca (1972 [released 1977])
*SKETCHES OF A STRANGLER - Paul Leder (1978)
*SLAYER, THE - J.S. Cardone (1981)
*SLEAZY RIDER - Roger Gentry (1972)
SLEDGEHAMMER – David A. Prior (1983)
*SNUFF - Michael Findlay (1976)
*SOLE SURVIVOR - Thom Eberhardt (1982)
*SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS - Thomas Casey (1971)
SONS OF SATAN - Tom DeSimone (1973)
*SOUL VENGEANCE – Jamaa Fanaka (1975)
SOUTH OF HELL MOUNTAIN - Louis Lehman/William Sachs (1971)
*SPAWN OF THE SLITHIS - Steven Traxler (1977)
*THE SPECTRE OF EDGAR ALLAN POE - Mohy Quandour (1972)
STANLEY - William Grefé (1972)
*STIGMA - David Durston (1972)
STRANGE VENGEANCE OF ROSALIE, THE - Jack Starrett (1972)
*STRANGENESS, THE - David Michael Hillman (1980)
SUGAR COOKIES - Theodore Gershuny (1973)
*SUICIDE CULT - James Glickenhaus (1977)
*SUPERSTITION - James Roberson (1982)
SWEET KILL - Curtis Hanson (1971)
SWEET SAVIOR - Bob Roberts (1971)
*SWEET SIXTEEN - Jim Sotos (1983)
*SWINGERS MASSACRE - Ron Garcia (1973)
TALES OF THE THIRD DIMENSION - Tom Durham/Worth Keeter/Thom McKintyre (1984)
*TENEMENT - Roberta Findlay (1985)
TERRI’S REVENGE – Zebedy Colt (1976)
TERROR AT ORGY CASTLE - Zoltan G. Spenser (1971)
*TERROR AT RED WOLF INN - Bud Townsend (1972)
TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM - George Fenady (1973) Bing Crosby Productions
TERROR ON TOUR – Don Edmonds (1980)
*TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, THE - Tobe Hooper (1974)
*THIRSTY DEAD, THE - Terry Becker (1973)
*THREE ON A MEATHOOK - William Girdler (1972)
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS - Jonas Middleton (1976)
*TILL DEATH - Walter Stocker (1974)
*TIME WALKER - Tom Kennedy (1982)
*TO ALL A GOODNIGHT - David Hess (1980)
*TOOLBOX MURDERS, THE - Dennis Donnelly (1977)
*TORTURE DUNGEON - Andy Milligan (1970)
*TOUCH OF SATAN, THE - Don Henderson (1971)
*TOURIST TRAP - David Schmoeller (1978)
*TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN, THE - Charles B. Pierce (1976)
*TOY BOX, THE - Ron Garcia (1970)
*TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN - Stanley H. Brasloff (1972)
*TRACK OF THE MOONBEAST - Richard Ashe (1972)
*TRICK OR TREATS - Gary Graver (1982)
*TRIP WITH THE TEACHER - Earl Barton (1974/75)?
*TWISTED BRAIN - Larry N. Stouffer (1974)
*UNHINGED - Don Gronquist (1982)
*UNSEEN, THE - Peter Foleg (1981)
UNWILLING LOVERS - Zebedy Colt (1976/77)?
*VARROW MISSION, THE - Peter Semelka (1978)
*VICTIMS - Daniel DiSomma (1977)
VICTIMS - Jeff Hathcock (1985)
*VISIONS OF EVIL - Harry Thomason (1973)
*VOICES OF DESIRE - Chuck Vincent (1970)
VOODOO HEARTBEAT - Charles Nizet (1972)
VULTURES – Paul Leder (1983)
WAPPER - William Gilfry/Todd Hughes/Tim Kirk (1975)
*WARLOCK MOON - Bill Herbert (1975/1978?)
*WARNING, THE - Greydon Clark (1980)
WATERPOWER - Gerard Damiano/Warren Evans (1977)
WEASELS RIP MY FLESH - Nathan Schiff (1979)
*WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH - Lawrence Harvey (1973)
WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS - Michel Levesque (1971)
WET WILDERNESS - director unknown (1975)
WHISKEY MOUNTAIN - William Grefé (1977)
*WHODUNIT? - Bill [William T.] Naud (1982)
WILLARD – Daniel Mann (1971) Bing Crosby Productions
*WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA, THE - Matt Cimber (1976)
*WIZARD OF GORE, THE - Herschell Gordon Lewis (1970)
*WOLFMAN - Worth Keeter III (1979)
WOMAN'S TORMENT, A - Roberta Findlay (1976)
*WORM EATERS, THE - Herb Robbins (1977)
*WRONG WAY - Ray Williams (1972)
ZAAT – Don Barton (1975)
*ZODIAC KILLER, THE - Tom Hanson (1971)
ZOMBIE ISLAND MASSACRE - John T. Carter (1983)