Marty's choice... The Legend of Hell House (1973)

 

Although the story of this film is fictitious, the events depicted involving psychic phenomena are not only very much within the bounds of possibility but could well be true.

Tom Corbett, Clairvoyant and Psychic Consultant to European Royalty

 

The BFI recently screened this film as part of the series celebrating Martin Scorsese’s favourite British films not directed by Michael Powell (of course) and it fully justifies the director’s favour on a number of levels and it makes me wonder why I haven’t watched it before. If you want an engaging haunted house mystery that maintains its edge without resorting to gore and predictable jump scares then this is it. The performances of the four leads are what creates the tension and John Hough directs his players and atmosphere very well aided by an uncanny score from electronica pioneer Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson.

The premise is grand and simple with wealthy old man Rudolph Deutsch (the great Roland Culver) calling scientist Dr. Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill) to his fabulous country house (take a bow Blenheim Palace) to task him with proving the existence or otherwise of an afterlife. Barrett is a sceptic of course but this is why he gets the big bucks, to put the Deutch’s mind at rest either way, by staying a week at the incredibly haunted Belasco “Hell” House. Emeric Belasco was a reputed sadist and free-range pervert who is believed to have committed multiple murders after one excessively sordid orgy of evil. Any relation to the Great Mage Alistair Crowley and Boleskine House, the Scottish mansion where he attempted to summon the 12 Kings and Dukes of Hell, is purely co-incidental.

Pamela Franklin

The House’s horrific reputation is well earned with a previous scientific survey resulting in disaster with multiple fatalities and only one survivor Benjamin Franklin Fischer (Roddy McDowall – hurrah!!) who barely kept his sanity. Fischer is a “physical” psychic around whom supernatural phenomena is expressed through smashing household objects. He is joined by Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin) whose gift is more cerebral and allows her to commune with the spirits of "surviving personalities" which to Dr Barrett are nothing more than residual electromagnetic energies. He ain’t afraid of no ghosts.

Now, if all this sounds unpromising you have to have the cast who can not only say all of this with a straight face but also truly believe it and this is where the film utterly delivers… The three aforementioned, together with Gayle Hunnicutt as Barrett’s wife Ann, respect the story which is the only way to truly frighten an audience about supernatural possibilities by simply acting natural. Well, that and things going bump in the night but Hough’s touch is rather more delicate than many directing for Hammer, Amicus or Tigon at this time.

 

Clive Revill

From the opening quote from one Tom Corbett – an actual clairvoyant who probably did consult at least one royal family - onwards, the film adopts a “scientific” approach to the subject and with a course of events mapped out over individual days much like experiments that have taken place in these “haunted” locations. It’s very forensic approach to the narrative, allowing the building of an evidence-base for the unsettling events that unfold.

The four assemble at the house on Monday 20^th December, ghosts clearly love Christmas, with the Barretts driven over in Deutsch’s Daimler with his assistant (Peter Bowles) whilst Benjamin grimly walks from a train station and Florence floats past a church at a Dutch angle… Hough films his characters close up and often from below all of which creates an atmosphere of claustrophobic dread. As they approach the house there’s a wide angled shot before a close-up of Florence looking up the forbidding granite grey as the others, still in focus, approach the door. We’re already in the minds of these characters and Pamela Franklin is the ace in the pack, expressing intense sensitivity and innocence – her Florence is wide open to the possibilities ahead and if they are malevolent we know she will be hit hard.

Roddy McDowall

After dinner at 8.46pm, Florence begins to sense something and later in her room she not only feels the same presence who she believes is the son of Belasco, but her bed clothes are inexplicably rolled back. The next day Professor Barrett duly wires her up in an attempt to measure the energies causing these phenomena. It’s an impressive sequence that has the audience grasping at the possibility that we are still in the rational world. Hough’s camera is fixed on Franklin and, indeed on the legs she reveals wearing a leotard – the male gaze or a hint at the reasons she is the first to be “contacted”. Ectoplasm shoots from her fingers and even as the Professor notes this into his recording of the events we know things will get out of hand.

Later on, glasses are smashed as they eat dinner and during the night Ann comes under some kind of demonic sexual possession during which she attempts to seduce Benjamin. Her husband’s natural response is to bring in bigger machines in an attempt to drain the unnatural energies and cleans the building… but as the psychic assaults get fiercer will science win out or will they find the depth of the hell in the house?

Gayle Hunnicutt

Dusty verdict: As Roger Ebert said in his positive review at the time, this is far from the usual haunted house story and it allows for its characters to gradually get the measure of their situation as it, day-by-day, begins to reveal itself to them. Everything is explained but only in ways that leave the possibility of a rational scientific escape route… maybe.

The script was by Richard Matheson, adapted from his original book but with more graphic sexual scenes left mostly to our imagination – apart from one gratuitous scene with Ms Franklin. The score from Derbyshire and Hodgson combines electronica with some traditional instrumentation and is sadly not available separately although the film is on Blu-ray now.

Talking of music, I finally got to place the quote from Orbital's I Don't Know You People - from the Middle of Nowhere album – when a spirit possessing Florence calls out about their intrusion. Clearly a generation and more have been struck by the film and its influence is still felt… in fact, I’ve just felt a chill down my spine. Wait, what is that?!

Looks harmless enough...

 

Double trouble… Twins of Evil (1971)

I’m prepared to admit that you can’t watch Twins of Evil too many times… Kim Newman

 

I find Hammer films slightly confusing and difficult to critique if I’m honest as the genre sometimes obscures the skill involved in making them. In terms of a “Hammer Canon”, there seems a divergence of opinion online as to which titles are the “best”, top tens almost never seem to overlap and yet… gradually you start to make sense of it, solid wooden stakes being visible through bloodied trees and genuinely vibrant storytelling matching the invariably excellent performers and sometimes patchy scripts.

So it is with Twins of Darkness that, having not seen it since the late 70s, always struck me as a gimmick, the two sexy stars being used to pruriently sell another twist of the formula, two for the price of one in terms of vamps set against a gothic background built on flimsy chipboard by a production company famed for putting its poster art at the heart of the sell… never mind the script if we can get the backing for another lucrative addition to a bottom line so tight, you can't see the join.

Maria and Madeline or is it Frieda and Mary??

 

But by this stage of the game, Hammer was having to change its winning formula, introducing not just more sexuality but also new, younger directors such as John Hough who had learned is craft working on cutting edge TV action-drama series The Avengers, and who had something new to say on the big screen. The company had also involved new production teams including Harry Fine and Michael Style, who had previously worked on the cheese-core classic The Vampire Lovers and the less lauded, Lust for a Vampire the first two parts of the so-called Karnstein Trilogy of which Twins was the final part – although both Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter (1974) and – more loosely - Vampire Circus (1972) are linked to Hammer’s interpretation of Sheridan Le Fanu’s saucy 1872 novella Carmilla. Incidentally, both are fine films and in my personal Hammer Top Ten (this week).

The script was from Tudor Gates who also wrote for Lovers and Lust and is an interesting attempt to merge the expected vampiric tale with a moral debate about the merely bad and the truly evil. None of this would work quite so well without the huge presence of Peter Cushing as Gustav Weil, head of the local Christian Brotherhood who are committed to cleansing evil through means of burning at the stake. Cushing was recently widowed and threw himself into his work to help distract from grief.

Judy Matheson: "Ready for my warm-up Mr deMille!"

I saw Judy Matheson (now Jarvis) discussing her genuinely iconic cameo in this film as the first of the suspected witches to be burned, and she tells of how professional and considerate Cushing was, making sure that she was well treated and comfortable in one of her earliest film roles. On screen, of course, there is no mercy, and Judy is dragged from her home and set alight by the Brotherhood before the credits even roll… a breath-taking start that signals the film’s intent: there is evil about but that within the hearts of these “good men” is no better or worse than that of the vampires up in the castle.

Cushing is drawn and so pained it’s hard to know where his performance ends and his bereavement begins but there’s no doubt his presence and force of character. He takes a thoroughly conflicted character and adds unexpected humanity to a “witchfinder” utterly convinced he is doing the right thing until fate suggests otherwise. Alongside him is the magnificent Kathleen Byron as his wife Katy, an actor of equal skill and experience who makes the most of her role and must have been a real comfort for Cushing. Byron had a huge career from a clutch of Powell and Pressburger classics –Small Back Room as well as the classic Black Narcissus – through to The Elephant Man and Saving Private Ryan.

Kathleen Byron, absolute legend!

In Twins, the characters are close in blood and proximity with fast-moving narrative entanglement as Weil’s twin nieces, Maria and Frieda arriving from Venice to set a stir the village and arouse the most unwanted of attention. The girls are played by the Collinson twins, Maria as Mary and Madeline as Frieda, having being talent spotted posing in Playboy by producer Harry. They’re almost identical but Maria/Mary is slightly prettier and more dutiful whilst Madeline/Frieda is earthier and most interested in exploring moral boundaries…

The girls immediately cause a stir with their low-cut city style and this extends far beyond the village. Up on the hill sits Castle Karnstein where the Count (Damien Thomas), descended from Countess Mircalla Karnstein, is bored to tears. The Count’s retainer, Dietrich (Dennis Price) tries to entertain him with dark theatre, hiring men and a local girl to enact a satanic ceremony, but the Count wants only the real thing and, having got rid of them all promptly despatches the young woman invoking the dark lord. This sacrilege succeeds in waking the dormant Countess who is played by Katya Wyeth with Ingrid Pitt refusing yet again to return in the role. One thing leads to another and Great-Great-Grandma turns the Count into a vampire.

Lovely Luan Peters and Damien Thomas share a joke

The Count has been amusing himself with local girl Gerta (the late, great Luan Peters) but connecting with Frieda, he finds someone eager to explore the dark side. Frieda has already attracted the attention of local schoolmaster Anton (David Warbeck) who, along with sister Ingrid (Isobel Black) have an all-girl class packed full of lovelies… there women in Twins are virginal and sexually inquiring to various degrees whilst so many of the Brotherhood are so repressed, they take strange delight in burning the thing they love.

Sexual politics aside this becomes a three-way battle for the soul of the Twins as Frieda’s night-time sorties to the castle and Count increase and she confronts her uncle and his Brotherhood, trying to frame her sister for her misdeeds. Can Anton or anyone, tell them apart?

Madeline and Maria... probably

Dusty verdict: There’s a lot packed into Twins of Evil but much to enjoy. Part of the problem with Hammer and other genre films is the predictability of much of the action – it’s usually just a question of when and how many characters get killed before the, mostly, inevitable conclusion. Hough wisely focuses on the supernatural elements and builds a consistently tense atmosphere throughout. 

He also makes the most of his cast who, the Collinsons apart, are able to extract every ounce of potential depth from Gates’ script. The Twins are OK and react well but they’re not pros and it shows, compare Judy Matheson and Luan Peters’ moments with theirs’, both are able to bring full commitment and emotional response whereas the Playmates need great editing to fit with the mood. Judy’s so good in fact, she gets burned twice, her pre-credit sequence being re-used to show another brunette paying the price for “living alone in the woods” and other clearly unholy activities.

Witch hunting never changes, does it?

Twins of Evil is now available on Network Blu-ray at very reasonable rates. There’s also an import Blu-ray which comes with the excellent documentary The Flesh and the Fury: X-posing Twins of Evil: Directed by Daniel Griffith which features some informed interviews and presents the history of Hammer to the point of the film. These include the rather jolly Damien Thomas in a Soho pub, along with horror writer Kim Newman, who’s quote at the top says all you need to know about this film! It has to be on anyone’s list as one of the most enjoyable from this period.

 

Judy's two burnings, the second - featuring higher flames - standing in for another poor wench